St. Pope Cornelius (died 253) | WEST

(Updated July 15, 2025)

This Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Church Father, St. Pope Cornelius.

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Letters

St. Pope Cornelius, Letter to St. Cyprian of Carthage (Letter 45), On the Return of the Confessors to Unity (251)

• The Papacy and the Invincibility of the Church | §2

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(§2)

There was one voice from all, giving thanks to God; all were expressing the joy of their heart by tears, embracing them as if they had this day been set free from the penalty of the dungeon. And to quote their very own words: “We,” they say, “know that [St. Pope] Cornelius is bishop of the most holy Catholic Church elected by Almighty God, and by Christ our Lord. We confess our error; we have suffered imposture; we were deceived by captious perfidy and loquacity.  For although we seemed, as it were, to have held a kind of communion with a man who was a schismatic and a heretic, yet our mind was always sincere in the Church. For we are not ignorant that there is one God; that there is one Christ the Lord whom we have confessed, and one Holy Spirit; and that in the Catholic Church there ought to be one bishop.” Were we not rightly induced by that confession of theirs, to allow that what they had confessed before the power of the world they might approve when established in the Church? Wherefore we bade Maximus the presbyter to take his own place; the rest we received with great approbation of the people. But we remitted all things to Almighty God, in whose power all things are reserved.