Catholic Catholicism

To see in Catholicism one religion among others, one system among others, even if it be added that it is the only true religion, the only system that works, is to mistake its very nature, or at least to stop at the threshold. Catholicism is religion itself.

Thus spake Henri-Marie Cardinal de Lubac in Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man. 'Twas Martin Mosebach who noted that Nicolás Gómez Dávila recognized this true nature of "the Catholic Church, which he did not regard as simply one of several Christian confessions, but as the great collecting tank of all religions, as the heiress of all paganism, as the still living original religion."