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.

[Marysecretary]

Don’t confuse him with facts. His mind is made up.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Eleven of the 12 apostles were married.

And according to this Roman Catholic priest, 39 popes have been married. Wonder if they had a prenup? I bet those custody battles over ermine robes and red velvet shoes got pretty nasty.

39 POPES WERE MARRIED

[Iscool]

There is no evidence that the letters of Paul, written before most of the rest of the NT, were written by him with the understanding that they would be considered Scripture.

What nonsense...Paul was the apostle to the adopted church (not Peter or any person thruout history that you claim succeeded Peter)...Paul knew and confirmed that what he preached was sanctioned by God...And it was such a big deal that every Christian was directed to their contents...

Col 4:16 And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.

1Th 5:27 I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.

It may not have been written by Peter; scholars have placed it anywhere from 60 to 160 AD.

Only so-called Catholic scholars...

Revelation is the last book in the Holy line of scripture...Revelation covers the return of Jesus right up on thru the final judgment, the end of the earth and our new home in Heaven...

There was nothing written after that and no need for it...

And the book of Revelation was written before the 1st Century had run it's course...

[Marysecretary]

The bird is the middle finger...LOL. I’m surprised he didn’t know that.

[Marysecretary]

LOL. Amen!

[Marysecretary]

Don’t forget the funny hats...

[Iscool]

At any rate, Paul thought that celibacy for the Catholic priesthood was a good thing. But I keep forgetting: you guys don’t believe in Paul’s words; you only keep a few out of context verses and warp them into a mockery of Christian beliefs

You forgot the parts where Paul said it's a good thing if God called a person to be so...Paul knowing it would be extremely rare, made sure we (and YOU) know that leaders in the church are to be married with families...

If you actually read the scriptures, you know it's there...And the verses are not Mystical, Mysterious, or Magic...They are plain and clear...

[bdeaner]

They sure do. Some constantly say our interpretation isn’t a valid one but, of course, their magesterium’s is. Arrogant.

So are you claiming BOTH interpretations are correct? That's what your statement implies. Otherwise, your charge of arrogance is hypocritical because it is based on a double-standard.

So, from where I'm standing, your statement is either an endorsement of relativism or hypocrisy.

The fact of the matter is, it's NOT arrogant to stand up for the Truth, especially when you are willing to put your life on the line to defend it. Ask any soldier and he will agree:



God bless.

[Marysecretary]

Or marriage annulments.

[Marysecretary]

Lotsa luck on that!

[Marysecretary]

Excellent.

[CTrent1564]

Mr Rogers:

In no way was St. Paul refuting St. Peter’s office as an Apostle, you are reading what you want to read in the text. I stand by my original statement that what St. Peter was guilty of, was sin, not a doctrine. And in no way was St. Paul preaching something that was not in conformity with what the other Apostles preached. IT seems in Galations 2,that St. Paul is claiming that it was his argument that won the the day with respect to Gentile Converts not being circumcized. However, in Acts 15: 7-11, the credit is given to Peter. Regardless, the fact is that gentile converts were not circumcized, before being baptized into the Church. This was the main doctrinal point. The fact that Peter would not participate in fellowship/communion with the gentiles, is not a doctrine. It could be stated that Peter was being hypocritical [which later, St. Paul states c.f. Gal 2:13], or in fact, engaging an sinful and uncharitable behavior and Paul corrected him.

Pauls statement about James, Kephas, and John being reputed pillars is a statement that he [Paul] is not overawed by the prestige that the 3 original apostles had as being eyewitnesses to Christ life. It in no way challenged them or their authority as such. Nor, did the dispute over the dietary laws, documented in Acts 15 and Galations 1 and 2, cause St. Paul to break communion with the Church. The Letter to the Galatians was after St. Paul visited that area (c.f. Acts 16 and Acts 18) and in Acts 21, we see St. Paul going to visit St. James, who was the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. So again, whatever you say about the dispute in Acts 15, also recorded in Galatians 1, Paul did not break communion with the other Apostles.

Regards

[Mr Rogers]

I like & respect bdeaner, and believe this thread was started by him in response to a private email I sent him. I enjoy reading his posts and appreciate the chance to discuss these issues with him.

However, how is “Protestants have your own traditions of interpreting the Bible. They just deny them, which is bad faith and false witness.” not personal. I’m a Protestant, so do I act in bad faith and false witness?

I’ve read every post on this thread. papertyger’s “Neither do you; the difference is we admit it.” is one of the mildest ‘personal’ statements on this thread.

See post 448, 426, 423, 417, 404, 402...like the sidebar discussion on who tortured who when, and who approves of it - plenty of mud has been slung around.

On a previous thread, I disparaged bdeaner & bronxville, both of whom I’ve come to sincerely appreciate. It is possible, even after getting a bit personal, to develop friendship and respect.

As Moderator, you have to do what you have to do, but it seems a bit uneven to me. Frankly, I thought this thread was getting a bit personal by post #4, when bdeaner’s article was described as “the same kind of Catholic Cult mentality that some of those ‘Radio Replies’ come from.” It I were him, I’d have taken that a bit personally...

[Marysecretary]

You got that right and it’s the same in every Catholic thread. You try and explain truth to them and they explode with wrath. Nothing new here.

[Marysecretary]

Careful. They think Jesus and the disciples were Catholic.

[Marysecretary]

That’s funny...laugh lines, tee hee.

[Mr Rogers]

I didn’t mean to suggest that Paul didn’t think Peter was an Apostle, only that he did not consider him to be first among equals, let alone supreme.

And if you compel someone to do something, it sure SEEMS like it involves teaching or instruction, not just behavior.

Perhaps my military time biases my interpretation - I was once threatened with court-martial for a milder statement than Paul’s!

BTW - I wasn’t court-martialed. The other high ranking officers told my commander that I was well known for having a somewhat odd perspective on life. And since I was a couple of weeks away from a transfer...

[Marysecretary]

He left the Holy Spirit. HE is our rudder.

[Marysecretary]

AMEN. YOU win the big ceegar.

[Religion Moderator]

For something to be "making it personal" it must be reading the mind of, attributing motives to, or making the thread "about" an individual Freeper.

Entire beliefs or groups that hold certain beliefs may be ridiculed or demeaned on "open" threads in the Religion Forum.

I can and do intervene to prevent posters from "making it personal" but there is nothing I can do - or would do - for posters who "take it personally" other than to point out that thin-skinned posters should ignore "open" RF threads altogether and instead post to the other thread types: "prayer" "devotional" "caucus" or "ecumenical."