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Why can there be only one Church?
Just as there is only one Christ, there can be only one Body of Christ, only one Bride of Christ, and therefore only one Church of Jesus Christ. He is the Head, the Church is the Body. Together they form the "whole Christ" (St. Augustine). Just as the body has many members yet is one, so too the one Church consists of and is made up of many particular churches (dioceses).
Jesus built his Church, which subsists in the Catholic Church, on the foundation of the apostles. This foundation supports her to this day. The faith of the apostles was handed down from generation to generation under the leadership of the Pope, the Petrine ministry, "which presides in charity" (St. Ignatius of Antioch). The sacraments, too, which Jesus entrusted to the apostolic college, still work with their original power. (YOUCAT question 129)
Dig Deeper: CCC section (811-816) and other references here.
Part 1: The Profession of Faith (26 - 1065)
Section 2: The Profession of the Christian Faith (185 - 1065)
Chapter 3: I Believe in the Holy Spirit (683 - 1065)
Article 9: "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church" (748 - 975)
Paragraph 3: The Church is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic (811 - 870)
"This is the sole Church of Christ, which in the Creed we profess to be one, holy, catholic and apostolic."256 These four characteristics, inseparably linked with each other,257 indicate essential features of the Church and her mission. The Church does not possess them of herself; it is Christ who, through the Holy Spirit, makes his Church one, holy, catholic, and apostolic, and it is he who calls her to realize each of these qualities.
256.
LG 8.
257.
Cf. DS 2888.
Only faith can recognize that the Church possesses these properties from her divine source. But their historical manifestations are signs that also speak clearly to human reason. As the First Vatican Council noted, the "Church herself, with her marvelous propagation, eminent holiness, and inexhaustible fruitfulness in everything good, her catholic unity and invincible stability, is a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefutable witness of her divine mission."258
258.
Vatican Council I, De Filius 3:DS 3013.
I. THE CHURCH IS ONE ⇡
"The sacred mystery of the Church's unity" (UR 2) ⇡
The Church is one because of her source: "the highest exemplar and source of this mystery is the unity, in the Trinity of Persons, of one God, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit."259 The Church is one because of her founder: for "the Word made flesh, the prince of peace, reconciled all men to God by the cross, ... restoring the unity of all in one people and one body."260 The Church is one because of her "soul": "It is the Holy Spirit, dwelling in those who believe and pervading and ruling over the entire Church, who brings about that wonderful communion of the faithful and joins them together so intimately in Christ that he is the principle of the Church's unity."261 Unity is of the essence of the Church: What an astonishing mystery! There is one Father of the universe, one Logos of the universe, and also one Holy Spirit, everywhere one and the same; there is also one virgin become mother, and I should like to call her "Church."262
259.
UR 2 § 5.
260.
GS 78 § 3.
261.
UR 2 § 2.
262.
St. Clement Of Alexandria, Pæd. 1,6,42:PG 8,300.
From the beginning, this one Church has been marked by a great diversity which comes from both the variety of God's gifts and the diversity of those who receive them. Within the unity of the People of God, a multiplicity of peoples and cultures is gathered together. Among the Church's members, there are different gifts, offices, conditions, and ways of life. "Holding a rightful place in the communion of the Church there are also particular Churches that retain their own traditions."263 The great richness of such diversity is not opposed to the Church's unity. Yet sin and the burden of its consequences constantly threaten the gift of unity. And so the Apostle has to exhort Christians to "maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."264
263.
LG 13 § 2.
264.
What are these bonds of unity? Above all, charity "binds everything together in perfect harmony."265 But the unity of the pilgrim Church is also assured by visible bonds of communion:
265.
266.
Cf. UR 2; LG 14; CIC, can. 205.
"The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's pastoral care, commissioning him and the other apostles to extend and rule it. ... This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, subsists in (subsistit in) the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him."267 The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the People of God."268
267.
LG 8 § 2.
268.
UR 3 § 5.