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Writer's pictureMichael Snellen

The 102 Certain Truths Not Yet Defined by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church

The full list of truths held by the Catholic Church, yet not defined



1. With Christ and the Apostles General Revelation concluded.

2. Our natural knowledge of God in this world is not as immediate, intuitive cognition, but a

mediate, abstractive knowledge, because it is attained through the knowledge of creatures.

3. Our knowledge of God here below is not proper but analogical.

4. God is absolute Beauty.

5. God’s knowledge is purely and simply actual.

6. God’s knowledge is subsistent.

7. God’s knowledge is comprehensive.

8. God’s knowledge is independent of extra-divine things.

9. The primary and formal object of the Divine Cognition is God Himself.

10. The Son proceeds from the Intellect of the Father by way of Generation.

11. The Holy Ghost proceeds from the will or from the mutual love of the Father and of the Son.

12. The Father sends the Son: the Father and the Son send the Holy Ghost.

13. The world is the work of the Divine Wisdom.

14. God was free to create this world or any other.

15. The whole human race stems from one single human pair.

16. Every individual soul was immediately created out of nothing by God.

17. Adam received sanctifying grace not merely for himself, but for all his posterity.

18. God set a supernatural final end for the angels, the immediate vision of God, and endowed

them with sanctifying grace in order that they might achieve this end.

19. The angels were subjected to a moral testing.

20. The evil spirits (demons) were created good by God; they became evil through their own

fault.

21. The primary task of the good angels is the glorification and the service of God.

22. Every one of the faithful has his own special guardian angel from baptism.

23. The Hypostatic Union was never interrupted.

24. The Blood in the Living Body of Jesus Christ is an integral constituent part of human nature,

immediately, not merely mediately, united with the Person of the Divine Logos.

25. Just as Latria is due to the whole Human nature of Christ, so is it due to the individual parts

of His nature.

26. Christ’s soul possessed the immediate vision of God from the first moment of its existence.

27. Christ’s human knowledge was free from positive ignorance and from error.

28. By reason of His endowment with the fullness of created habitual grace, Christ’s soul is also

accidentally holy.

29. Christ’s humanity, as instrument of the Logos, possesses the power of producing

supernatural effects.

30. Christ’s soul was subject to sensual emotions.

31. God was not compelled to redeem mankind by either an internal or an external compulsion.

32. Christ is the Supreme Prophet promised in the Old Covenant and the absolute teacher of

humanity.

33. Christ merited for Himself the condition of exaltation (Resurrection, Transfiguration of the

body, Ascension into Heaven).

34. Christ merited all supernatural graces received by fallen mankind.

35. The underworld is the place of detention for the souls of the just of the pre-Christian era, the

so-called vestibule of hell (limbus Patrum).

36. Mary gave the Redeemer, the Source of all graces, to the world, and in this way she is the

channel of all graces.

37. Mary, the Mother of God, is entitled to the Cult of Hyperdulia.

38. Actual Grace internally and directly enlightens the understanding and strengthens the will.

39. The Grace of faith is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action.

40. Actual Grace is not necessary for the performance of a morally good action.

41. In the condition of fallen nature it is morally impossible for man without restoring grace

(gratia sanans) to fulfill the entire moral law and to overcome all serious temptations for any

considerable period of time.

42. Grace cannot be obtained by petitions deriving from purely natural prayer.

43. Man of himself cannot acquire any positive disposition for grace.

44. God gives all innocent unbelievers (infideles negativi) sufficient grace to achieve eternal

salvation.

45. Sanctifying Grace is a supernatural state of being which is infused by God, and which

permanently inheres in the soul.

46. Sanctifying grace is not a substance, but a real accident, which inheres in the soul-substance.

47. Supernatural grace is a participation in the divine nature.

48. Sanctifying grace makes the just man a Temple of the Holy Ghost.

49. The loss of sanctifying grace always involves the loss of Charity.

50. The Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ.

51. By reason of her purpose and the means she uses to effect it the Church is a supernatural

spiritual society.

52. The Church is a perfect society.

53. The Church is indefectible, that is, she remains and will remain the Institution of Salvation,

founded by Christ, until the end of the world.

54. The secondary object of the Infallibility is truths of the Christian teaching on faith and

morals, which are not formally revealed, but which are closely connected with the teaching

of Revelation.

55. The Church founded by Christ is an external visible commonwealth.

56. Not only those members who are holy but the sinners also belong to the Church.

57. The members of the Church are those who have validly received the Sacrament of Baptism

and who are not separated from the unity of the confession of the Faith, and from the unity of

the lawful communion of the Church.

58. The members of the Kingdom of God on earth and in the other world sanctified by the

redeeming grace of Christ are united in a common supernatural life with the Head of the

Church and with one another.

59. By intercessory prayer the Faithful on earth can procure gifts from God for one another.

60. The faithful on earth can, by their good works performed in the state of grace, render

atonement for one another.

61. The Sacraments of the New Covenant are effective signs of grace instituted by Christ.

62. Christ instituted all the Sacraments immediately and personally.

63. Christ fixed the substance of the Sacraments. The Church has no power to alter them.

64. God can communicate grace even without the Sacraments.

65. The primary minister of the Sacraments is the God-Man Jesus Christ.

66. The validity and efficacy of the Sacrament is independent of the minister’s orthodoxy and

state of grace.

67. For the validity of the Sacraments in the case of adult recipients the intention of receiving the

Sacrament is necessary.

68. The Old Testament Sacraments wrought, ex opere operato, not grace, but merely an external

lawful purity.

69. The materia proxima of the Sacrament of Baptism is the ablution, by physical contact, of the

body with water.

70. The form of Baptism consists in the words of the minister which accompany it and more

closely determine it.

71. As a Sacrament of the living, Confirmation effects (per se) an increase of Sanctifying Grace.

72. The extraordinary minister of Confirmation is a priest on whom this full power is conferred

by the common law or by a special apostolic indult.

73. Confirmation can be received by any baptized person who is not already confirmed.

74. The repetition of Confirmation is invalid and grievously sinful.

75. The Sacramental Accidents retain their physical reality after the change of the substance.

76. The Sacramental Accidents continue without a subject in which to inhere.

77. The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a mystery of Faith.

78. The form of the Eucharist consists in Christ’s Words of institution, uttered at the

Consecration.

79. The Chief fruit of the Eucharist is an intrinsic union of the recipient with Christ.

80. The Eucharist, as food for the soul, preserves and increases the supernatural life of the soul.

81. The Eucharist is a pledge of heavenly bliss and of the future resurrection of the body.

82. For adults the reception of the Eucharist is necessary for salvation with the necessity of

precept (necessitate praecepti).

83. The ordinary minister of the Eucharist is the priest; the extraordinary minister is the deacon

(with permission of the local Ordinary or of the parish priest for some weighty reason).

84. Those sins which are already forgiven directly by the Church’s Power of the Keys are a

sufficient object of confession.

85. The source of Indulgences is the Church’s treasury of satisfaction which consists of

superabundant satisfactions of Christ and of the Saints.

86. Extreme Unction is not of itself (per se) necessary for salvation.

87. The consecration of a Bishop is a Sacrament.

88. The Order of Diaconate is a Sacrament.

89. The extraordinary dispenser of the four Minor Orders and of the Order of the Subdiaconate is

the presbyter.

90. The Sacrament of Order can be validly received by a baptized person of the male sex only.

91. Marriage was not instituted by Man, but by God.

92. The primary purpose of Marriage is the generation and bringing-up of offspring. The

secondary purpose is mutual help and the morally regulated satisfaction of the sex urge.

93. The essential properties of Marriage are unity (monogamy) and indissolubility.

94. Every valid contract of Marriage between Christians is of itself a sacrament.

95. The contracting parties in Matrimony minister the Sacrament each to the other.

96. The Church possesses the sole and exclusive right to make laws and administer justice in the

matrimonial affairs of baptized persons, in so far as these affect the Sacrament.

97. With death the possibility of merit or demerit or conversion ceases.

98. The time of Jesus’ second coming is unknown to men.

99. The bodies of the just will be re-modeled and transfigured to the pattern of the risen Christ.

100. The bodies of the godless will rise again in incorruption and immortality, but they will not be

transfigured.

101. The present world will be destroyed on the Last Day.

102. The present world will be restored on the Last Day.

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