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There is a huge difference between stating that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church and the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. This is a major change in how Catholics think of themselves. To use the verb "is" is to establish identity. To use the verb "subsist" is deliberately ambiguous. It could mean a number of things: to live within something or to remain within something. In other words, the Church that now exists is not necessarily the Church that Christ founded, though some elements may live or remain within it. Then again, the door is open to the idea that some elements are elsewhere as well, with Lutherans or Methodists or Baptists, for instance. If so, why bother to evangelize other Christians? (And indeed, we no longer do.) This distinction has had enormous consequences. But more than this, it is a revolutionary idea--and not a very Catholic one. It denigrates the past and all past efforts. It's as if the Church were newly conceived during the modernist take-over of Vatican II and all that preceded it were wrong-headed and obsolete. But if this is so, where are the fruits of this new modernist Church? Where is the springtime of Faith it promised thirty-five years ago? Instead of a flowering of the Faith there has been a winter of political correctness and corruption.

"To use the verb "subsist" is deliberately ambiguous. It could mean a number of things: to live within something or to remain within something. In other words, the Church that now exists is not necessarily the Church that Christ founded, though some elements may live or remain within it."

Many have proposed that the word is intended in an ambiguous sense, however, the Latin "subsistit in" is very specific in that it literally means "is in", "is under" or "stands under" the Catholic Church and not outside of it, i.e. the same Church that Christ founded is in the Catholic Church and is to be found nowhere else. It does allow for the fact that "elements" of the Church exist outside her boundaries such as valid baptism and the Pater Noster for instance, but these elements alone are not sufficient for salvation as the constant tradition of the Church has taught.

The CDF issued a notification re Leonardo Boff which dealt with the correct way that this word should be understood and made it clear that he and many others had misinterpreted it. There are still many liberal scholars though who put the wrong slant on it - implying that the Church also exists outside of the Catholic Church. This is clearly false as Our Lord is not an adulterer - He is the bridegroom of one spouse only - but don't you think that agreeing with them that the meaning is ambiguous will only encourage their doubt?

With hindsight the word has been so manipulated by those of ill will and little faith that, with retrospect, it would have been better if the traditional formulation had been used. I imagine that most of the council fathers had no idea what would be the consequences of using this one little word!!

In the face of those who continue to insist on its ambiguity, however, we can only point them to the principle that truly magisterial teachings must by definition be in harmony with prior tradition.

You may not evangelise other Christians, but I certainly try to and I think you'll find the fruits of modernism all around you - Boston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee!!!!!