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Ad Petri Cathedram (English) is unavailable, but you can change that!

For nearly two thousand years, popes have communicated to the world primarily through their letters. In the pre-modern world, the papal chancery turned out tens of thousands of letters a year. On occasion, a letter dealt with broad concerns and was intended to circulate through the churches of a given region. Such letters became known as encyclicals. In the modern period, papal encyclicals have...

three characteristics: unity of doctrine, unity of organization, unity of worship. This unity is so conspicuous that by it all men can find and recognize the Catholic Church. 68. It is the will of God, the Church’s founder, that all the sheep should eventually gather into this one fold, under the guidance of one shepherd. All God’s children are summoned to their father’s only home, and its cornerstone is Peter. All men should work together like brothers to become part of this single kingdom of God;