The right to religious liberty is neither a moral license to adhere to error, nor a supposed right to error,[Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum 18; Pius XII AAS 1953,799.] (John Paul II, Catechism 2108)
Error: Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.
God in ways known to Himself can lead those inculpably ignorant of the Gospel to find that faith without which it is impossible to please Him ... (Ad gentes 8)
The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels
To reconcile the axiom "Outside the Church, no salvation", with the doctrine of the possible salvation of those who remain ignorant of the Church in all good faith, there is no need to manufacture any new theory. All we have to do is to apply to the Church the traditional distinction made in connection with the necessity of Baptism, the door by which the Church is entered. To the question: Can anybody be saved without Baptism? St. Thomas, who here draws on the thought of St. Ambrose, replies that those who lack Baptism re et voto, that is to say who neither are nor want to be baptized, cannot come to salvation, "since they are neither sacramentally nor mentally incorporated into Christ, by whom alone is salvation". But those who lack Baptism re, sed non voto, that is to say "who desire Baptism, but are accidentally overtaken by death before receiving it, can be saved without actual Baptism, in virtue of their desire for Baptism, coming from a faith that works by charity, by which God, whose power is not circumscribed by visible sacraments, sanctifies man interiorly".[85] Conformably with this distinction we shall say that the axiom "No salvation outside the Church" is true of those who do not belong to the Church, which in herself is visible, either visibly (corporaliter) or even invisibly, either by the sacraments (sacramentaliter) or even in spirit (mentaliter); either fully (re) or even by desire (voto); either in accomplished act or even in virtual act.[86] The axiom does not concern the just who, without yet belonging to the Church visibly, in accomplished act (re), do so invisibly, in virtual act, in spirit, by desire (mentaliter, voto), that is to say in virtue of the supernatural righteousness of their lives, even while, through insurmountable ignorance, they know nothing of the sanctity, or even of the existence, of the Church.[87]85 III, q. 68, a. 2
86 Speaking of the way in which one can be deprived of Baptism, St. Thomas opposes the terms re and voto; cf. III, q. 68, a. 2. Speaking of the way in which one can be incorporated in Christ, he opposes the words sacramentaliter and mentaliter (ibid.) or corporaliter and mentaliter: "Adulti prius credentes in Christum sunt ei incorporati mentaliter; sed postmodum, cum baptizantur, incorporantur ei quodammodo corporaliter, scilicet per visibile sacramentum, sine cujus proposito nec mentaliter incorporari potuissent" (III, q. 69, a. 5, ad. 1
87 It is in fact to these distinctions made by St. Thomas in connection with the necessity of Baptism that St. Robert Bellarmine and later theologians have recourse to explain the axiom "outside the Church, no salvation", St. Robert Bellarmine, speaking of catechumens, begins by saying that they are of the Church, not "actu et proprie, sed tantum in potentia, quomodo homo conceptus sed nondum formatus et natus non dicitur homo nisi in potentia", and it is easy to see from this example—borrowed, he believes, from St. Augustine—that the in potentia of St. Robert Bellarmine is equivalent to what we have called a virtual act: the man already conceived but not brought forth, although not man in accomplished act, is man in act begun. St. Robert continues: "Quod dicitur: Extra Ecclesiam neminem salvari, intelligi debet de iis qui neque re ipsa, nec desiderio sunt de Ecclesia, sicut de baptismo communiter loquuntur theologi. Quoniam autem catechumeni, si non re, saltem voto sunt in Ecclesia, ideo salvari possunt" (De Ecclesia Militante, lib. III, cap. 3) Suarez has the same doctrine: "Melius ergo respondendum juxta distinctionem datam de necesitate in re vel in voto ita enim nemo salvari potest, nisi hanc Christi Ecclesiam vel in re, vel in voto saltem et desiderio ingrediatur" (De Fide disp. 12, sect. 4, no. 22) Billuart notes that catechumens "non sunt re et proprie in Ecclesia"; yet when they have charity, they are in the Church proxime et in voto as if one should say that a man under the porch was already in the house, they belong to the Church "inchoative et ut aspirantes.... et ideo salvari possunt. Nec obstat quod extra Ecclesiam non sit salus; id namque intelligitur de eo qui nec re, nec in voto est in Ecclesia" (De Regulis Fidei, dissert. 3, a. 2, 3) See on this point E. Dublanchy, art. "Eglise", Dict. de theol. cathol., cols. 2163-2165
What is to be gained by substituting some new explanation of the axiom: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus for this traditional exegesis? "The result is that the apologists are out of accord with the theologians and deviate from the traditional teaching. When it is introduced simply as it stands into the formula 'outside the Church, no salvation" the distinction between the body and soul of the Church might easily falsify its meaning.... When the Fathers and the Councils made use of this formula, they did so to convey that all who would be saved must not only belong to the soul of the Church but must enter the external communion. It was without any detriment to the truth of the formula that the theologians reconciled it with the universality of grace and the universal possibility of salvation. They distinguished, like their predecessors, a real adhesion and an implicit adhesion to the visible Church" (L. Caperan, Le probleme du salut des infideles, essai historique, vol. I, p. 477) Happily, not all the apologists are here incriminated. In his 36th conference at Notre Dame de Paris, for example, Pere de Ravignan made admirably clear that the dogma "outside the Church, no salvation" condemns those who live in "voluntary and culpable error", but not those who have at least "The implicit aspiration and desire for the Church and for Baptism"
In his very stimulating book on the Church A. D. Sertillanges, O. P., more perspicacious than the apologists here criticised, clearly sees what is in fact obvious to every Thomist, that the soul and body of the Church must be coextensive, but to reconcile this truth with the doctrine of the possible salvation of those in Invincible ignorance of the Church, he looks in a direction which seems at first sight contrary to that followed here. He does not reduce the soul of the Church to the dimensions of its normal body by the distinction between grace simply sanctifying, which certainly overflows this normal body, and the sanctifying grace that comes of the sacramental power and is ruled by the jurisdictional power, which is the very soul of the Church, conformed to her normal body. On the contrary he leaves the expression "soul of the Church" an undifferentiated and universal significance, and enlarges the concept of the body of the Church so as to make it universal like the soul. "In the measure in which these organizations [pagan religions] favoured not vice and error as they did too often, but virtue and true religious feeling, they were, through God and His Christ, salutary; they were so to speak occasional uncovenanted supports for the universal soul of the Church." And again: "Just as the soul of our Catholic Church envelops all souls that belong to God no matter where they live, so does her body envelop as extrinsic dependencies, all other religious forms [dissident religions are here meant] which in themselves are her antagonists, but also partially, and n the way I have just described, her servants" (L'Eglise, 1917, vol. II, pp. 112 and 119. My italics) These views should surely be made more precise. What has to be determined is this: what is there of the soul of the Church outside the Church, and what is there of the body of the Church outside the Church? (Charles Cardinal Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate Ch. 1, III, 3)