Extra ecclesiam - Outside the Church there is no salvation.

Catholic Exchange ^ | Kevin Knight

[NYer]

It's a stark sentence. Some Catholics even love its shock value, waving the doctrine like a flag in the face of their enemies. Other Catholics flatly refuse to believe it, and claim that this teaching was repudiated by the Second Vatican Council. Both groups are wrong.

Despite what some may think, this dogma is infallible, and all Catholics are required to believe it. This was repeated clearly at Vatican II, which said: "Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation."

At the same time, this dogma was never meant to be a sectarian battle cry, as if only Catholics may go to heaven.

So what is the correct interpretation of this sentence? What does the Catholic Church mean when she proclaims that Outside the Church there is no salvation?

OUTSIDE THE EARTH THERE IS NO LIFE
 
Saying that the Church is necessary for salvation is like saying that the earth is necessary for human life. Outside the Church there is no salvation, and outside the earth there is no life.

It's true, of course. The earth is our God-given home. If you leave here, you will die.

But if this is so, how do you explain the 445 astronauts who have flown into space and returned safely? If "outside the earth there is no life", how did Neil Armstrong ever walk on the moon?

The answer, of course, is simple: They didn't leave the earth; they just brought it with them. While they slept and walked on the moon, they were eating earth's food and breathing earth's air. Everything they had came from back home.
 
So when we say "outside the earth there is no life," we are saying that all of the means for survival are found on this planet. And when we say "outside the Church there is no salvation," we mean that all of the means of salvation -- doctrines, sacraments, and so on -- are found here, uncorrupted by error.
 
Some of these means can exist outside the visible bounds of the Church. For example, Protestants have most of the Bible, along with two of the seven sacraments. Nevertheless, these things are like the food and water on the Space Shuttle: they're life-giving, but they came from a place where they're far richer, more abundant and complete.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS

We may draw several conclusions from this.

First, if a person even suspects that the Church is necessary for salvation, but refuses to act on it before he dies, he will go to hell. As Vatican II stated, "They could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it."

Second, if a person fails to enter or stay in the Church through no fault of his own, he may still be saved. Pope Pius IX said: "By Faith it is to be firmly held that outside the Apostolic Roman Church none can achieve salvation. This is the only ark of salvation. He who does not enter into it will perish in the flood. Nevertheless equally certainly it is to be held that those who suffer from invincible ignorance of the true religion are not for this reason guilty in the eyes of the Lord."

Finally, it's not enough simply to call yourself Catholic. There is nothing magic about registering at a parish. To go to heaven, you have to take advantages of the means offered by the Church. This includes praying often, giving alms to the poor, spreading the Gospel, going to Confession and believing in all of her teachings -- even the hard ones.
 
Pope John Paul II summed it up best: "People are saved through the Church, they are saved in the Church, but they always are saved by the grace of Christ. . . . This is the authentic meaning of the well-known statement Outside the Church there is no salvation."

[Alamo-Girl]

But that is always the way it is with any human congregation. There is always the flawed visible church, that is hard to live with and hard to defend, and then there is the unseen church that is the real one. You can always spot the people who are members of the latter, I believe. Certainly God knows who they are.

I very strongly agree, dear marron!

[Alamo-Girl]

For what it's worth, xzins, I don't think Pope Benedict thinks that either. Please take the time to read this amazingly powerful Encyclical: It is addressed to Christians, not just to Catholics.

I just finished the encyclical and I strongly agree with you, betty boop. His spiritual emphasis is love and more specifically, love of neighbor.

Certainly I do not expect him to hedge on Scripture or tradition of the Catholic Church to accommodate other theologies; however, I do expect him to uproot any arrogance which might be lurking about in the church hierarchy - because that would not be loving.

[Alamo-Girl]

I think of what exactly prevents my being a Roman Catholic and I know that I would have to overcome my theological difference with: immaculate conception, assumption, veration of leadership and of saints & angels, and opulence.

I haven't heard that anyone is interested in accomodating me. :>)

LOLOL! My family is about half Catholic and all Christian.

As for me, I'll never become Catholic (or Orthodox or Calvinist or whatever) simply because I do not embrace the doctrines and traditions of mortal men. But that's just me.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

That's a nice theory on paper.

It's not a theory at all, jo kus! I've known Christ personally for 46 years now.

We Christians have all had at least one direct Spiritual revelation: that Jesus Christ is Lord. (Matthew 16:17) That knowledge cannot be obtained by reason or willfulness (John 1:13)

And you are certainly correct that some have claimed to have contacts with spirits. Edgar Cayce comes to mind as an example with a rather large document trail for evidence.

But as the Scriptures say, we must try the spirits (both spiritual beings and prophets) - and the test of the spirits is to ask who they say Jesus Christ is (I John 4).

If the spirit does not affirm that Jesus Christ is God from the beginning, who became enfleshed to reconcile every thing in heaven and earth to Himself - then that is a false spirit. (Col 1, John 1, etc.)

After all, the Holy Spirit's mission when He indwells us is to reveal Christ, to declare Him, to lead us into Truth (John 15-17)

Using Cayce as the counter-example, after he had contacted a false spirit he abandoned his earlier confession of Christ for what that spirit said, i.e. that Christ was an "older brother".

[Lurker]

Not the old "If you don't come to our Church you're going to burn in Hell for all eternity" thing again.

And people wonder why I'm a confirmed agnostic.

L

[jecIIny]

Oh boy... here we go again. I am tired of these constant bickering sessions between Catholics and Protestants. Catholics believe that one man can infallibly interpret scripture. So do Evangelical Protestants. The Catholics call that person the Pope. Evangelicals call that person themself. Protestants who hate the Pope don't seem to grasp that all they have done is replace the Pope with millions of little popes less the miter. Orthodox Christians don't believe any one person can interpret scripture. Only the Church as a whole can interpret scripture through councils whose decisions are received by the faithful. Protestants and Catholics are just two sides of the same coin. Both wrapped up in the basic theology of the last millennium that has come to dominate the west, a theology that has a misplaced emphasis on legalism and scholastacism.

[bornacatholic]

Me and Thee are divided. The Holy Spirit is not the source of that division

[Conservative til I die]

Protestants have ALL the sacraments.

This is news to me. Most Protestant sects are against the idea of the sacramental system, chalking it up to Catholic ritualism. And if they do believe in sacraments, usually it's just baptism and marriage. Possibly Holy Orders if they have some sort of hierarchical clerical system.

However, I couldn't tell you if every sect that has one or more sacrament (as Catholics understand them) refer to them as sacraments or understand them the same way that Catholics do.

[Conservative til I die]

No they don't if you are going by the 7 sacraments of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Most Protestant churches only have 2. Baptism and The Lord's Supper.

I would have said Baptism and Marriage.

Some might have a form of Communion and possibly even Holy Orders, but it's rare to find a Protestant church that has Confession or Confirmation.

Of course, this is putting aside the difference between Protestants and Catholics in understanding what exactly a Sacrament's importance is.

[Conservative til I die]

Outside of Christ there is no salvation. If you are in Christ, by grace through faith, you are, by definition, the Church.

By whose definition? That's the rub. I say its Christ's as passed on by His Church. You say it's Christ's as passed on by ovrtaxt.

[ovrtaxt]

No, there's this Book that I've read...

[Conservative til I die]

I thought it was the other way around ~ that since the foundations of the Reformation that no priest in the old church was pure enough to administer a sacrament so Catholics were left without. Isn't that the story?

I've never heard this before.

[Conservative til I die]

(BTW, we have an awful lot of ex-Catholics wandering about the pews on Sunday, and they say they never noticed a real difference, theologically speaking that is.)

Not to make a generalization about ex-Catholics, but almost by definition, most of these people were not exactly devout, hardcore Catholics completely familiar with the faith.

[Conservative til I die]

What about foot washing? You guys don't honor that command?

Actually, this is done during the Lenten season. But I wasn't aware this was a sacrament.

[Conservative til I die]

Ironic, isn't it? As a former Catholic who still loves and respects the Church and my fellow Catholics, I find myself on occasion having to slap down some dumbass Jack Chick type, only to have some strident RC or Orthodox issue some blanket aspersion on Protestants.

Not sure what the aspersion was here. Please enumerate.

[ovrtaxt]

Keep reading... you'll catch up...

[Conservative til I die]

Many of the ex-Catholics are exceedingly knowledgeable in Catholic theology.

My experience has led me to believe otherwise. I've met several ex-Catholics who have run the whole "The Church is a greedy corporation created by Emperor Constantine" and "The Church has celibacy to keep property out of the priest's family's hands" spiel by me. Anyone knowledgable of the faith would not deal in this sort of crap.

[Conservative til I die]

A group of men, fallible and weak.

The LORD gave us the HOLY SPIRIT to guide us and direct us.

How do you know the Holy Spirit was/is not guiding these men? Or does the Holy Spirit only guide Protestants? If so, He's done a pretty bad job judging by the number of competing theologies that run the gamut from A to Z and back again several times.

[Conservative til I die]

No, there's this Book that I've read...

Like I said, "Christ's as passed on by ovrtaxt." Why should I believe your interpretation of the Bible over the Magisterium? Or for that matter, your interpretation over 20 other random Protestants? These are the two things that really bother me about Sola Scriptura in practice (in theory I have many more problems with it). First, it's very myopic and subjective. Each Protestant feels that it is a self-evident and irrefutable argument by saying "It says such in the Bible", not realizing that others might have a differing interpretation which by definition is allowable in Sola Scriptura, as all men are able to interpret the Bible through the Holy Spirit.

Second, not all interpretations are created equal. By default, any Catholic interpretation is deemed invalid.

[ovrtaxt]

I'm certainly not asking you to believe 'my interpretation'. Why don't you just read it for yourself? You seem like a fairly intelligent guy.

Try Ephesians. There's a really great exposition- by Paul of Tarsus no less- on the mystical nature of the church, and our position in Christ.

In fact, if you do a search on the phrase 'in christ' or 'in him', you will find a significant revelation.