Abstract

What determines the constitution and limits of the church? Vatican II speaks in favor of a concentric understanding of ecclesial communion, using terms such as «fully incorporated», by «explicit intention», not «in unity of communion», «incomplete», «defective», and «in various ways». The three bonds which unite people to the Church are the profession of faith, the sacraments which express that faith, and the ecclesiastical government and communion that are at its service , keeping in mind that all human beings are related implicitly to the Church . And so we can speak of «various ways» of belonging to the Church: full, partial, close, implicit and peripheral, but always understood in reference to the full communion in the Church