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]

Why do you think Catholics love their rosaries so much in the face of biblical injunction against ?vain? repetition?

"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." -- John 3:19

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Grace is irrelevant. It is by works and actions that Catholics are saved, according to papertyger. You can earn your way into Heaven, faith and Grace are not needed.

With zealots like that, there is no common ground. We are condemned to Hell in his own words, because we do not accept the exact same dogma as he espouses.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36

[Semper Mark]

Grace gives us the salvation that we don’t deserve and cannot merit.

By grace through faith.

[papertyger]

Be content where GOD has placed you.

I couldn't be content with a theology that "works" even when God's participation is not necessary.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Amen. It is all of free, unmerited grace from start to finish.

[bdeaner]

The same way the early Christians did.

The Early Christians Believed in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist

"Consider how contrary to the mind of God are the heterodox in regard to the grace of God which has come to us. They have no regard for charity, none for the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, none for the man in prison, the hungry or the thirsty. They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they do not admit that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, the flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His graciousness, raised from the dead."

-- St. Ignatius (50-circa 100)

[papertyger]

Then what good is grace?

Grace has no value if it's not a blank check?

[Semper Mark]

The flesh of Christ is his word.

Christ is The Word of God!

When you read it and believe it and apply to your life,
you consume it.

[bdeaner]

Grace gives us the salvation that we don’t deserve and cannot merit.

Yes, the Catholic Church agrees. We did nothing to deserve Salvation. We did nothing to deserve the instrumental means of grace available through the sacraments of the Church. But Our Lord in his infinite mercy chose to provide us this means to eternal life gratuitously, without merit. And we require the faith and hope, again given to us through grace and without merit, through which we can become one with Christ in His Church, through participation in the Sacraments. Not all have faith. Not all have hope. And therefore not all understand the grace available through the Church. Many choose to sever themselves from the Body of Christ, and as a result choose death for themselves rather than eternal life. Those who have faith and hope are obligated to pray for the conversion of these unfortunate souls.

God bless.

[bdeaner]

Christ is The Word of God!

When you read it and believe it and apply to your life, you consume it.

Yes, but that contradicts nothing I stated previously. Christ is not ONLY the Word; He is also the Bread of Life. And He is also the Head of the Church. As a lover of Our Lord's Word in Scripture, I implore you to read the whole of the scriptures, not merely those parts that suit your personal theology.

God bless.

[papertyger]

When you read it and believe it and apply to your life, you consume it.

Which is why Christ passed out little gideon bibles at the last supper, right?

[bdeaner]

And pssst. Read my tagline. ;)

[Semper Mark]

When I was saved by the grace of God through faith in my Savior Christ Jesus, I was born again into him.

I am now in Him, not Catholicism, not Protestantism, but in Him. In other words, now when a Holy God looks at me, He doesn't see the lowlife sinner Markos33, Praise God, He now sees Christ.

You can take your chances with anything else that you want, but I'm resting assured in Christ and His finished work on my behalf.

[bdeaner]

"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36

Yes, BELIEVE in what Christ instituted through His Church! Don't be afraid Dr. E! The sacraments are waiting for you if and when you are ready. ;)

I pray all will be given the grace and hope to believe in the Truth that is Christ's Mystical Body of the Church -- the instrumental means for our salvation.

[bdeaner]

You can take your chances with anything else that you want, but I'm resting assured in Christ and His finished work on my behalf.

I pray to the Lord in His Infinite Mercy that your faith is enough. I'd like to see you in Heaven with me. God bless.

[Semper Mark]

My faith isn't enough. Nothing about me is enough.

This is why I'm hiding in Him, for He is more than sufficient!

I'd like to see you in my eternal home someday too FRiend.

Trust in Christ and nothing else.

[bdeaner]

Trust in Christ and nothing else.

Amen. We are agreed. We just have different ideas about HOW to Trust in Christ.

Someday I will have to tell you my personal testimony about the incredible graces I have experienced participating in the sacraments. Through the sacrament of Confession, the Lord took away my desire for pornography -- it does nothing for me now. Those demons were chased away. Participation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist has transformed my life. I hear and read the Word and I also eat His Body and Drink His Blood. What a tremendous gift it is, for me, to stand before the Eucharist and KNOW, before me, that IS My Lord present materially in the flesh in the re-representation of His Sacrifice on Calvary. Wow! And to take the hidden manna of His Flesh into MY Body -- how can I not be changed? It brings me to my knees. I wish you could have that experience just once, and then maybe, just maybe you might understand where I'm coming from...

Sadly though, many Catholics take the Eucharist but do not really believe. They eat and drink judgment upon them selves, says the Word of God. I pray the Lord will be merciful with them -- I was once there myself.

God bless.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

I pray all will be given the grace and hope to believe in the Truth that is Christ's Mystical Body of the Church -- the instrumental means for our salvation.

The Pharisees thought their standing in the temple would save them, too.

We are not saved by an ecclesiastic hierarchy of fallen men. We are saved by Jesus Christ paying for every one of our sins in full, by the will of God for the glory of God.

Christ did not say to believe in mysticism and tyranny; in fables about Mary or lies about "another Christ."

He said "Believe in me and my righteousness; in the work I do on the cross for your sake.

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" -- Phil. 1:6

[Dr. Eckleburg]

What a tremendous gift it is, for me, to stand before the Eucharist and KNOW, before me, that IS My Lord present materially in the flesh

But that is not how Christ told us to worship him. We are spiritual beings and we are to worship and enjoy Him spiritually.

If the materialistic so enthralls you, it's too bad you don't experience the spiritual. It is far superior. As God wills.

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." -- 2 Corinthians 4:18