Solidarity

Extract

Christ died wholly for me. Christ died wholly for all men. Christ did not die only for me. Christ did not die only for the totality of men. For each and for all, not for a group or a part. This is the way we are made to stand up together, each person aGod’s purchase and all united in Christ: firstly, as it is seen, by His death, by the price that He paid for us. In the price that has been paid for my soul I am equal to the entire human race. In the matter of redemption you don't count one, two, three; you count Jesus Christ.

Hence the Church is Catholic, universal, when its members are contained in one room in Jerusalem, and the historic Church is Catholic even when it is impossible to say in how many souls faith is sincere or one spark of charity bums. We know but cannot understand the identity of Christ with His Church. But it is Christ who is the unity of the Church, its integrity and its comprehensiveness.