But the fundamental thought, that the Body of Christ is and must be an organic body, that it works by its very nature in a manifold of functions, and that this manifold is bound together by the one Spirit of Christ into an inner unity: this thought is native to St. Paul, and it is the heritage and fundamental principle of the whole Christian Gospel.

Let us now consider more nearly the organization of the Body of Christ, its unity in fullness and fullness in unity. The first point to be insisted on is this, that since the community and not the individual is the bearer of the Spirit of Jesus, and since its visibility consists especially in the manifestation of this essential unity, therefore the visible organism of the Church postulates for its visibility a real principle of unity in which the supra-personal unity of all the faithful obtains perceptible expression and which supports, maintains and protects this unity. The pope as the Rock of the Church is the visible expression and the abiding guarantee of this unity. So, if we regard the matter thus, it becomes plain that the original nature of the Church, her fundamental determination as a unitary organism, achieves its purest expression in the papacy. In the papacy the community strives after and achieves the fullest consciousness of its essential and necessary unity. In the papacy it grasps and realizes itself as the one Kingdom of God, as the one Body of Christ on the earth. And so the Catholic never regards the pope as separated from this unity, as an independent factor, as a charismatical personality, as a personality possessed of supernatural powers like a Moses or an Elias. The pope, as the visible head, is to him the plain embodiment of the unity of the Church, that real principle whereby redemption-needing mankind achieves its form as complete and perfect unity. In the pope his unity with his brethren becomes visible to the Catholic. His view broadens and his eye passes beyond all the limitations of personalities, beyond all bounds of nations and civilizations, beyond all seas and deserts. And the whole massive Christendom, with all the organic interrelation of its parts, its great and sacred communion of love, becomes manifest for him in the pope, and stands out before him as a sublime and glorious reality. Therefore no misuse of papal authority and no human failings in the wearers of the tiara can rob him of his veneration and his love for the papacy. When he kisses the pope’s hand he kisses all his brethren, who are joined together into one in the person of the pope. His heart broadens out into the heart of all Christendom, of the unity in fullness.