R
reyesj
Guest
The Church is the body of Christ formed of those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior.A sincere faithful Catholic friend posed this question to me and I’d like some clear, cogent responses to his inquiry:
This has been bothering me for the last few years and I’ve come to a point where I really need someone to give me a clear answer.
On the subject of the absolute necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation, there is, first of all, the Athanasian Creed, which begins: “Whoever wishes to be saved must, first of all, hold the Catholic faith, which, unless a man shall have held it whole and inviolate, he will most certainly perish forever.” This is not only a Creed of the Catholic Church that one must believe to be Catholic, but the Athanasian Creed was also part of the Church’s public liturgy. Before Vatican II, it was recited at the Office of Prime on Trinity Sunday.
As for the doctrine “Out-side the Church there is no salvation,” it has been three times defined by the Catholic Church. The most explicit and forceful of these three ex cathedra pronouncements is from the Council of Florence under Pope Eugene IV. Here the Church declared infallibly:
“The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire ‘which was prepared for the devil and his angels,’ (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with her; and that so important is the unity of this Ecclesiastical Body, that only those remaining within this unity can profit from the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and that they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, almsdeeds, and other works of Christian piety and duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”[Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, February 4, 1442]
This truth is taught repeatedly by the Popes, Saints and holy Doctors throughout the centuries. There is no deviation from one Pope to the next. It is one unchanging doctrine taught from Apostolic times. In fact, according to the perennial teaching of the Church, the dogmatic First Vatican Council, and the Oath Against Modernism, a Pope is not allowed to change any of the doctrines of the Church, since the they are not his to change. Nor is it possible for a Pope to change an objective truth divinely revealed by God. Nor is a Pope allowed to explain doctrine in a manner differently from what the Church always held. To use the words of Vatican I, “The meaning of Sacred Dogmas, which must always be preserved, is that which our Holy Mother the Church has determined. Never is it permissible to depart from this in the name of a deeper understanding.” [Vatican I, Session III, Chap. IV, Dei Filius] Vatican I’s Dei Filius says clearly, “let therefore the understanding, the knowledge and the wisdom of individual men, and of all men of one man, and of the entire Church, grow and advance greatly and powerfully, over the course of the years and the ages, but only in its own class, in the same dogma, with the same meaning and in the same explanation.” The Oath Against Modernism brings out the same truth. The man who takes this Oath makes the following promise, “I sincerely receive the doctrine of faith handed down to us from the Apostles through the orthodox Fathers, with the same meaning and the same explanation (eodem sensu eademque sententia); and consequently I completely reject the heretical fiction of an evolution of dogma, changing from one meaning to another, different from that which the Church first held.”
For nearly 2000 years, the Popes taught the doctrine “outside the Church there is no salvation” faithfully, as they knew it to be a truth received from Christ and the Apostles. One of the many 20th Century examples of the continuity of this teaching is found in The Catechism of Pope Saint Pius X. Here we read, “Outside the true Church are: Infidels, Jews, heretics, apostates, schismatics and excommunicated persons.” It states further, “No one can be saved outside the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church, just as no one could be saved from the flood outside the Ark of Noah, which was a figure of the Church."
On the other hand we have the 1997 Catechism quoting Pius XI’s Vatican II document Lumen-Gentium:
841 The Church’s relationship with the Muslims. “The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.”
The wording here is needlessly vague, evasive even. “The plan of salvation also includes…” “saving designs extend to all…” “may achieve eternal salvation.” - Plans and designs of salvation? Does that mean salvation is found in their current situation or that it’s leading them to a necessary next step? May achieve? How? By eventually coming to conversion, or is it ok to continue in ignorance of Christ? It spends 10 paragraphs answering a yes or no question that it never actually puts in words, and in standard political fashion it leaves you unsure what the answer was. A book like the Catechism should be as clear as possible on the teachings of the Church, especially those that relate to essential conditions of salvation. This strikes me as intentionally avoiding giving a clear answer for fear of being unpopular. Furthermore, Lumen Gentium is not an infallible document and, considering what was quoted from Vatican I about not reinterpreting dogma, “Re-formulated positively” is an awful phrase that should never appear in a Catechism.
842 The Church’s bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race … His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city.
…
846 “Outside the Church there is no salvation”
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
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 conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation.
848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”
Ambiguous wording aside, the Church by and large has been propagating this idea that you don’t need to be Catholic to go to Heaven ever since Vatican II. Now, I’m aware of the modernist leaning - and indeed Masonic infiltration - of much of the hierarchy today. I’d have no problem dismissing the current version of the Catechism as invalid, as the 1966 Dutch Catechism that preceded it was eventually declared, or accepting that JPII willingly or unwillingly spread error, or heck, even that he was an open heretic (his opinion that the Old Covenant was not superseded by the new was plainly an error). My real dilemma is that I don’t want to believe this dogma. It’s difficult to reconcile with the idea of a god who is love incarnate. It doesn’t seem fair that a teenager born to a Muslim family in Nigeria who’s killed by his parents under Sharia law before he has a chance to encounter Christ should automatically go to Hell, or even that the Protestants we live with who probably have even less of an idea of what the Catholic Church teaches than we do and have never heard a convincing word in its favor are doomed because their great, great, great, great grandparents were self-delusional heretics who followed Luther and because we’ve been poor evangelists. So this is a plea for someone to help me understand, either by pointing out how the Vatican II party line is reconcilable with the preceding dogma or explaining this whole thing better. I know I’m not the only one who’s been confused by this.
I’m going to cite two scriptures. The first one is John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That’s John 3:16.
The second one is John 1:12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
