Page:Manualofprayersf00cath.djvu/40

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Christian Faith and Practice.

9. We must believe that when the Pope speaks "ex cathedra"—i.e., when, in discharge of his office of Pastor and Teacher of all Christians, he defines, in virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the universal Church—he is endowed, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, with that Infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be furnished, in defining doctrine of faith or morals. And therefore such definitions of the Pope are irreformable of themselves, and not in virtue of the consent of the Church.

10. We must believe that Jesus Christ has instituted in His Church seven Sacraments, or mysterious signs and instrumental causes of Divine Grace in our souls: Baptism, by way of a new birth, by which we are made children of God, and cleansed from sin; Confirmation, by which we receive the Holy Ghost, by the imposition of the hands of the successors of the Apostles: the blessed Eucharist, which feeds and nourishes our souls with the Body and Blood of Christ, really present under the forms of bread and wine, or under either of them; Penance, by which penitent sinners are absolved from their sins, by virtue of the commission given by Christ to His ministers; Extreme Unction, which wipes away the remains of sin, and arms the soul with the grace of God in the time of sickness; Holy Orders, by which the ministers of God are consecrated; and Matrimony, which, as a sacred sign of the indissoluble union of Christ and His Church, unites the married couple in a holy bond, and imparts to them a grace suitable to that state.

11. We must believe that Jesus Christ has also in-

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