Abstract
After 50 years of reflection on ‘subsistit in,’ the Catholic Church has acknowledged that in the Churches and ecclesial communities separated from Rome, the Church of Christ is present and active, and Christ uses these ecclesial realities as means of salvation by means of their ordained ministry and synodal and episcopal collegiality. Introducing the distinction between ontological and phenomenological dimensions of the church of Christ, the latent inconsistency of post-conciliar church documents endorsing the discontinuity between churches and ecclesial communities can be overcome. Ordained ministry, episcopal collegiality, and Petrine ministry are essential in order to realize the fullness of ecclesiality, but not ecclesiality itself. Only by keeping these two dimensions of the church of Christ well distinguished—ontological and phenomenological—can the gradual sacramental reality present in every Christian community be acknowledged.
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