The Church has human and divine dimensions, Pope says in audience on Vatican II

March 05, 2026

Continuing his series of Wednesday general audiences on the Second Vatican Council and its documents, Pope Leo XIV devoted his March 4 audience to the Church as a visible and spiritual reality.

The audience (video), which took place in St. Peter’s Square, was the eighth in the series and the second devoted to Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964).

When Lumen Gentium described the Church as a “complex reality,” it meant “complex” in the Latin sense of the word: an “orderly union of different aspects or dimensions within the same reality,” Pope Leo said.

“The first dimension is immediately perceptible, in that the Church is a community of men and women who share the joy and struggle of being Christians, with their strengths and weaknesses, proclaiming the Gospel and becoming a sign of the presence of Christ who accompanies us on our journey through life,” Pope Leo continued. The Church also has a divine dimension, which “does not consist in an ideal perfection or spiritual superiority of its members, but in the fact that the Church is generated by God’s plan for humanity, realized in Christ.”

“Therefore, the Church is at the same time an earthly community and the mystical body of Christ, a visible assembly and a spiritual mystery, a reality present in history and a people journeying towards heaven,” the Pope said. “The human and divine dimensions integrate harmoniously, without one overshadowing the other; thus, the Church lives in this paradox.”

Pope Leo explained:

When we look at her [the Church] closely, we discover a human dimension made up of real people, who sometimes manifest the beauty of the Gospel and other times struggle and make mistakes like everyone else. However, it is precisely through her members and her limited earthly aspects that Christ’s presence and his saving action are manifested. As Benedict XVI said, there is no opposition between the Gospel and the institution; on the contrary, the structures of the Church serve precisely for the “realization and concretization of the Gospel in our time.” An ideal and pure Church, separated from the earth, does not exist; only the one Church of Christ, embodied in history.

The Pontiff concluded with a call to charity.

God “makes himself visible through the weakness of creatures, continuing to manifest himself and to act,” the Pope said, adding:

This enables us still today to build up the Church: not only by organizing its visible forms, but by building that spiritual edifice which is the body of Christ, through communion and charity among ourselves. Indeed, charity constantly generates the presence of the Risen One. “If only we could all just let our thoughts dwell on the one thing, charity! It’s the only thing, you see, which both surpasses all things, and without which all things worth nothing, and which draws all things to itself, wherever it may be” (St. Augustine, Sermon 354, 6, 6).

---

Audiences in series “Vatican Council II through its Documents”

• Introductory catechesis (1/7/26)

On Dei Verbum, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (1965):

• God speaks to men as to friends (1/14/26)
• Jesus Christ reveals the Father (1/21/26)
• A single sacred deposit: The relationship between Scripture and Tradition (1/28/26)
• The Sacred Scripture: the Word of God in human words (2/4/26)
• The Word of God in the life of the Church (2/11/26)

On Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (1964)

• The mystery of the Church, sacrament of the union with God, and the unity of all humanity (2/18/26)
• No audience on 2/25 (Pope, Roman Curia on retreat)
• The Church, a Visible and Spiritual Reality (3/4/26)

 

---

For all current news, visit our News home page.

---

 
Further information:

• General Audience (Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Media, 3/4/26)