I am not using catholicism simply because I am catholic, but also because it is hard or impossible for me to try to illustrate this 'civilization' without using catholicism. I hope I could explain it better. I guess I will be explaining at any given occasion.
For now. Here is an article which explains how we, catholic see God, Love, Christ, and the Church and Salvation . It concludes like this:
Catholics do not say, and never have said, that they are the sole
possessors of revelation. Indeed, the Church does not “possess” revelation at
all. Revelation possesses her; and that revelation, who is Christ, has, she
teaches, committed Himself fully to her. “God,” said the great Protestant writer
George MacDonald, “is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” On the one hand, God
is delighted when the most miserable sinner takes the smallest serious step
toward the love of God and neighbor. On the other hand, He will not be
completely happy until every last person He came to save is completely perfected
in the image of Christ and overflowing with perfect love for God and neighbor.
This same pattern is supremely evident in the Catholic Church’s understanding of
her relationship with her members, whether in full or very imperfect communion.
For the Church is happy to recognize even the smallest commonalities she may
share, not only with other Christians, but even with non-Christian religious
traditions and the great philosophical traditions of paganism. The Church can
even find things to affirm in virtuous atheists. But at the same time, the
Church is acutely aware that there is a real difference between imperfect and
perfect unity and so she, too—easy to please, but hard to satisfy—labors toward
that day when all the members of the Body of Christ will be perfected in faith,
hope, and love.
Till that day, we know where the Church is; we do not know
where she is not.
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