Catholic World News News Feature

St. Paul understood that Church belongs to God, Pope tells audience October 15, 2008

At his weekly public audience on October 16, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about St. Paul's insistence that the Church is God's creation, not a man-made institution.

"Paul knows and makes us understand that the Church is neither his nor ours," the Holy Father said. "It is the Body of Christ, the 'Church of God, God's fiel', God's building."

The term "Church" first appears in the Letter to the Thessalonians, the Pope pointed out to the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square. St. Paul consistently refers to "the Church of God," underlining the divine mandate.

St. Paul is also consistent in speaking of the Church as a single body, the Pope continued. Although his epistles may refer to the Church in Corinth or in Galatia, the Apostle makes it clear that the universal Church "is not an association of local churches, but that these are the realization of the one Church of God," Pope Benedict observed.

In all his writings, St. Paul pursues his evangelical work, "to establish a community of believers in Christ," the Pontiff continued. This community, again, is not something merely human, but a response to a divine initiative. The epistles show that "believers are called by God, Who unites them in a community, his Church."

In the Old Testament, a reference to the "People of God" meant the community of Israel, the Pope said. But under the new covenant all the peoples of the pagan world "become the People of God thanks to their unification with Christ through the Word and the sacraments."

St. Paul "helps us to an ever deeper understanding of the mystery of the Church in its different dimensions as assembly of God in the world," the Pope said as he concluded his Wednesday audience. "This is the greatness of the Church and the greatness of our call."