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.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I told you where to find out what the Catholic Church calls itself.

Right behind these doors...

[Petronski]

Yet another attempt to twist words and deflect away from what you are saying.

To deflect away from what I am saying? What I say cannot possibly deflect away from what I say, since it IS what I say.

I think what I'm doing is deflecting away from what you're trying to get me to say.

[driftdiver]

You mean there’s NOT two Catholic churches? And here I thought there was Roman Catholic and just Catholic somehow all answering to the same pope.

I’m sure it makes sense somwhere on the planet.

[Petronski]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

You are reading a sign indicating what that parish calls itself.

I am talking about what the Catholic Church calls itself.

[driftdiver]

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

[Petronski]

You know the sense it makes?

The anti-Catholic hatred in some hearts is so intense, those souls cannot even bring themselves to refer to the Catholic Church by her proper name.

I’m just not going to play along with the hate.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

And before they try to tell you the article doesn't say what it most obviously says, check this out...

CATHOLIC CHURCH ONLY TRUE CHURCH, VATICAN SAYS

The Vatican issued a document Tuesday restating its belief that the Catholic Church is the only true church of Jesus Christ.

The 16-page document was prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a doctrinal watchdog that Pope Benedict used to head...

The document adds that Protestant denominations — called Christian Communities born out of the Reformation — are not true churches, but ecclesial communities...

I'm probably too late, however. They always tell us what we're reading isn't what the printed word says.

[driftdiver]

“The anti-Catholic hatred in some hearts is so intense,”

No hatred on my side.

“those souls cannot even bring themselves to refer to the Catholic Church by her proper name.”

That has nothing to do with it. Some catholic activists like yourself take offense if you say roman catholic and some take offense if you say catholic. Its purely a shell game. Your refusal to answer direct questions and instead quibble over whether its roman catholic or catholic is disingenuous at best.

“I’m just not going to play along with the hate.”

The only hate on this thread is coming from you.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

It's just a worn-out tactic to deflect the discussion into meaninglessness because they're losing on points. I wonder how many Roman Catholics eschew the self-identification of "Roman Catholic."

I know of one.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

That’s NOT what the book says. lol.

[Petronski]

Its purely a shell game.

The Church calls herself what she does.

The shell game is in your head.

The only hate on this thread is coming from you.

I certainly hate lies about the Catholic Church.

[driftdiver]

The ‘Catholic’ church is run by the pope, the pope resides in Rome. The center of power for the catholic church is Rome. All important decisions come from Rome.

Hence the Roman Catholic Church.

[driftdiver]

“I certainly hate lies about the Catholic Church.”

And yet you are ok with lying about what the Bible says, thats interesting.

[Petronski]

The Catholic Church is run by the Pope...

You're doing well.

...the pope resides in Rome....

Bzzzt. Wrong.

The center of power for the Catholic Church is Rome.

False.

All important decisions come from Rome.

False again: 25% is a failing grade.

[Petronski]

And yet you are ok with lying about what the Bible says.

Disagreeing with your own personal interpretation of Scripture is not lying about the Bible. You don't have that kind of power.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I'm not a Roman Catholic. I've told you time and time again, I've never been to Italy.

If you went to Italy, would you be a Roman Catholic?

[Niteflyr]

“whoever wants truth and light can find it for themselves.”
....it does not require sanctioning by a man-made religious organization...

[Petronski]

If I changed my residence to Rome I’d be a Roman.

Since I’m a Catholic, I would then be a Roman Catholic.

[driftdiver]

Go to Google or Yahoo maps and look it up. The Vatican is 2.8 miles from the center of Rome. Many Catholics will refer to ‘Rome’ when refering to the Pope.

you know what they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do.

So again you can parse words but it only makes you look foolish and your argument completely useless.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

From HERE we also learn...

"Catechism of the Council of Trent." - Previously known as the "Roman Catechism," this authoritative catechism was produced by the Council of Trent and originally published in 1566. St. Pius IV and participants in the Council he convened during the Protestant Reformation recognized the need for a systematic explanation of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, organized for methodical instruction of the faithful, still serves as an excellent compendium of the Church's doctrine and life. Scholars and amateur Church historians will certainly want to have this primary source close at hand. 672 pp.

This document was produced in Italy, but they've STILL dropped the title "Roman."

I guess they're trying to sound more ecumenical -- "all other churches but the Catholic church (formerly Roman Catholic church) are defective."