ABSTRACT
The answer, I believe, is to be sought by reflection on the fundamental nature of the Church. By very definition the Church is, under Christ, the universal sacrament of salvation or, in other words, the sacrament of Christ in the world. In order to be a sacrament, the Church must be an efficacious sign – one in which the reality signified is manifestly present and operative. The Church, in other words, must be a lasting incarnation in the world of God’s redemptive love for all humankind as originally signified and concretized in Jesus Christ … .
