It is precisely because the Catholic Church alone possesses such a supreme and infallible authority that she alone is able to present to the world that which follows directly from it, namely a complete unity and cohesion within her own borders.
Yes! Strange to say: the Catholic Church to-day stands alone! There is no rival to dispute with her, her unique and peerless position. Of all the so-called Christian Churches, throughout the world, so various and so numerous, and, in many cases, so modern and so fantastic, there is not a single one that can approach her, even distantly, whether it be in (a) the breadth of her influence, or in (b) the diversity and dissimilarity of her adherents, or in (c) the number of her children, or in (d) the extent of her conquests, or (e) in the absolute unity of her composition.
Even were it possible to unite into one single body the great multitude of warring sects, of which Protestantism is made up, such a body would fall far short of the stature of her who has received the gentiles for her inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for her possession (Ps. ii. 8), and who has the Holy Ghost abiding with her, century after century, in order that she may be "a witness unto Christ, in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the world" (Acts i. 8). But we cannot, even in thought, unite such contradictories, such discordant elements; any more than we can reduce the strident sounds of a multitude of cacophonous instruments to one harmonious and beautiful melody.
And if the Catholic Church stands thus alone, again we repeat, it is because no other has received the promise of divine support, or even cares to recognise that such a promise was ever made. The Catholic Church has been the only Church not only to exercise, but even to claim the prerogative of infallibility: but she has claimed this from the beginning. Every child born into her fold has been taught to profess and to believe, firstly, that the Catholic Church is the sole official and God-appointed guardian of the sacred deposit of divine truth, and, secondly, that she, and no other, enunciates to the entire world—to all who have ears to hear—the full revelation of Christ—His truth; the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; fulfilling, to the letter, the command of her Divine Master, "Go into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" (Mark xvi. 15).
How has this been possible? Simply and solely because God, Who promised that "the Spirit of Truth" (i.e., the Holy Ghost) "should abide with her for ever; and should guide her in all truth" (John xiv. 16, xvi. 12), keeps His promise. When our Lord promised to "be with" the teaching Church, in the execution of the divine commission assigned to it, "always" and "to the end of the world," that promise clearly implied, and was a guarantee, first, that the teaching authority should exist indefectibly to the end of the world; and secondly, that throughout the whole course of its existence it should be divinely guarded and assisted in fulfilling the commission given to it, viz., in instructing the nations in "all things whatsoever Christ has commanded," in other words, that it should be their infallible Guide and Teacher.
Venerable Bede, speaking of the conversion of our own country by Augustine and his monks, sent by Pope Gregory the Great, says: "And whereas he [Pope Gregory] bore the Pontifical power over all the world, and was placed over the Churches already reduced to the faith of truth, he made our nation, till then given up to idols, the Church of Christ" (Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 1). If we will but listen to the Pope now, he will make it once again "the Church of Christ," instead of the Church of the "Reformation," and a true living branch, drawing its life from the one vine, instead of a detached and fallen branch, with heresy, like some deadly decay, eating into its very vitals.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] No Pope, no matter what may have been his private conduct, ever promulgated a decree against the purity of faith and morals.