Page:The Decrees of the Vatican Council.djvu/39

 FIRST DOGMATIC CONSTITUTION ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST

Promulgated in the 4th Session of the Holy Œcumenical Vatican Council

PIUS, ,

Servant of the servants of God, with the approval of the Sacred Council for Perpetual Remembrance

HE Eternal Pastor and Bishop of our souls, in order to continue for all time the life-giving work of His Redemption, determined to build up the Holy Church, wherein, as in the house of the living, all who believe might be united in the bond of one faith and one charity. Wherefore, before He entered into His glory, He prayed unto the Father, not for the Apostles only, but for those also who through their preaching should come to believe in Him, that all might be one, even as He the Son and the Father are one. As then He sent the Apostles whom He had chosen to Himself from the world, as He Himself had been sent by the Father; so He willed that there should ever be pastors and teachers in His Church to the end of the world. And in order that the Episcopate also might be one and undivided, and that by means of a closely united priesthood the multitude of the faithful might be kept secure in the oneness of faith and communion, He set Blessed Peter over the 35