No Salvation Outside the Church

Catholic Answers ^ | 12/05 | Fr. Ray Ryland

[bdeaner]

Why does the Catholic Church teach that there is "no salvation outside the Church"? Doesn’t this contradict Scripture? God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Peter proclaimed to the Sanhedrin, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Since God intends (plans, wills) that every human being should go to heaven, doesn’t the Church’s teaching greatly restrict the scope of God’s redemption? Does the Church mean—as Protestants and (I suspect) many Catholics believe—that only members of the Catholic Church can be saved?

That is what a priest in Boston, Fr. Leonard Feeney, S.J., began teaching in the 1940s. His bishop and the Vatican tried to convince him that his interpretation of the Church’s teaching was wrong. He so persisted in his error that he was finally excommunicated, but by God’s mercy, he was reconciled to the Church before he died in 1978.

In correcting Fr. Feeney in 1949, the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a document entitled Suprema Haec Sacra, which stated that "extra ecclesiam, nulla salus" (outside the Church, no salvation) is "an infallible statement." But, it added, "this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church itself understands it."

Note that word dogma. This teaching has been proclaimed by, among others, Pope Pelagius in 585, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1214, Pope Innocent III in 1214, Pope Boniface VIII in 1302, Pope Pius XII, Pope Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Dominus Iesus.

Our point is this: When the Church infallibly teaches extra ecclesiam, nulla salus, it does not say that non-Catholics cannot be saved. In fact, it affirms the contrary. The purpose of the teaching is to tell us how Jesus Christ makes salvation available to all human beings.

Work Out Your Salvation

There are two distinct dimensions of Jesus Christ’s redemption. Objective redemption is what Jesus Christ has accomplished once for all in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension: the redemption of the whole universe. Yet the benefits of that redemption have to be applied unceasingly to Christ’s members throughout their lives. This is subjective redemption. If the benefits of Christ’s redemption are not applied to individuals, they have no share in his objective redemption. Redemption in an individual is an ongoing process. "Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for God is at work in you" (Phil. 2:12–13).

How does Jesus Christ work out his redemption in individuals? Through his mystical body. When I was a Protestant, I (like Protestants in general) believed that the phrase "mystical body of Christ" was essentially a metaphor. For Catholics, the phrase is literal truth.

Here’s why: To fulfill his Messianic mission, Jesus Christ took on a human body from his Mother. He lived a natural life in that body. He redeemed the world through that body and no other means. Since his Ascension and until the end of history, Jesus lives on earth in his supernatural body, the body of his members, his mystical body. Having used his physical body to redeem the world, Christ now uses his mystical body to dispense "the divine fruits of the Redemption" (Mystici Corporis 31).

The Church: His Body

What is this mystical body? The true Church of Jesus Christ, not some invisible reality composed of true believers, as the Reformers insisted. In the first public proclamation of the gospel by Peter at Pentecost, he did not invite his listeners to simply align themselves spiritually with other true believers. He summoned them into a society, the Church, which Christ had established. Only by answering that call could they be rescued from the "crooked generation" (Acts 2:40) to which they belonged and be saved.

Paul, at the time of his conversion, had never seen Jesus. Yet recall how Jesus identified himself with his Church when he spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus: "Why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4, emphasis added) and "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5). Years later, writing to Timothy, Paul ruefully admitted that he had persecuted Jesus by persecuting his Church. He expressed gratitude for Christ appointing him an apostle, "though I formerly b.asphemed and persecuted and insulted him" (1 Tim. 1:13).

The Second Vatican Council says that the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and the mystical body of Christ "form one complex reality that comes together from a human and a divine element" (Lumen Gentium 8). The Church is "the fullness of him [Christ] who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). Now that Jesus has accomplished objective redemption, the "plan of mystery hidden for ages in God" is "that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" (Eph. 3:9–10).

According to John Paul II, in order to properly understand the Church’s teaching about its role in Christ’s scheme of salvation, two truths must be held together: "the real possibility of salvation in Christ for all humanity" and "the necessity of the Church for salvation" (Redemptoris Missio 18). John Paul taught us that the Church is "the seed, sign, and instrument" of God’s kingdom and referred several times to Vatican II’s designation of the Catholic Church as the "universal sacrament of salvation":

"The Church is the sacrament of salvation for all humankind, and her activity is not limited only to those who accept her message" (RM 20).

"Christ won the Church for himself at the price of his own blood and made the Church his co-worker in the salvation of the world. . . . He carries out his mission through her" (RM 9).

In an address to the plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (January 28, 2000), John Paul stated, "The Lord Jesus . . . established his Church as a saving reality: as his body, through which he himself accomplishes salvation in history." He then quoted Vatican II’s teaching that the Church is necessary for salvation.

In 2000 the CDF issued Dominus Iesus, a response to widespread attempts to dilute the Church’s teaching about our Lord and about itself. The English subtitle is itself significant: "On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church." It simply means that Jesus Christ and his Church are indivisible. He is universal Savior who always works through his Church:

The only Savior . . . constituted the Church as a salvific mystery: He himself is in the Church and the Church is in him. . . . Therefore, the fullness of Christ’s salvific mystery belongs also to the Church, inseparably united to her Lord (DI 18).

Indeed, Christ and the Church "constitute a single ‘whole Christ’" (DI 16). In Christ, God has made known his will that "the Church founded by him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity" (DI 22). The Catholic Church, therefore, "has, in God’s plan, an indispensable relationship with the salvation of every human being" (DI 20).

The key elements of revelation that together undergird extra ecclesiam, nulla salus are these: (1) Jesus Christ is the universal Savior. (2) He has constituted his Church as his mystical body on earth through which he dispenses salvation to the world. (3) He always works through it—though in countless instances outside its visible boundaries. Recall John Paul’s words about the Church quoted above: "Her activity is not limited only to those who accept its message."

Not of this Fold

Extra ecclesiam, nulla salus does not mean that only faithful Roman Catholics can be saved. The Church has never taught that. So where does that leave non-Catholics and non-Christians?

Jesus told his followers, "I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16). After his Resurrection, Jesus gave the threefold command to Peter: "Feed my lambs. . . . Tend my sheep. . . . Feed my sheep" (John 21:15–17). The word translated as "tend" (poimaine) means "to direct" or "to superintend"—in other words, "to govern." So although there are sheep that are not of Christ’s fold, it is through the Church that they are able to receive his salvation.

People who have never had an opportunity to hear of Christ and his Church—and those Christians whose minds have been closed to the truth of the Church by their conditioning—are not necessarily cut off from God’s mercy. Vatican II phrases the doctrine in these terms: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their consciences—those too may achieve eternal salvation (LG 16).

Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery (Gaudium et Spes 22).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

Every man who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ and of his Church but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity (CCC 1260).

Obviously, it is not their ignorance that enables them to be saved. Ignorance excuses only lack of knowledge. That which opens the salvation of Christ to them is their conscious effort, under grace, to serve God as well as they can on the basis of the best information they have about him.

The Church speaks of "implicit desire" or "longing" that can exist in the hearts of those who seek God but are ignorant of the means of his grace. If a person longs for salvation but does not know the divinely established means of salvation, he is said to have an implicit desire for membership in the Church. Non-Catholic Christians know Christ, but they do not know his Church. In their desire to serve him, they implicitly desire to be members of his Church. Non-Christians can be saved, said John Paul, if they seek God with "a sincere heart." In that seeking they are "related" to Christ and to his body the Church (address to the CDF).

On the other hand, the Church has long made it clear that if a person rejects the Church with full knowledge and consent, he puts his soul in danger:

They cannot be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or remain in it (cf. LG 14).

The Catholic Church is "the single and exclusive channel by which the truth and grace of Christ enter our world of space and time" (Karl Adam, The Spirit of Catholicism, 179). Those who do not know the Church, even those who fight against it, can receive these gifts if they honestly seek God and his truth. But, Adam says, "though it be not the Catholic Church itself that hands them the bread of truth and grace, yet it is Catholic bread that they eat." And when they eat of it, "without knowing it or willing it" they are "incorporated in the supernatural substance of the Church."

Extra ecclesiam, nulla salus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Fr. Ray Ryland, a convert and former Episcopal priest, holds a Ph.D. in theology from Marquette University and is a contributing editor to This Rock. He writes from Steubenville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, Ruth.

[bdeaner]

Those aren't Catholic threads...

Oh so coy. Anybody with half a brain knows I meant threads on topics written from a Catholic perspective. All the roprobates are attracted to them like magnets to steel. Thou dost protest too much?

[driftdiver]

You raise a very good point. I took his comment in jest but I’d rather have a baptist President than a secular bonehead.

[Mr Rogers]

Baptist vary quite a bit. A long time ago, I was a summer missionary in Montana. We went to a different church each week. There were some great ones, but a couple had some of the meanest people you would ever wish to meet.

I believe the wheat & tares parable presents a real problem for ALL churches - how do you make sure the wheat dominates? Church discipline is a real part of what is meant by ‘power to loose and bind’, and all churches must exercise that power, or become corrupted by false christians - such as the party of circumcision that Paul opposed and Peter feared in Antioch.

I’m all for godly men affecting our country, but I believe this is done by evangelism. If we have a majority of believers in the country, or even a large minority, the country will do fine. Our current political trends are caused because America has, on the whole, turned its back on God. The coarsening of our culture since I’ve been born is terrifying to anyone who cares for America and loves God.

When I was young, a person who cussed in front of children would have been reprimanded by those around him. TV glorified families, not homosexuals. Shoot - even 20 years ago, I would never have thought anyone would take ‘homosexual rights’ seriously. You have a right to stick what where?! That’s GROSS!

But now it is accepted by the President of the USA.

When I was born, abortion was illegal. Now, Notre Dame honors a baby-killer who would allow post-birth abortions! Where is some of that ‘teaching authority’ & ‘binding’? Why didn’t the Pope step in and TELL Notre Dame to withdraw its invitation, and then investigate how anyone associated with the church could think that was a good idea?

One of the problems with the Catholic Church is that they tried to mix religious belief and political power together - for 1500 years! Not surprisingly, the tares became Popes, and gaining money and power overtook preaching to the lost. That was a huge factor in Luther’s work.

The Reformation took place because of corruption in the Catholic Church. That corruption was inevitable once the Popes became confused about who they needed to follow - Caesar or Christ.

I don’t condemn a state church for the state’s sake - I condemn it for the church’s sake!

[Petronski]

Scripture doesn't say that...

Scripture doesn't say sola Scriptura.

[Petronski]

How in the world is eating Jesus flesh a re-presentation of HIS sacrifice on the Cross...

It is His instruction. Perhaps you'll get a chance to ask Him.

[Petronski]

How did you guys turn it into YOU sacrificing Jesus???

The question is flawed on multiple levels.

[Petronski]

bdeaner: If it's so simple, why do none of the THOUSANDS of Protestant sects agree on it?

Iscool: How about you post a list of these 30,000 plus sects of Protestantism

That is a thoroughly and blatantly dishonest post. He said "THOUSANDS" not "30,000 plus."

Is the reader not supposed to notice that?

[Petronski]

And yes, Mary is dead..

She is not dead. You don't have that kind of power.

[Petronski]

There is no such entity as "Apostolic succession..."

Of course there is. It is historical fact, both in the teaching and writing on the doctrine and in the factual basis of the doctrine.

It cannot be willed away just because Calvin told one not to like it.

You don't have that kind of power.

[Iscool]

However, he willed that the effects and merits of his sacrifice be given continually to the Church.

Not only no, but it appears you don't understand why Jesus willing sacrificed His life...

We were sick, and when I say we, I mean born again Christians...Jesus offered the medicine...And we took the medicine...We took the cure...We are now well...

Because we took that medicine, we have become the Body of Jesus Christ, the church...

Jesus didn't die for the church...Jesus died for the sick...

Jesus willed that the effects and merits of his own, once for all sacrifice be given continually to the poor and needy in spirit, the sick, who after they take the medicine, will then in turn, be added to the church...

[Petronski]

Petronski, here's your Catholic sacrifice you couldn't find...

You misrepresent my words, as is per usual.

[Petronski]

Nobody sits around thinking of ways to reject the Catholic Church.

Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Knox, Machen, et cetera ad infinitum, not to mention the anti-Catholic dreck posted on Free Republic on an hourly basis.

[Iscool]

That's a silly comment. Why would the Catholic Church canonize a Bible that contradicts it's own dogma? Don't you think they would at least omit those books that do not fit their view, as Luther did when he omitted the deuterocanonicals and considered omitting James? Doesn't make any sense, because it's just not true.

Not silly at all...And there are two answers to that question...

That's God's book...It doesn't belong to your religion...If you took out the parts that condemned your church, your bible would be about the size of a comic book...A small comic book...

So your religion added to it to make it look like theirs...

And then your religion burned as many scriptures as they could get their hands on hoping to destroy the faith of millions....

But God honored His word...He preserved His word in your religion and outside of your religion thru all those Christians your church labeled as heretics while burning them at the stake...

Your church made the scriptures unavailable to the general public for centuries...They were afraid people would find out what's in the scriptures...

I read that even priests were prohibited and definitely discouraged from reading the scriptures...

But they couldn't get away with it forever...And they didn't...And look what happened when those scriptures got into the hands of the people...Millions upon millions of people turned to Jesus, side-stepping your popes and religion...

[Iscool]

It is His instruction. Perhaps you'll get a chance to ask Him.

Well maybe it's in some of your neuteredcomicals but it certainly isn't in the scriptures...

[Iscool]

The question is flawed on multiple levels.

A smart man knows there are no stupid questions...Just stupid answers...

[Iscool]

Hey Petronski, do you believe this verse???

Rom 15:20 Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation:

[Marysecretary]

I read the article. Very revealing about how they REALLY feel about Mary. She seems to be placed on an even keel with Jesus in our salvation. Heresy, indeed.

[Marysecretary]

I went to a Catholic Church in Watertown, NY, after singing at a friend’s wedding the day before. There was a bill coming up to try and stop gambling events there and the priest told everyone to vote against stopping the gambling because the church made so much money at their annual event. THAT turned me off the Church.

[Marysecretary]

LOL, I think at least two of them are.

[Marysecretary]

Yep, ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, including Mary!