Necessity of the Catholic Church by Rev. Dr. H. Klee

The character of necessity is here given to the Church, in the sense, that entrance into the Church is not merely a thing that may be, and which is left to the subjective option of individuals, but as it is a necessary act of obedience, which is required of every one, to whom the knowledge of it may have arrived.

When Christ imposed on His Apostles the commission of making all men His disciples by teaching and by Baptism (Matt. 28), He correlatively imposed upon all men the obligation of becoming His disciples. He expressly declared, that they, who did not hear His Apostles did not hear Him (Matt. 10); that he, who did not believe, should be condemned (Mark 16:16); that he, who was not born again, could not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven (John 3); that he, who did not eat His flesh, should not have life in him (John 6).

This necessity is represented also by the similitude of the one fold of Christ (John 10), wherein there are repose and abundance of food, and into which all sheep were to be collected, that there might be but one fold and one shepherd; also in the Parable of the Feast, to which those, who refuse to come, incur the anger of the King, and again in the similitude of the vine-stock, the separated branches of which are doomed to be cast into the fire (John 15). This necessity of the Church is evident also from the labours of the Apostles, by which they endeavoured to bring all nations within the Church, and to preserve all the members of the Church in unity; from the designation of the Church as the Body of Christ, as the Glory (Eph. 3) and plenitude (Eph. 1) of God; as the Mother of all true children and heirs; from its declaration of the necessity of salvation and by its constant exhortation to obedience and faith (Rom. 6).

The Church is the means and organ, instituted by the Author of Christianity for the preservation and propagation of Christianity. The world is out of the Church, and as it is necessary not to be of this world, so it is necessary to be of the Church.

The Apostles, in their writings, declare the Church to be the means, the only means of sanctification, when they designate it as the Fullness of God, the Body of Christ. They describe faith in Christ, and Baptism through Christ; consequently, entrance into the Church as the only path to sanctity. The Church has always preserved the conviction of its destiny and obligation, and of its powers necessary thereto, to lead men to true freedom, justice, and holiness; and it has, at the same time, preserved the clear knowledge of the wants of men, and of their obligation of surrendering themselves to its voice.