1 For appreciation of the ‘Mystical Body’, see Yves Congar OP, ‘Lumen Gentium no. 7, L'Eglise, Corps mystique du Christ, vu a terme de huit siècles d'histoire de la théologie du Corps mystique’, in Au service de la parole de Dieu. Mélanges offerts à Mgr. A.-M. Charue (1969), pp. 179-202. For distinctions made between ‘People of God’ and ‘Mystical Body’ in the immediate postconciliar period, see Dulles, Avery SJ, Models of the Church, expanded edition (New York: Doubleday, 1987), pp. 52-62Google Scholar. For his mature reflections on these matters, see Dulles, Avery SJ, ‘Nature, Mission, and Structure of the Church’, in Lamb, Matthew and Levering, Matthew, eds., Vatican II: Renewal within Tradition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 25-36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 McCullough, Ross, Freedom and Sin: Evil in a World Created by God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022), p. 186.Google Scholar

3 McCullough, Freedom and Sin, p. 197.

4 McCullough, Freedom and Sin, p. 198. McCullough goes on to draw consequences for theodicy.

5 Radner, Ephraim, A Brutal Unity: The Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2012), pp. 162-63.Google Scholar

6 Küng, Hans, The Church, trans. , Ray and Ockenden, Rosaleen (London: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 226.Google Scholar

7 Küng, The Church, p. 229. In a Barthian vein, Küng goes on to underscore sharply the distinction between Head and members, arguing that the Church must never put itself (or its magisterial authority) in the place of Christ. He considers that the Church's great temptation is to claim to control God's word rather than to be judged by it. In his view, as in the view of many Protestant theologians, when the Church presents itself as an ongoing Incarnation (as the Body of Christ), it fails to understand its radically subordinate and dependent status.

8 Mersch, Emile SJ, The Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in Scripture and Tradition, trans. Kelly, John R. SJ (Milwaukee, WI: Bruce, 1938), p. 451.Google Scholar

9 Mersch, The Whole Christ, p. 451.

10 Mersch, The Whole Christ, p. 455.

11 Mersch, The Whole Christ, p. 465.

12 Mersch, The Whole Christ, p. 470.

13 See Sheen, Fulton J., The Mystical Body of Christ (Elk Grove Village, IL: Word on Fire, 2023)Google Scholar.

14 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 19.

15 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 37.

16 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 194.

17 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 197.

18 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 212.

19 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 222.

20 Sheen, The Mystical Body of Christ, p. 229.

21 Journet, Charles, L’Église du Verbe incarné. Essai de théologie spéculative, vol. III: Sa structure interne et son unité catholique (Deuxième partie) (Saint-Maurice: Editions Saint-Augustin, 2000), p. 1437.Google Scholar

22 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1446.

23 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1447.

24 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1448.

25 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1448.

26 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1449.

27 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1449.

28 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1452.

29 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1573.

30 Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1614.

31 Indeed, Journet points out that the law of renunciation and suffering (the pattern of the Cross) is and must be ‘the supreme rule of the Christian life’ for all members of Christ's Body (Journet, L’Église du Verbe incarné, vol. III, p. 1680).

32 Parsch, Pius, We Are Christ's Body, trans. Howell, Clifford SJ (Notre Dame, IN: Fides, 1962), p. 9Google Scholar. Parsch goes on to say, ‘when the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became man he began to possess human, natural life (which was created) and also supernatural life as it exists in man, that is a created participation in the divine life. It is this which we share’ (p. 13).

33 Parsch, We Are Christ's Body, p. 39.

34 Parsch, We Are Christ's Body, p. 97.

35 Parsch, We Are Christ's Body, pp. 98-99.

36 Parsch goes on to add the Eucharist and its ‘divine food’ as a central part of the Lenten journey, but he does not mention our sacramental sharing in Christ's Cross through the Eucharist (i.e., Eucharistic sacrifice).

37 The encyclical does not minimize the Spirit's role. It states, ‘Christ our Lord wills the Church to live His own supernatural life, and by His divine power permeates His whole Body and nourishes and sustains each of the members according to the place which they occupy in the body, in the same way as the vine nourishes and makes fruitful the branches which are joined to it. If we examine closely this divine principle of life and power given by Christ, insofar as it constitutes the very source of every gift and created grace, we easily perceive that it is nothing else than the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and who is called in a special way, the “Spirit of Christ” of the “Spirit of the Son”. For it was by this Breath of grace and truth that the Son of God anointed His soul in the immaculate womb of the Blessed Virgin; this Spirit delights to dwell in the beloved soul of our Redeemer as in His most cherished shrine; this Spirit Christ merited for us on the Cross by shedding His Own Blood; this Spirit He bestowed on the Church for the remission of sins, when He breathed on the Apostles; and while Christ alone received this Spirit without measure, to the members of the Mystical Body He is imparted only according to the measure of the giving of Christ from Christ's own fulness. But after Christ's glorification on the Cross, His Spirit is communicated to the Church in an abundant outpouring, so that she, and her individual members, may become daily more and more like our Savior’ (Mystici Corporis, §§55-56).

38 Mystici Corporis, §39.

39 Mystici Corporis, §59.

40 Mystici Corporis, §57.

41 Mystici Corporis, §82.

42 Mystici Corporis, §96. With implicit reference to the Nazi slaughter of the Jewish people, whose horrific extent was becoming clear by 1943, the encyclical states: ‘It is true, unfortunately, especially today, that there are some who extol enmity, hatred and spite as if they enhanced the dignity and the worth of man. Let us, however, while we look with sorrow on the disastrous consequences of this teaching, follow our peaceful King who taught us to love not only those who are of a different nation or race, but even our enemies’ (§96).

43 Mystici Corporis, §106.

44 Mystici Corporis, §106.

45 Hamer, Jerome OP, The Church Is a Communion, trans. Matthews, Ronald (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1964), p. 73Google Scholar. See also M. D. Koster OP, Ekklesiologie im Werden (Paderborn: Bonifacius-Druckerei, 1940).

46 Reinhard Hütter observes that Aquinas regards the ensuing sacramental union of Christ with the faithful in the Eucharist—a surpassing abiding in each other—as the reality of the sacrament, the res sacramenti: ‘The reality of the sacrament is the unity of the mystical body’ [III, q. 73, a. 3]’. See Hütter, , Aquinas on Transubstantiation: The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2019), pp. 66-67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Tück, Jan-Heiner, A Gift of Presence: The Theology and Poetry of the Eucharist in Thomas Aquinas, trans. Hefelfinger, Scott (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2018), p. 156CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘the Church as corpus Christi mysticum exists on account of the participation of the faithful in the corpus Christi verum’. Tück has in view here Aquinas's quotation of John of Damascus in III, q. 73, a. 4.

47 Hamer, The Church Is a Communion, p. 82.

48 Hamer, The Church Is a Communion, p. 93.

49 Hamer, The Church Is a Communion, p. 93.

50 As Hamer notes, Jesus’ possession of these three offices is emphasized by John Calvin in his Institutes (as early as 1545) and also receives noteworthy attention in the Roman Catechism of 1566.

51 See Emery, Gilles OP, ‘Le sacerdoce spiritual des fidèles chez saint Thomas d'Aquin’, Revue Thomiste 99 (1999): pp. 211-43Google Scholar. According to Hamer—and this seems to me to place the emphasize too strongly upon action in the world as distinct from eucharistic sharing in Christ's salvific self-offering in praise of the Father—‘[a]ny human activity can be the occasion of a spiritual sacrifice, and on these grounds it can be consecrated. The whole life of the Christian is in itself sacred, not profane. Now the relationships which constitute economic, social, cultural and political life are a network of human activities. As such, through the medium of the royal priesthood of the faithful, they revert to God in the form of a sacrifice of praise’ (Hamer, The Church Is a Communion, p. 111).

52 Hamer, The Church Is a Communion, p. 162. In this period, he explains, ‘communion could be expressed as a whole in terms of faith and of sacramental life, and also in terms of institutional and juridical structures which were still in the making’ (p. 168).

53 Le Guillou, M. J. OP, Christ and Church: A Theology of the Mystery, trans. Schaldenbrand, Charles E. (New York: Desclee, 1966), p. 261.Google Scholar

54 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 262.

55 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 273.

56 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 274.

57 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 277.

58 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 278.

59 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 284.

60 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 280.

61 Le Guillou, Christ and Church, p. 297.

62 See for example Käppeli, Thomas, Zur Lehre des hl. Thomas von Aquin vom Corpus Christi mysticum (Paderborn: Bonifatius-Druckerei, 1931)Google Scholar; Anger, Joseph, La Doctrine du corps mystique de Jésus-Christ d'après les principes de la théologie de s. Thomas (Paris: Beauchesne, 1929)Google Scholar; Jürgensmeier, Friedrich, Der mystische Leib Christi als Grundprinzip der Aszetik (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1933)Google Scholar. Sabra also points out that in Kantorowicz, E. H., The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957)Google Scholar, Kantorowicz wrongly ‘attributes an important role to Thomas in the development which corpus mysticum underwent from being originally sacramental in meaning, then taking on a sociological connotation and finally becoming the purely juridical notion in Boniface VIII’ (Sabra, George, Thomas Aquinas’ Vision of the Church: Fundamentals of an Ecumenical Ecclesiology [Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1987], p. 59Google Scholar). Kantorowicz supposes that Aquinas ‘contributed greatly to the “juridicalization”’ of the Mystical Body, which—in my view and in Sabra's—is an absurd claim (Sabra, Thomas Aquinas’ Vision of the Church, p. 59).

63 For discussion of various Eucharistic ecclesiologies, see my Christ and the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial Hierarchy and the Pattern of the Trinity (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2010Google Scholar), where I briefly discuss the positions of Joseph Ratzinger, John Zizioulas, and Nicholas Afanasiev, among others. The central insights of Eucharistic ecclesiologies can be apprehended from the perspective of the Mystical Body, so long as the Cross is understood to be central (to both the Mystical Body and the Eucharist).

64 Sabra, Thomas Aquinas’ Vision of the Church, p. 64.

65 I think Sabra exaggerates when he argues, ‘The idea of society cannot be deduced from Thomas’ corpus mysticum. In this regard, A. Mitterer was right in pointing to important differences between Thomas’ corpus mysticum and Pius XII's notion of ‘Mystici corporis’ (1943). The latter starts from a sociological and corporative notion of body which includes, and insists on, visibility and juridical organization, while Thomas’ corpus does not really insist on visibility, and, for the most part, ignores the juridical aspect. Mitterer locates the reason for what he considers Thomas’ inadequate corpus mysticum conception in the fact that whereas the Encyclical proceeds from the body to the head, Thomas proceeds in the opposite direction, i.e. from the head to the body, from Christ to the church…. Thomas always considers corpus mysticum as Christ's body; he never considers the body in itself apart from the head. Thomas is more interested in the relations of the head to the members and the members to each other rather than in the notion of body as such; in this sense body is a secondary notion’ (Sabra, Thomas Aquinas’ Vision of the Church, pp. 66-67). As Sabra himself discusses, however, Aquinas's commentary on 1 Corinthians 12 pays a good deal of attention to Church offices, and Aquinas never imagines the Mystical Body on earth as lacking in juridical structure. In addition, Aquinas attends carefully to the analogy of a body, rather than simply starting with Christ. I recognize that Mystici Corporis differs from Aquinas in various respects, but I consider that both Sabra and Mitterer have not adequately marked out the differences. See Mitterer, Albert, Geheimnisvoller Leib Christi nach St Thomas von Aquin und nach Papst Pius XII (Vienna: Herold, 1950)Google Scholar. I recognize, of course, that (in Avery Dulles SJ's words) ‘Aquinas attributes the inner unity of the Church with its head and of the members with one another to the influence of the Holy Spirit’ and subordinates the visible, external elements of the Church to the interior New Law of the grace of the Holy Spirit (Dulles, , ‘The Church According to Thomas Aquinas’, in Dulles, , A Church to Believe In: Discipleship and the Dynamics of Freedom [New York: Crossroad, 1987], pp. 149-69Google Scholar, at 154-55; cf. 151 on the heavenly or consummated Church, and 157 on the conditions of membership in the Church).

66 Torrell, Jean-Pierre OP, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, trans. Royal, Robert (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2003), p. 145.Google Scholar

67 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, p. 147.

68 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, p. 148.

69 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, p. 150.

70 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, p. 189.

71 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, p. 190.

72 Torrell, Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 2: Spiritual Master, p. 194. Torrell adds, ‘Present in the Whole of the ecclesial Body and in each of its members, Charity realizes in those places a reciprocal indwelling of all those in the state of grace’ (p. 197).

73 Rikhof, Herwi, ‘Thomas on the Church: Reflections on a Sermon’, in Weinandy, Thomas G. OFM Cap., Keating, Daniel A., and Yocum, John P., eds., Aquinas on Doctrine: A Critical Introduction, ed. (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 199-223Google Scholar, at 201. For Aquinas on the Church (and the various images most frequently employed by Aquinas in discussing the Church), see also Congar, Yves OP, ‘The Idea of the Church in St Thomas Aquinas’, The Thomist 1 (1939): pp. 331-59Google Scholar; Congar, , ‘Vision de l’Église chez s. Thomas d'Aquin’, Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 62 (1978): pp. 523-41Google Scholar; Pesch, Otto Hermann, Thomas von Aquin. Grenze und Größe mittelalterlicher Theologie (Mainz: Matthias Grünewald, 1989), pp. 373-80Google Scholar. Pesch is heavily indebted to Sabra, who in turn is indebted to Congar.

74 Rikhof, ‘Thomas on the Church’, p. 220.

75 Lumen Gentium, §7, in Flannery, Austin OP, ed., Vatican Council II, vol. 1: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, rev. ed., (Northport, NY: Costello, 1996), pp. 350-426Google Scholar, at 355.

76 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Ephesians, trans. M. L. Lamb, §118, in Aquinas, , Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Galatians and Ephesians, trans. Larcher, F. R. OP, and Lamb, M. L., ed. Mortensen, J. and Alarcón, E. (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), p. 234Google Scholar.

77 Aquinas, Thomas, Commentary on Letter of Saint Paul to the Romans, trans. Larcher, F. R. OP, ed. Mortensen, J. and Alarcón, E. (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), §974, p. 333.Google Scholar

78 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, §47, in Aquinas, , Commentary on the Letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, trans. Larcher, F. R. OP, Mortensen, B., and Keating, D., ed. Mortensen, J. and Alarcón, E. (Lander, WY: The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012), p. 19Google Scholar.

79 Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians, §734, p. 277.

80 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 7, a. 13. See the discussion of this point in Legge, Dominic OP, The Trinitarian Christology of St Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.

81 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 8, a. 6.

82 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 8, a. 3, ad 2.

83 Aquinas, Commentary on Ephesians, §323-24, p. 320.

84 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 1.

85 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 1.

86 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 3, ad 1.

87 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 3, ad 2.

88 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 3, ad 3.

89 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 3, ad 3.

90 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 49, a. 3, ad 3.

91 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 58, a. 4, ad 1.

92 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 58, a. 4, ad 1.

93 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 58, a. 4, ad 1.

94 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 58, a. 3.

95 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 59, a. 1, ad 2.

96 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 59, a. 2, sed contra.

97 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 59, a. 2.

98 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 59, a. 3.

99 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 61, a. 3, ad 1.

100 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 62, a. 5.

101 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 62, a. 5.

102 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 65, a. 3.

103 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 65, a. 1.

104 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 69, a. 4.

105 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 69, a. 5. See O'Neill, Colman OP, ‘St Thomas on the Membership of the Church’, The Thomist 27 (1963): pp. 88-140CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

106 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 69, a. 5. See Pinckaers, Servais OP, ‘La morale et l’Église Corps du Christ’, Revue Thomiste 100 (2000): pp. 239-58Google Scholar.

107 See Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 1 and 2. For further exposition of Aquinas's Eucharistic theology, see my Sacrifice and Community: Jewish Offering and Christian Eucharist (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)Google Scholar.

108 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 73, a. 3, ad 3. See Marshall, Bruce D., ‘The Whole Mystery of Our Salvation: Saint Thomas Aquinas on the Eucharist as Sacrifice’, in Levering, Matthew and Dauphinais, Michael, eds., Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments: Studies in Sacramental Theology, (Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, 2009), pp. 39-64Google Scholar. See also Dulles, Avery SJ, ‘The Eucharist as Sacrifice’, in Kereszty, Roch O.Cist., ed., Rediscovering the Eucharist: Ecumenical Conversations, (New York: Paulist Press, 2003), pp. 175-87Google Scholar; and Dulles, ‘The Theology of Worship: Saint Thomas’, in Rediscovering Aquinas and the Sacraments, pp. 1-13.

109 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 48, a. 1. For discussion, see Tück, A Gift of Presence, pp. 114-15.

110 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 48, a. 1.

111 Aquinas, Summa theologiae III, q. 48, a. 2, ad 1. See Dulles, ‘The Church According to Thomas Aquinas’, 154; and Torrell, Jean-Pierre OP, Jésus le Christ chez saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Cerf, 2008), pp. 809Google Scholar; cf. 807.

112 Gorman, Michael J., Cruciformity: Paul's Narrative Spiritual of the Cross (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 400.Google Scholar