4468. 'And we will be one people' means being joined together in doctrine. This is clear from the meaning of 'people' as the truth of the Church, and therefore doctrine, 1259, 1260, 3295, 3581. 'Being one people' accordingly means being joined together through doctrine. There are two things which join members of the Church together - life and doctrine. When life joins them together doctrine does not separate them, but if doctrine alone joins them together, as happens within the Church at the present day, they separate themselves from one another and form as many Churches as there are varieties of doctrine, even though doctrine exists for the sake of life, and life ensues from doctrine. Their separation from one another if doctrine alone joins them together is evident from the fact that a person who subscribes to one doctrine condemns him who subscribes to another, sometimes to hell. But doctrine does not separate people if life joins them together. This is evident from the fact that a person who leads a good life does not condemn another because he has a feeling about something different from his own but leaves it be as a matter of the other's faith and conscience. And this is an attitude which he adopts even towards those outside the Church, for he says in his heart that ignorance cannot condemn any of them, provided that they lead lives of innocence and mutual love, as young children do, who also, if they die, are in ignorance.