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]

He did, LOL.

[Petronski]

As if you understand what he’s talking about.

[Petronski]

Thinks he’s stealing my money.

You're not a very good mindreader.

[Marysecretary]

NOT one universal Catholic church. Universal catholic church. A big difference.

[Iscool]

The term "co-redemptrix" is properly translated "the woman with the redeemer" or more literally "she who buys back with [the redeemer]." The prefix "co" comes from the Latin term "cum" which means "with" and not "equal to." Co-redemptrix therefore as applied to Mary refers to her exceptional cooperation with and under her divine son Jesus Christ, in the redemption of the human family, as manifested in Christian Scripture.

Uh, Mary was NEVER manifested in scripture to be a co-redemtrix...That's an illusion by your religion

Americans know what 'co' represents, in English...AMericans know what Redeemer means, in English...

Then you guys use the term Redemtrix...Then you say co-redemtrix...But you never, ever use the term 'Cum-Redemtrix' as you claim it really is...

Coupled with the fact that so many in your religion have petitioned to have your infallible magisterium turn Mary in to the 4th person of the Trinity, I don't buy your explanation...

And then after looking at some of your Catholic prayers to Mary and even your claims that Mary participates in your salvation, I can see your definition of co-redemtrix is just a smokescreen to those of us outside your religion...

All Christians are rightly called to be co-workers or "co-redeemers" with Jesus Christ (cf. Col. 1:24) in the reception and cooperation with grace necessary for our own redemption and the redemption of others -

Not in my God's Christianity...

Fellow laborers, yes...We plant and water, yes...

But the Harvest, the Redemptions belongs to Jesus and Jesus alone...There's that alone word again...Don't you just hate that...

personal subjective redemption made possible by the historic objective redemption or "buying back" accomplished by Jesus Christ, the "New Adam," the Redemptor, and Mary, the "New Eve," the Co-redemptrix.

the New EVE??? There is no NEW EVE in the Scriptures...God didn't put any emphasis on the 'old' Eve and He certainly never mentioned a new Eve, nor does He ever allude to one...Just more attempts by your religion to elevate Mary to the position of the Mother of God, the Queen of Heaven that God warned us about in the OT...

[CTrent1564]

PugetSoundSoldier:

I am not trying to get into a “tit for tat” match with you, but what Petronski was implicitly stating is that there are different levels of authority with respect to Catholic Teaching.

I have a link from the Catholic Church at Texas A&M University, which is one of the largest Catholic Campus ministries in the Country, which does a concise job of making the distinctions between the levels of Catholic teaching.

http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/2009/05/dogma-vs-doctrine.html

For example, you will see in Level 1, dogmas and Doctrines that are related to Creedal statements, or that are not inconcistent with Scripture. For example, the author points out that Christ is “True God and True Man”, which is from the Council of Nicea (325 AD) and thus all Truths in the Nicene and Apostles Creeds are binding for all Catholics [e.g. Holy Trinity, Incarnation, Passion/Death and Resurrection and Ascension of Christ; One Baptism for the Forgiveness of Sins, the 4 Marks of the Church {One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic}, the resurrection of the dead].

Level 2 teachings, for example, include the definitive teaching on the Biblical Canon, which was not settled until the late 4th century. So, the first 370 years of Christianity did not have a settled New Testament, as that was not settled until the the time of St. Jerome [who translated the Bible into Latin, at the request of Pope Damasus, which was the Latin Vulgate, which has the same 73 books in the Catholic canon today], the time of St. Augustine [who defended the same canon that Catholics have today], and the Councils at Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD) and the Letter by Pope Innocent to the Bishops in the region of Gaul. Here is a good article on the formation of the Canon from NewAdvent.org, which documents with precision the fact that even into the 4th century, the Letter of Hebrews and Revelation were still disputed, which of course are in your canon, following the authority of the Catholic Church, and us Catholics.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

Level 3 teachings include such things as the discipline of celibacy, which is not a doctrine and can be changed or suspended for example, for priests in the Latin Rite who are ordained as married priests [i.e. married Anglican and Lutheran clergy, such as the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, etc].

Regards

[Petronski]

NOT one universal Catholic church. Universal Catholic Church. A big difference.

Just your shoddy capitalization. But I fixed it.

[Petronski]

Americans know what 'co' represents, in English...AMericans know what Redeemer means, in English...

Yes, and the point is that deconstructing it that way, in English, distorts the original meaning, rendered in Latin.

Coupled with the fact that so many in your religion have petitioned to have your infallible magisterium turn Mary in to the 4th person of the Trinity...

That's a filthy lie.

[Mr Rogers]

Faith Alone does not, in any way, equal Intellectual Assent.

The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith

Chapter 14: Saving Faith

14.1 The grace of faith (by which the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls) is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts. It is normally brought into being by the ministry of the Word. It is increased and strengthened by the ministry of the Word, and by the administration of baptism and the Lord's supper, prayer, and other means appointed by God.

14.2 By this faith, a Christian believes to be true whatever is revealed in the Word for it is the authority of God himself. We also perceive an excellency in the Word above all other writings and everything else in the world, because it shows forth the glory of God and his attributes, the excellency of Christ and his nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit in his works and operations.

So believers are enabled to trust implicitly the truth they have believed, and to respond appropriately to each particular passage in Scripture, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come.

But the principal acts of saving faith are those directly to do with Christ—accepting, receiving, and resting on him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life, by virtue of the covenant of grace.

14.3 This faith may differ in degree, and may be weak or strong, yet even at its weakest it is different in kind and nature (as is all saving grace) from the faith and common grace of temporary believers. Therefore, though it may be frequently attacked and weakened, it gains the victory, and develops in many until they attain full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

[Marysecretary]

With Peter, etc. is utter nonsense. You folks really need to get a grip on what’s really true.

[Marysecretary]

Noop, not at Elim.

[Marysecretary]

Nope, Nothing shoddy about my capitalization. YOU are the one who is wrong.

[Iscool]

My parents were brought up in the Norwegian Lutheran Church and were married in one here in the US but because there was no Lutheran church in town, they went to the Episcopal Church instead, where I was until a teenager

My inlaws parents: One side came from Norway and the other from Lithuania...The father in law has close ties to relatives in Norway...Has visited a number of tmes...Some from Norway came here to visit...

Guess I was expecting aliens from another planet but they seemed to as normal as we are...lol...Are we normal???

[stfassisi]

So is that a “no,” you do NOT trust yourself, and the good and pure testimony of your God-given conscience?

I just told you that I trust my perception of sacrificial love being Christlike in the lives of the Saints. Thus,I consciously believe that all TRUE love is grounded in Christ.

Again, I don't see that reflection of TRUE and sacrificial love in the teachings of calvinism. I consciously reject many of calvin's teachings.

[Iscool]

Perhaps you can explain to your (our) Protestant Brother why it's heresy to reject the Nicene Creed. A big fan of Arius, apparently? For some anti-Catholic people, I can say "white is white," and he or she would say "No, it's black," merely because it is the words of a Catholic.

I have come to realize that when something is a heresy to your religion, one might be able to wear that as a badge of honor...

[Petronski]

The Catholic Church is the pillar and foundation of Truth. It is Christ’s promise to us.

[stfassisi]

The Scriptures you wrongly interpret are in conflict with these ones....

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. “ The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” John 6:51-54

If you REALLY believe in Jesus Christ, you would believe what He said, and not your own private ideas and interpretations. The Church has taught it for 2000 years, but you seem to think you know better. Perhaps you need to worry whether you’re reject Christ

“He that hears you hears me, and he that despises you despises me, and he that despises me despises him that sent me.” Luke 10:16

I’m Off to Adoration Of the Blessed Sacrament-I’ll pray for you

[Marysecretary]

Yes we’re normal. LOL. I went to Norway with my mother in 1983. It was wonderful to meet my relatives there. They all speak English. I would love to go back again. Two of my cousins have visited us, one twice. Nice, Nice, people.

[Marysecretary]

I don’t need to be. Your comments say it clearly enough.

[Marysecretary]

Yes, the universal catholic church is. The Catholic Church is not.