Bodily Unity

Catholic Ecclesiology says the invisible Church and the visible Church exist in a psychosomatic union analogous to a body. A body is a union of the invisible soul and the visible flesh. A body is not something essentially invisible which is accidentally stuck inside a visible prison. Essentially, a human body is both visible and invisible and so is the Church.

Here are the common Protestant ecclesiological mistakes:

• The Church is essentially invisible though she has visible parts. (Unlike the Catholic and biblical model, this is not analogous to a body.)
• The Church is invisibly united and physically fractured. (Again, not analogous to a body. With a body, the visible parts are every bit as united as the invisible.)

We must at least admit that the ecclesiology maintained by the Catholic Church from the Apostolic times until now is more analogous to a body than the Protestant idea.