You write:
“This unity is so deep that the Church can say with Saint Paul: ‘You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are saints and members of the household of God’” (Eph 2:19) that verse is actually referring to the body of Christ, not organizational unity.
The Body of Christ- Yes! That is the those who believe His Body, His Blood, as part of ONE True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. We call that the Celebration of the Holy Eucharist, also known as the Catholic Mass. The “organizational” unity you speak of goes back to the early Church and its authoritative structure to insure that the deposit of faith handed down by Christ to Peter and His disciples is uncorrupted until the end of time and the gates of hell shall never prevail against her.
The Body of Christ is not some means for a Joel Osteen-type kumbaya where every one is encouraged to gather around a fireplace at Easter Sunrise services organized by your local Foursquare Church and call themselves part of the Body of Christ by a cacophony of Alleluias. That would be an out and out heresy.
Hence this explains why leading non-Catholic theologians from every “Christian” denomination have seen the light and converted to the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, just like our low-information voters, the heresies of Protestantism so ably explained in Hillaire Belloc’s masterpiece “The Great Heresies” allows for the new megaChurches inhabited by such folk who enrich their founders and their families.
The body of Christ is an organism, not an organization.
It is comprised of believers across space and time, regardless of the denominational label they wear if any.
No one church can lay claim to be the OTC because there are believers and unbelievers in each and every denomination.
Mary is dead; awaiting the Last Trump.
Well then, this requires more questions i expect you will want to avoid answering. If the Body of Christ only consists of those who believe in the "Real Presence," then you must conclude that those who do not subscribe to this unScriptural view (while remembering that Scripture is not your real basis for assurance of Truth) are not part of the Body, and do not have eternal life. Affirm or deny.
The “organizational” unity you speak of goes back to the early Church..
You are simply repeating a fantasy. Which places you in division with the EOs and other sola ecclesia groups.
The Body of Christ is not some means for a Joel Osteen-type kumbaya
Which is why the modern evangelical movement arose, based on shared contention of core truths, as said, such as by liberals, cults and Rome, and which as said, is why both Rome an liberals treated them as the greatest threat to their domination.
Meanwhile, as said, under the Roman model of sola ecclesia, which is not the premise that the church began under, you also have formal and informal divisions, as well as shared contention of core truths and varying degrees of communion. And Rome is only one church, and is not necessarily more unified than any other particular church. And actually Rome abounds with disagreements, and her unity is largely on paper,as what she does is what testifes to what she really believes.
Thus under both sola ecclesia and the SS type model you can have both significant concord as well as divisions, and pointing out the latter does not invalidate either, nor is unity itself the goal, thus the question is which model did the church begin under? Did it begin under the premise that the stewards of Scripture were the assuredly correct interpreters of it, and neither writings or men had authority if the magisterium rejected them?
Which also means the magisteriums own assertion of their assured veracity is assuredly true. And it is under this premise that the members have real assurance of truth.
And which discourages objective examination of the Scriptures in order to ascertain the veracity of its truth claims, but instead is foster and requires a very high level or implicit assent of faith in its leadership when teaching officially. But which also leads to competing claims among SE type groups.
Or did it begin under the basis of Scriptural substantiation, even if that also allows for competing claims, with its being manifest in word and in power what truth is, and resulting in a spiritual unity among the elect that is greater than divisions.
It is obvious that you have not understood the specious nature of your argumentation, and thus i have had to reiterate too much. Go back and read .