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.

[Petronski]

The sacred writings known to Timothy at the time Paul wrote to him.

Actually, Paul is referring to the sacred writings that existed from the time of Timothy's childhood:

...from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom...

Using your interpretation excludes a lot--or all--of Paul's writings. And how old was Timothy? If he's older than the Gospels, your interpretation might well exclude them too.

Thus your interpretation must be rejected.

And still no sola Scriptura.

[Marysecretary]

Absolutely not. Such foolishness. You misinterpret Luther boldly.

[Petronski]

But you admitted that Catholic with a capital C is a proper noun...

Uh, no. I didn't "admit" anything. I said that "Catholic Church" is a proper noun. I did not say "Catholic" is a proper noun.

[Petronski]

Absolutely not.

Sure! Go ahead! Luther says it's okay.

Such foolishness.

I agree: Luther's "Sin Boldly" is a load of foolishness.

You misinterpret Luther boldly.

Suuuuuure.

[Mr Rogers]

They both were adopted once. I didn’t need to repeat their adoption every time they screwed up.

Hardly the same thing, even remotely.

---

Romans 8

“13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”

Mind you, I’m not saying ‘Invite Jesus into your life, then live as you please’. Verse 15 follows verse 13. In fact, I dislike the phrase ‘invite Jesus into your life’, since we are called to death and a new birth - not a house guest, or friend who comes over for tea.

If you are a son, then you are a son. Period. If you have been united with Christ in baptism, you have died to the Law. Romans 6 “4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.”

This speaks of justification - “has made perfect forever”, not sanctification - “those who are being made holy”. But neither does it deny the need for sanctification. It is NOT a license to sin, for we have been saved “so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.”

And the same Paul who wrote those verses also wrote, “16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Paul would not have written that warning unless it was needed. And look at what he was warning against! “Idolatry, sorcery...drunkenness, orgies”!

But the ongoing need for sanctification doesn’t cancel out the past act of justification.

---

“16.5 We cannot, even by our best works, merit pardon of sin or eternal life from the hand of God, for those works are out of all proportion to the glory to come. [1] Moreover, because of the infinite distance that is between us and God, our works can neither benefit God nor satisfy the debt of our former sins. When we have done all we can, we have only done our duty, and are still unprofitable servants. [2] Besides, if our works are good they originate from the Spirit, [3] and whatever we do is defiled and mixed with so much weakness and imperfection that it cannot endure the severity of God’s judgment. [4]

1. Romans 8:18
2. Job 22:3 Job 35:7 Luke 17:10 Romans 4:3 Romans 11:3
3. Galatians 5:22-23
4. 1 Kings 8:46 2 Chronicles 6:36 Psalms 130:3 Psalms 143:2 Proverbs 20:9 Ecclesiastes 7:20 Romans 3:9,23 Romans 7:14-15 Galatians 5:17 1 John 1:6-10

16.6 Yet, although believers are accepted as individual people through Christ, their good works also are accepted in Christ. [1] It is not as though in this life they were entirely blameless and beyond censure in God’s sight, [2] but that he looks upon them in his Son, and is pleased to accept and reward what is sincere, even though it is accompanied by many weaknesses and imperfections. [3]

1. Exodus 28:38 Ephesians 1:6-7 1 Peter 2:5
2. 1 Kings 8:46 2 Chronicles 6:36 Psalms 130:3 Psalms 143:2 Proverbs 20:9 Ecclesiastes 7:20 Romans 3:9,23 Romans 7:14-15 Galatians 5:17 1 John 1:6-10
3. Hebrews 6:10 Matthew 25:21,23

---

Romans 8

31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

[Mr Rogers]

I think Marysecretary is less concerned with the Saints who gave us the canon than the church as it became during the next 1000+ years as a state church.

[Mr Rogers]

“What makes you think that your interpretations of scripture are guided by the Holy Spirit and should be elevated above the Saints who gave you Bible canon?”

Again, I think her concern is more with the state church as it developed from 400AD thru the Reformation.

However, I would point out that each of us will stand before God. Christians will not be judged on their sins (”18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”), but their work will be tested by fire, to see if they built on the Foundation with stone or straw. If we will be judged individually, then we must make the best use of our judgment to determine how we live & build.

In the military, saying you did something against your best judgment because so & so told you to do so only works if so & so is your commanding officer, and he gave you a direct, lawful order. Otherwise, it is quibbling.

[wmfights]

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. - John 6:63

Wonderful post sister.

I believe this is the Scripture that Zwingili kept quoting to Luther to try and explain to him why his belief in consubstantiation was wrong. IIRC, Luther refused to listen but his second realized Zwingili was correct.

[Mr Rogers]

“So Sola Scriptura means you get to pick and choose which parts of Scripture to follow and which ones you don’t? “

No, I’m using the rest of the Bible to interpret each section. No where are we DIRECTED to follow this example, and elsewhere we are given direction such as ‘If he won’t work, he won’t eat’. Elsewhere, we have the example of Paul and others working.

I give regularly to support missionaries who devote themselves full time to preaching to the lost. I give to help the poor. But I do not sell everything, because it is not directed, and there are other examples leading me to think it doesn’t apply universally.

An example of how this works - last week, my Baptist pastor preached on fasting. Like most Baptists, I’m fonder of pot lucks than fasting. However, he pointed out that Jesus didn’t say IF you fast, but WHEN you fast.

Excellent point. I need to start fasting with some regularity. It isn’t what I want, but it IS directed in scripture.

[Mr Rogers]

“May I ask what you are reading at this time on the history of the Reformation?”

Right now, I’m finishing a short history of the Reformation, “The Reformation of the 16th Century” by Bainton. I would have finished it yesterday if I hadn’t taken a blow to the face Monday (accident) that has left me with bloody sinuses. Happily, they seem to be healing. I skipped from Luther to the Anabaptist, and need to go back and read about Calvin and Anglicans.

I also told another FReeper I would read a biography on Nathan Forrest...although I’ve misplaced the book.

I’m open to suggestions on church history, although finances mean I might not get to them for a few weeks.

[Mr Rogers]

You only have to ask Jesus ONCE to come into your life. ONCE.

After that, sin boldly!

---

That is as accurate as a Protestant calling Mary a moon-goddess.

[CTrent1564]

Mr. Rogers:

Fair post.

With respect to the Deuterocanonicals [Tobit, Baruch, Judith, Sirach, Wisdom and 1 and 2 Macabees], I would like to quote the Anglican Patristic Scholar JND Kelly who in his book “Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 53-54” provides solid evidence that the Dueterocanonicals were recognized as the Canonical Old Testament in the early Church, and thus were used in the defense of orthodox Apostolic Tradition. Kelly writes:

“It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was . . . the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. . . . most of the Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew.. . . In the first two centuries . . . the Church seems to have accepted all or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture.

Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas. . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon [i.e., the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel], and Baruch. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary”

I will cite a few examples starting with the Didache, dated late 1st century, which is viewed as an instruction manual for catechumans, quotes from Sirach, found in the LXX as it states “You shall not waver with regard to your decision [Sir 1:28]….Do not e someone who stretches out his hand to receive but withdraws them when it comes to giving [Sir 4:31] {See Didache 4:5)

St. Clement of Rome (4th Bishop of Rome) in his Letter to the Corinthian Church in the East (i.e. the first example of an exercising the Primacy of the Church of Rome) writes “By the word of his might [God] established all things, and by his word he can overthrow them. Who shall say to him, what have you done? Or who shall resist the power of his strength” [Wisdom 12:12] (See Letter of Corinthian Church 27:5)

The letter above by Clement can be seen as being consistent with the Doctrine of Catholicity and Unity in the Church [Body of Christ]

St. Polycarp of Smyrna, wrote :Stand fast, therefore, in these things, and follow the example of the Lord, being firm and unchangeable in faith, loving the brotherhood [1 Pet 2:7]….When you can do good, defer it not, because alms delivers from death [Tobit 4:10; 12:9] (Letter to the Philadelphians 19 {AD 135}]

St. Irenaues of Lyons, in Against Heresies quotes from the Chapter 13 of Daniel, which is found in the LXX version. He also writes “Look around Jerusalem toward the east and behold the joy which comes to you from God himself. Behold your sons whom you have sent forth shall come: They shall come in a band from the east to the west. God shall go before you in the light of his splendor, with the mercy and righteousness which proceed from him [Baruch 4:36, 5:9].

In summary, without getting into every specific doctrinal link for every quote from the Deuterocanonicals cited above, I think the evidence suggests that they were indeed used in defense of Apostolic Tradition versus the various unorthodox groups of the 2nd century, ie. Docetist, Gnostics, Marcions, etc.

Regards

[Petronski]

That is as accurate as a Protestant calling Mary a moon-goddess.

Except that Catholics do not say Mary is a moon-goddess, but Luther did say sin boldly.

[Petronski]

In that same letter, Luther wrote "No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day."

Go ahead and kill thousands of times a day and see if you are saved.

[Mr. Lucky]

When do you think this use first occurred?

[CTrent1564]

Mr. Rogers:

I would suggest 2 books, neither of which were written by Catholics, but both personally find are well done. First, “The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine: Vol 1, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), by Jaroslav Pelikan. For the record, he was a Lutheran when he did the work, but later in life became an Eastern Orthodox Christian, due to his ancestry on one of his parents side being Eastern European. He had a great respect for the Western Catholic Tradition and wrote a moving editorial about John Paul II, after his death, and the workd JPII did to heal the breach between Rome and the East.

The second work, much more pithy, is a work by the Anglican Church History scholar Henry Chadwhich called The Early Church published in The Penguin History of the Church.

Hope this helps

[Mr Rogers]

I need to go exercise the horses...I’ll try to reply later today or tomorrow. Luther was fond of hyperbole - as am I. However, hyperbole causes confusion as well...I learned, in the military, to be careful in using it!

[Petronski]

Hyperbole is a million billion times worse than you claim!

[bdeaner]

So what do you do with the fact that Revelation says there are 7 churches and their doctrines leaves 5 of them coming up short. Only two have the key to David, apparently a prerequisite to be that ‘church’ with sound doctrine.

John is talking about the seven churches in Asia that he is writing to about his apocalyptic vision. They are not THE CHURCH, but rather churches, or what today we'd call individual diocese, or arch-diocese, within which individual parishes ("churches") exist under a bishop. Also, they do not represent different "denominations," but all the same CHURCH (Capital "C"), under the See of Peter. Further, John is not making a prediction or prophecy about seven churches in the future -- these diocese are contemporary to his time.

AND that thief hanging upon that cross did NOT need a ‘church’ to be offered salvation.

I think the difficulty here is that you seem to be taking a contemporary, Protestant understanding of the term church and reading it into the Bible and past history. This is a meaning I think you are imposing on the text, rather than attempting to understand what the Scriptures themselves mean by Church. My last post was a fairly in-depth reading of the Biblical, New Testament meaning of Church, and many (if not all) of its analogies and implications. Perhaps you can take a look at that again, and let me know if you object to any of my exegesis and if so, why. it would help me if you could point to particular chapters and verse with reference what I stated in that email on the Church.

One of the most striking teachings of Christ, and especially St. Paul's teachings in his letters, is that the Church is Christ's Body. So, when the thief is told by Christ that He will be with Him in Paradise, the thief at that moment is already participating in the CHURCH because He is participating in Christ. Christ IS the Church. His people are the Church that compose His Body. When the thief has faith in Christ, he at that moment enters into the Church, and Christ recognizes this, so He is granted what the Catholic Church calls a "baptism of desire." The good thief is granted entrance into Heaven because he desires baptism, even if he did not ever literally participate in the sacrament of Baptism.

Now when does ‘church’ worship become the object of worship as replacement of the Heavenly Father and His Sent Savior?

Again, I think this is a misreading of the Biblical meaning of the term Church. The Church for Christ and his followers is not just a worship service on Sunday. It composes an entire body of believers and their entire lives and activities, not just in a building somewhere, but in their families, at work, and even at play. God is everywhere, and wherever His people go, that is the Church.

The Catholic Church does not call Sunday services a "church" or "worship" service, although worship is something that happens there. What happens is the Mass. The Mass is certainly an important part of the Church, but it is not all that the Church is -- nevertheless it is a very sacred time and place in which the people of the Lord's Church are fed Christ's Body and Blood in order to take Him back into the world. The word "Mass" actually has the meaning of a 'sending forth.' It is about taking Christ into our bodies and minds, and bringing Him to the rest of the world in our thoughts, actions, and words. Wherever that is happening, there is the Church.

The Catholic Mass -- which in all essential details is the exact same liturgy used by the early Christians at the time of the Apostles and thereafter -- is very different than a lot of Protestant "worship services" and is not understood in the same way. It can be difficult for many Protestants to grasp what the Mass is about. Heck, it is difficult enough for Catholics to understand what it is about! But nevertheless what happens at Mass is not the entire whole of the "Church"--it is an important part of course. Just not the whole. The Church is the Body of Christ operating materially in the world as an instrumental means for bringing grace to His people from now and until the end of time -- wherever and however that is happening. And no doubt that grace is flowing in many Protestant people, and also, sadly, not flowing in many Catholic people. It's not about being a denomination -- it's about being Christ's people, period. One, universal, united people under the one Truth of Christ's Body operating in the world, bringing His grace into the lives of all who are His adopted children. I believe this is the message revealed in Vatican II, infallibly.

That miracle that took place at the flesh death of our Savior says the ‘veil’ in the holy of holies was rent from top to bottom and no longer was it required to go through a flesh priest to have direct access to the Heavenly Father but through His Sent Savior.

I have an answer for this, but I have already gone on too long, and I need some coffee! I will get to this a little later.

Thanks for the discussion! I hope we both learn a lot from it. God bless.