The Church's teaching isn't an official statement, but the cumulative understanding of all the people who have loved and experienced Jesus through time.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Through the ages, God has used the church to keep alive and pass down the story of what Christ has done for us.
We sometimes get so caught up in one or another aspect of the teaching, we forget that if a person hasn't been introduced to Christ, if a person hasn't embraced the risen Lord and the church that's an expression of that experience, what we're saying just sounds like a bunch of rules or negative statements limiting their personal freedom.
As the Church is the aggregate of believers, there is an intimate analogy between the experience of the individual believer, and of the Church as a whole.
Obviously, you're trying to peel through 20 centuries of theology, speculations, church doctrine and storytelling. I'm trying to get back to the absolute basic story of who was Jesus, what did he say, what was he teaching, and what did he do.
Clearly there are individuals who don't understand what the church teaches, or they think it's so limiting.
Christ's Church is, above all, the spiritual temple where every Christian knows he has his place: he knows he has it, and he is aware of his duty to keep it with honor, dignity, and grace.
The heart of the gospel is that you don't know Jesus without the witness of the church. It's always mediated.
Within the context of listening and understanding and walking with people together, we discover anew what were the teachings of Jesus, what he presented to us.
The Church's note must be a supernatural note which distinguishes incarnation from immanence, redemption from evolution, the Kingdom of God from mere spiritual process.
About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they're just one thing.