THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL AND UNITY

35. Venerable Brethren, the time is drawing near for the Second General Council of the Vatican. Surrounding the Roman Pontiff and in close communion with him, you, the Bishops, will present to the world a wonderful spectacle of Catholic unity. Meanwhile We, for Our part, will seek to give instruction and comfort by briefly recalling to mind St. Leo's high ideals regarding the Church's unity. Our intention in so doing is indeed to honor the memory of a most wise Pope, but at the same time to give the faithful profitable food for thought on the eve of this great event.

Church Unity in the Thought of Leo

36. First, St. Leo teaches that the Church must be one because Jesus Christ, her Bridegroom, is one. "For the Church is that virgin, the spouse of one husband, Christ, who does not allow herself to be corrupted by any error. Thus throughout the whole world we are to have one entire and pure communion."²⁶

37. In St. Leo's view, this remarkable unity of the Church has its well-spring in the birth of God's Incarnate Word. "For Christ's birth is the source of life for Christian people; the birthday of the Head is the birthday of the Body. Although every individual is called in his own turn, and all the Church's sons are separated from one another by intervals of time, yet the entire body of the faithful, born in the baptismal font, is born with Christ in His nativity, just as all are crucified with Him in His passion, raised again in His resurrection, and set at the Father's right hand in His ascension."²⁷

38. It was Mary who participated most intimately in this secret birth "of the body, the Church,"²⁸ because the Holy Spirit gave fruitfulness to her virginity. St. Leo praises Mary as "the Lord's virgin, handmaid and mother,"²⁹ "she who gave God birth" [Dei genitrix],³⁰ sea virgin for ever."³¹

39. Furthermore, the sacrament of Baptism-as St. Leo rightly claims-makes those who are washed in the sacred font not only members of Christ, but also sharers in His kingship and His priesthood. "All those who are reborn in Christ, the sign of the cross makes kings; the Holy Spirit's anointing consecrates them priests."³² Confirmation, called by St. Leo "sanctification by chrism,"³³ strengthens their assimilation to Jesus Christ, the Head of His body, the Church, and the sacrament of the Eucharist perfects this union. "For," as St. Leo says, "the reception of Christ's Body and Blood does nothing less than transform us into that which we consume, and henceforth we bear in soul and body Him in whose fellowship we died, were buried, and are risen again."³⁴

40. But mark this well: unless the faithful remain bound together by the same ties of virtue, worship and sacrament, and all hold fast to the same belief, they cannot be perfectly united with the Divine Redeemer, the universal Head, so as to form with Him one visible and living body. "A whole faith," says St. Leo, "a true faith, is a mighty bulwark. No one can add anything to it, no one can take anything away from it; for unless it is one, it is no faith at all."³⁵

41. To preserve this unity of faith, all teachers of divine truths-all bishops, that is-must necessarily speak with one mind and one voice, in communion with the Roman Pontiff. "It is the union of members in the body as a whole which makes all alike healthy, all alike beautiful, and this union of the whole body requires unanimity. It calls especially for harmony among the priests. They have a common dignity, yet they have not uniform rank, for there was a distinction of power even among the blessed apostles, notwithstanding the similarity of their honorable state, and while the election of them all was equal, yet it was given to one to take the lead over the rest."³⁶

The Bishop of Rome, Center of Visible Unity

42. St. Leo, therefore, maintained that the Bishop of Rome, as Peter's successor and Christ's Vicar on earth, is the focal center of the entire visible unity of the Catholic Church. And St. Leo's opinion is clearly supported by the evidence of the Gospels and by ancient Catholic tradition, as these words show: "Out of the whole world one man is chosen, Peter. He is set before all the elect of every nation, before all the apostles and all the Fathers of the Church; so that although there are among God's people many priests and many pastors, Peter governs by personal commission all whom Christ rules by His supreme authority. Great and wonderful, beloved, is the share in its own power which the Divine Condescension assigned to this man. And if it desired other princes to share anything in common with him, never except through him did it accord what it did not deny to others."³⁷

43. And since St. Leo regarded this indissoluble bond between Peter's divinely-given authority and that of the other apostles as fundamental to Catholic unity, he was never tired of insisting that "this authority [to bind and to loose] was also passed on to the other apostles, and what was established by this decree found its way to all the princes of the Church. But there was good reason for committing what was intended for all to the care of one in particular. And so it was entrusted to Peter individually because the figure of Peter was to be put ahead of all those in charge of the Church."³⁸

The Magisterial Prerogative of St. Peter and His Successors

44. There is, moreover, another essential safeguard of the Church's visible unity which did not escape that notice of this saintly Pope: that supreme authority to teach infallibly, which Christ gave personally to Peter, the prince of the apostles, and to his successors. Leo's words are quite unequivocal: "The Lord takes special care of Peter; He prays especially for Peter's faith, for the state of the rest will be more secure if the mind of their chief be not overthrown. Hence the strength of all the rest is made stronger in Peter, and the assistance of divine grace is so ordained that the stability which through Christ is given to Peter, should through Peter be transmitted to the other apostles."³⁹

45. Applied to St. Peter this pronouncement is clear and emphatic enough; yet unhesitatingly St. Leo claims the same prerogative for himself. Not that he wanted worldly honor, but he had no doubt whatever that he was just as much Christ's vicar as was the Prince of the Apostles. Consider, for example, this passage from his Sermons:-

46. "Mindful, then of Our God-given responsibility, We find no reason for pride in solemnly celebrating the anniversary of Our priesthood, for we acknowledge with all sincerity and truth that it is Christ who does the work of Our ministry in all that We do rightly. We do not glory in Ourselves, for without Him We can do nothing. We glory in Him who is all Our power."⁴⁰

47. By that he did not mean that St. Peter had no further influence on the government of Christ's Church. While he trusted in the continued activity of the Church's Divine Founder, he trusted too in the protection of the Apostle Peter whose heir and successor he claimed to be, and whose office of authority "he in his turn discharged."⁴¹ He attributed the success of his universal ministry more to the merits of the Apostle than to his own industry. Many passages from his writings might be quoted in support of this statement. We chose the following:-

48. "And so if anything is rightly done and rightly decreed by Us, if anything is won from the mercy of God by Our daily supplications, it is due to his [Peter's] works and merits, whose power lives and whose authority prevails in his See."⁴²

49. Nor must we think that St. Leo was preaching a doctrine that had never before been taught. For, that his supreme office as universal pastor came from Christ Himself was also the teaching of his predecessors St. Innocent⁴³ and St. Boniface I,⁴⁴ and was in full accord with those passages of the Gospels which he so often expounded (Matt. 16:17-18; Luke 22::31-32: John 21:15-17). He frequently referred to "the care which, principally by divine mandate, We must have for all the churches."⁴⁵

The Spiritual Greatness of Rome

50. Small wonder then that St. Leo habitually combines the praises of Rome with those of the Prince of the Apostles. He begins one of his Sermons on the Apostles Peter and Paul by apostrophizing the City in these words:-

51. "It was through these men, O Rome, that the light of Christ's gospel shone upon you. . . It was they who promoted you to such glory, making you a holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal state, the capital of the world through Peter's holy See. By the worship of God you gained a wider empire than you did by earthly government. For although your boundaries were extended by your many victories and you stretched your rule over land and ocean, yet your labors in war gained you less subjects than have been won for you by the peace of Christ."⁴⁶

52. Recalling St. Paul's magnificent testimony to the faith of the first Christians in Rome, this great Pope bids the Romans preserve the faith whole and entire and without flaw. These are the words of fatherly encouragement he uses:-

53. "You, therefore, beloved of God and honored by apostolic approval-for it is to you that the teacher of the Gentiles, the blessed Apostle Paul, says: 'Your faith is spoken of in the whole world' (Rom. 1:8)-preserve in yourselves that which you know to have been the cause of this great preacher's good opinion of you. Let not a man of you make himself undeserving of this praise, or allow so much as a taint of Eutyches' impious doctrine to infect a people that has remained for so long untouched by heresy, taught by the Holy Spirit."⁴⁷

The Vast Influence of St. Leo's Work

54. St. Leo's heroic efforts to safeguard the authority of the Church of Rome were not in vain. It was principally due to his personal prestige that "the citadel of the apostolic rock" was extolled and venerated not only by the Western bishops who took part in the councils held at Rome, but by more than five hundred Eastern bishops assembled at Chalcedon,⁴⁸ and even by the Byzantine emperors.⁴⁹

55. We might also quote that magnificent tribute paid by Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, to the Roman Bishop and his privileged flock. Writing in 449, before the famous Council of Chalcedon, Theodoret says:-

56. "It is fitting that you should in all things have the pre-eminence, in view of the many peculiar privileges possessed by your See. Other cities are distinguished for their size or beauty or population . . . but your city has the greatest abundance of good things from the Giver of all good. k is of all cities the greatest and most famous, the mistress of the world and teeming with population. . . It has, too, the tombs of our common fathers and teachers of the Truth, Peter and Paul, to illumine the souls of the faithful. These two saintly men did indeed have their rising in the East, but they shed their light in all directions, and voluntarily underwent the sunset of life in the West, from whence now they illumine the whole world. It is they who have made your See so glorious. This is the foremost of all your goods. Their See is still blessed by the light of God's presence, for He has placed Your Holiness in it to shed abroad the rays of the one true Faith."⁵⁰

57. Nor did these great honors paid to Leo by the official representatives of the Eastern Churches terminate with his death. The Byzantine liturgy keeps the 18th of February as his feast day, and most truly proclaims him as "leader of orthodoxy, teacher renowned for his holiness and majesty, star of the world, glory and light of Christians, Iyre of the Holy Spirit."⁵¹

58. The Gelasian Menology reechoes these praises: "As bishop of great Rome, this father of ours, Leo, whom we admire for his self-mastery and purity and his many other virtues, gained by these virtues many notable achievements, but his most brilliant achievements are those which concern the true Faith."⁵²