The Incarnate Son of God, who never
asks, nor can ask in vain, implored His Heavenly Father, that all His
followers might be one, and why? In order that this marvellous unity
might ever be fixed as a seal of authenticity to His Church, and be to
all men a permanent sign and proof of her genuineness.
"Father," He prayed, grant "that they may ALL BE ONE, as Thou art in
Me, and as I am in Thee, that they also may be one in us, THAT THE
WORLD MAY KNOW that Thou hast sent Me" (John xvii. 21). Unity, then,
is undeniably the test and sign-manual attached by Christ to His
Bride, the Church; the presence or absence of which must (if there be
any truth in God) determine the genuineness or the falsity of every
claimant.
Now, this mark is nowhere found outside the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church, whose centre is in Rome.
Other Churches not merely do not possess unity. They do not possess so
much as the requisite machinery to produce it, nor even the means of
preserving it, if produced.
With us, on the contrary, it flows as naturally and as directly from
the recognised Supremacy and Infallibility of the Vicar of Christ as
light flows from the sun.
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