The Credibility of the Church and the Category of Sanctity

Abstract

In the face of scandals filling newspaper columns and Internet portals, theology is called to reflect more deeply on the relationship between holiness and sinfulness in the Church and how this relationship affects the credibility of the Church and her mission in today’s world. In this respect it seems justified to assert that the phenomenon of sanctity represents the »theological locus« wherein one is to bear witness to and assert the truth and credibility of the Catholic Church. Sanctity as such is a superlative apology for the existence of the Church and its testimony to the credibility of God’s love in Jesus Christ. In the first section, titled »In Search of Lost Credibility,« we endeavour to analyse the growing credibility crisis in the Church in today’s society which was brought about by various factors. Then we proceed to demonstrate how the credibility crisis affects evangelization and the mediation of the faith to future generations. Also, it calls the Church herself to reevangelization and conversion. In the second section of the article, titled »Only Sanctity is Credible,« we wish to establish how the credibility of the Church depends upon her sacramentality, that is, the ability to be to people a sign and tool of salvation. In this context the category of sanctity is not merely a structural and ontological dimension of the Church’s being, but has a historical scope. By living holiness, the Church bespeaks her mode of being the sign–sacrament of a new man. The Church’s original sanctity bears within itself a prophetic dimension and calls for the conversion of ecclesial structures, not only of individuals.