four marks of the church

quote:

These four terms (“one,” “holy,” “catholic,” and “apostolic”) are the four marks of the Church. They are the very means by which we discover or ‘pick out’ the Church in the world, because among all the institutions of the world, only the Church Christ founded possesses all four marks. Even atheists can believe that the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” exists, just as atheists can believe that Jesus “suffered, died, and was buried.” What requires faith, for believing this line of the Creed concerning the Church, is what follows from its place in the Creed, in relation to everything preceding that line, and everything following that line. That is, the Church is not a merely human institution, but a divine institution established by the Son of God, animated by the Holy Spirit, and in which and through we receive His Holy Spirit, the forgiveness of sins, and participate in Christ’s work of redemption that culminates in His glorious return and the resurrection of our bodies. That’s the aspect of the ecclesial line in the Creed that requires grace to believe, not the existence of the visible catholic Church, but the divine ‘dimension’ of the Church that is invisible to the natural man, just as Christ’s divinity while on earth was invisible to the natural man, and so only by the Father’s revelation could St. Peter declare that Jesus is the “Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mt. 16:16)

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/09/why-protestantism-has-no-visible-catholic-church/
   from comment 133

also from comment 156---a quote from an encyclical?: from this http://www.readability.com/articles/vjpsml6x  or  http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFUNICI.HTM part 4 of

DECLARATION "DOMINUS IESUS":ON THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

The Lord Jesus, the only Saviour, did not only establish a simple community of disciples, but constituted the Church as a salvific mystery: he himself is in the Church and the Church is in him … the Church can neither be confused nor separated, and constitute a single “whole Christ”. … Just as there is one Christ, so there exists a single body of Christ, a single Bride of Christ: “a single Catholic and apostolic Church”. Furthermore, the promises of the Lord that he would not abandon his Church (cf. Mt 16:18; 28:20) and that he would guide her by his Spirit (cf. Jn 16:13) mean, according to Catholic faith, that the unicity and the unity of the Church — like everything that belongs to the Church’s integrity — will never be lacking.

The Catholic faithful are required to profess that there is an historical continuity — rooted in the apostolic succession — between the Church founded by Christ and the Catholic Church: “This is the single Church of Christ… which our Saviour, after his resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care (cf. Jn 21:17), commissioning him and the other Apostles to extend and rule her (cf. Mt 28:18ff.), erected for all ages as ‘the pillar and mainstay of the truth’ (1 Tim 3:15). This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in [subsistit in] the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him”.

… the ecclesial communities which have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church. Baptism in fact tends per se toward the full development of life in Christ, through the integral profession of faith, the Eucharist, and full communion in the Church.

“The Christian faithful are therefore not permitted to imagine that the Church of Christ is nothing more than a collection — divided, yet in some way one — of Churches and ecclesial communities; nor are they free to hold that today the Church of Christ nowhere really exists, and must be considered only as a goal which all Churches and ecclesial communities must strive to reach”. ….The lack of unity among Christians is certainly a wound for the Church; not in the sense that she is deprived of her unity, but “in that it hinders the complete fulfilment of her universality in history”.

DECLARATION “DOMINUS IESUS” ON THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html

Dominus Iesus also touches on your question about the possibility of salvation for those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church:

The Church is the “universal sacrament of salvation”, since, united always in a mysterious way to the Saviour Jesus Christ, her Head, and subordinated to him, she has, in God’s plan, an indispensable relationship with the salvation of every human being. For those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, “salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit”; it has a relationship with the Church, which “according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit”.

With respect to the way in which the salvific grace of God — which is always given by means of Christ in the Spirit and has a mysterious relationship to the Church — comes to individual non-Christians, the Second Vatican Council limited itself to the statement that God bestows it “in ways known to himself”. Theologians are seeking to understand this question more fully.

Why a "Roman" church??? How prophesy in Daniel fulfilled

from comment 106 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

 Yes, Jesus was never in Rome, but He did not need to go to Rome to found the universal Church and give the keys of His Kingdom to St. Peter. St. Peter did go to Rome sometime around AD 43, and was martyred there around AD 68, being crucified — though upside down, because he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as our Lord. The Church is the Kingdom prophesied in Daniel 2 and 7, as I pointed out in comment #428 of the “Christ Founded a Visible Church” thread, and thus receives the dominion of all the kingdoms, including the fourth kingdom of Daniel’s prophecies. It is not an accident that the one who had received the keys from Jesus went to Rome, to take the fourth kingdom not with the sword, but by testifying before Caesar, and not loving his life even unto death (Rev. 12:11). Christ’s Kingdom was to be *catholic,* not merely Hebrew, and so it was to be centered in Rome, built right over the heart of the fourth kingdom of men.

see also this online book on the Catholic Church beliefs :  http://www.ewtn.com/library/CHRIST/BELIEF.txt

from  comment 40 here http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/05/pope-francis-atheists-and-the-evangelical-spirit/  Dr Cross

But how does he [i.e. Mathison] determine what is the Church? Being Reformed, he defines ‘Church’ as wherever the gospel is found, because the early Protestants defined the marks of the Church as including “the gospel,” where the gospel was determined by their own private interpretation of Scripture. So he claims that it is in the Church that the gospel is found, but he defines the Church in terms of the gospel. This is what we call a tautology. It is a form of circular reasoning that allows anyone to claim to be the Church and have the gospel. One can read the Bible and formulate one’s own understanding of the gospel, then make this “gospel” a necessary mark of the Church, and then say that it is in the Church that the gospel is found. Because one has defined the Church in terms of the gospel [as arrived at by one's own interpretation of Scripture], telling us that the gospel is found “in the Church” tells us nothing other than “people who share my own interpretation of Scripture about what is the gospel are referred to by me as ‘the Church.’” This kind of circular reasoning allows falsehood to remain hidden.

from father angel below"http://fatherangel.tumblr.com/

This is what Catholicism means to me: it is a spiritual force, a power, from the Father of lights, through Jesus His Son, to mediate to many people the riches and treasures of Atonement, Forgiveness, Responsibility, Accountability, Justice, Love, Peace, Kindness, and Joy for the sake of building up a community of communion, togetherness, mutual concern, and ongoing conversion and repentance for the sake of helping each other be holy, become saints, and make it to heaven.