If there now is a Catholic Church, which asserts its infallibility, it does this only because there are the Graeco-Russian, Orthodox, Lutheran Churches, each of which asserts its own infallibility, and thus rejects all the other churches. Thus the one church is only a fantastic conception, which has not the slightest sign of reality.
As an actual, historical phenomenon there have existed only many assemblies of men, each of which has asserted that it is the one church, established by Christ, and that all the others, which call themselves churches, are heresies and schisms.
The catechisms of the most widely diffused churches, the Catholic, the Orthodox, and the Lutheran, say so outright.
In the Catholic catechism it says: “ Quels sont ceux, qui sont hors de l’église? Les infidèles, les hérétiques, les schismatiques. ” As schismatics are regarded the so-called Orthodox. The Lutherans are considered to be heretics; thus, according to the Catholic catechism, the Catholics alone are in the church.
In the so-called Orthodox catechism it says: “By the one church of Christ is meant nothing but the Orthodox, which remains in complete agreement with the œcumenical church. But as to the Roman Church and the other confessions” (the church does not even mention the Lutherans and others), “they cannot be referred to the one, true church, since they have themselves separated from it.”
According to this definition the Catholics and Lutherans are outside the church, and in the church are only the Orthodox.
But the Lutheran catechism runs as follows: “ Die wahre Kirche wird daran erkannt, dass in ihr das Wort Gottes lauter und rein ohne Menschenzusätze gelehrt und die Sacramente treu nach Christi Einsetzung gewahrt werden. ”