Apologeticae sive Theologiae Fundamentalis, Tomus II (Pars Altera): Demonstratio Catholica

The fact of the institution of the Church having been demonstrated, the question now arises concerning the end for which Christ instituted His Church. For the end is the principal element on which the character, dignity, and usefulness of every society, and therefore also of the Church, depend. Now a threefold end of the Church can be distinguished: proximate, remote, and ultimate. We do not treat of the ultimate end, since it is clearer than the sun that it consists in promoting the glory of God. It remains, therefore, that we treat of the proximate and remote end of the Church.

The proximate end of the Church is that in it and through it the work of redemption be rendered perpetual, i.e., that the Christian religion be preserved and administered. The Protestants, since they hold that men are justified by faith alone drawn from Scripture alone, make no use of the religious ministry of the Church. Indeed they contend that individual men are immediately united to Christ and receive the Christian religion from Christ ("immediacy of the bond with Christ"). Consequently they also maintain that it does not belong to the Church to preserve and dispense the Christian religion or to render the work of redemption perpetual; rather, according to the mind of Christ, the Christian religion subsists and continues in the concrete apart from the Church. The Catholics, however, hold that Christ entrusted His religion to the Church, to be preserved perpetually and administered to each of the faithful, in the sense that the Church is Christ morally or mystically living and acting among men until the end of the world: The Vatican Council enunciates this doctrine thus: "The eternal Pastor and Bishop of our souls, in order to render the salutary work of redemption perpetual, decreed to build the holy Church."¹

It is proved by the testimony of Christ, the apostles, and the Fathers.

1. Christ conferred His mission upon the Church by saying to the apostles as rulers of the Church: "As the Father has sent me, I also send you."¹ But Christ's mission was directed to the work of redemption, that is, the Christian religion. Therefore the mission of the Church also regards the Christian religion — not indeed as to be instituted (since Christ alone instituted it), but as to be conserved and applied.

2. Christ handed over His power to the Church by saying to the apostles as rulers of the Church: "All power is given to me in heaven and in earth: going therefore, teach ye all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world."² But Christ's power was directed to those things by which the work of redemption, that is, the Christian religion, is constituted. Therefore the Church is also called to the same end. Indeed:

3. Christ gave the Church His offices of teaching the faith, of sanctifying, and of governing men in the way of salvation. The office of teaching the faith: "Preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved."³ The office of sanctifying, that is, of administering the sacraments: "…baptizing them";⁴ "whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them"⁵ The office of governing the faithful: "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me. But he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me."⁶

"Feed my lambs, feed my sheep."⁷ But by this threefold office the work of redemption is made perpetual, that is, the Christian religion is conserved and applied. Therefore the conservation and application of the Christian religion is the end of the Church.

1. The Apostles, in explicit words, attribute to themselves the office, received from God, of caring for the Christian religion: "Feed the flock of God which is among you … And when the prince of pastors appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory."¹ "Let a man so regard us as ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God."² "But all things are from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; for indeed God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself … and he placed in us the word of reconciliation. We act therefore as ambassadors for Christ, as though God were exhorting through us. We beseech you for Christ: be reconciled to God."³

2. The Apostles, with metaphorical expressions, describe the Church as the house of God, the bride of Christ, the body of Christ. The Church is the house of God built upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone"⁴, i. e., with Christ as leader the Church contains all the servants of God and, together with them, exercises the true worship of God. The Church is the bride of Christ,⁵ with whom the Redeemer lives inseparably and begets souls for heaven through the exercise of the true religion. The Church is the mystical body of Christ⁶ whose head is the Lord,⁷ "from whom the whole body, being compacted and joined together through every joint of ministration, according to the working in the measure of each single member, makes the increase of the body for the building up of itself in charity"⁸ i. e., Christ is the head of the Church; the faithful are the members, the ecclesiastical ministries are the joints between the head and the members, in such a way that through the ministers of the Church the benefits of religion and of the redemption of Jesus Christ are poured into each of the faithful. And thus the head and the members are organically united into the one living body of Christ, "compacted and joined together," through the ministry of the Church.

The Fathers and ecclesiastical writers teach with one voice that the Church preserves and dispenses the Christian religion in the name and by the command of Christ. Augustine: “Nor … has [Christ] ceased to baptize: but He still does this… Let Peter baptize, it is He [Christ] who baptizes; let Paul baptize, it is He who baptizes; let Judas baptize, it is He who baptizes.”¹ Chrysostom: “The Father sent the Son, who was to exhort in His name and to undertake the office of an embassy among the human race: but since He departed slain, we have succeeded to that embassy, and we exhort you in the name both of Him and of the Father. So great indeed is the worth of the human race in His sight, that He gave even the Son, and that knowing He would be slain, and for your sake made us apostles … For He exhorts not only through His own Son, but also through us, who have succeeded to His office.”²

Therefore the Church “continues the offices of the Savior for all time: the religion which He willed to be, as it were, incorporated in her, she alone presents to the human race complete in every respect.”³ Indeed, the Church in the concrete and the Christian religion are the same. In the Church Christ Himself is perpetually present to men and renders the work of His redemption perennial and everlasting. He therefore who is joined to the Church is joined to Christ, and indeed immediately; but he who separates himself from the Church is in no way joined to Christ, nor has he any part with Him. From this the remote end of the Church is also easily understood.

The remote end of the Church is this, that in her and through her men may be saved, i. e. attain eternal life.¹

This thesis flows immediately from the preceding one on the proximate end of the Church. In the Church and through the Church the work of Christ's redemption is perpetuated, or the Christian religion is preserved and administered. But the work of redemption, or the Christian religion, necessarily tends to the eternal salvation of men. Therefore the remote end of the Church is this, that in her and through her men may attain eternal salvation.

Yet the enemies of the Church bear it most unwillingly that the Church, in an exclusive sense, regards herself as the institution or organ of salvation, laying down that axiom: "Outside the Church there is no salvation." This celebrated axiom, that the Church alone saves, was first denied by the Cathars, Albigensians, and Waldensians, who had denied the visibility of the Church.

The older Protestants indeed unanimously taught that union with the Church of Christ is a necessary condition of salvation. E. g. the Helvetic Confession: "But we make so much of communion with the true Church of Christ that we deny that those who do not communicate with the true Church, but separate themselves from her, can live before God."² Nevertheless the more recent Protestants, favoring religious indifferentism, commonly reject and bitterly calumniate that principle: "Outside the Church there is no salvation."

The Catholic Church, however, has constantly professed this principle. Thus the Fourth Lateran Council (celebrated in the year 1215) against the Albigensians: "There is one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved."³ The Council of Florence in the decree for the Jacobites: "It firmly believes, confesses, and proclaims that none of those who are not within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but neither Jews nor heretics nor schismatics, can become partakers of eternal life … and that no one, however many alms he has given, even if he has shed his blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless he has remained in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church."⁴ Pius IX in the encyclical to the bishops of Italy (10 Aug. 1863): "It is well known that it is a Catholic dogma that no one, namely, can be saved outside the Catholic Church."⁵

This statement stands in need both of explanation and of proof.

1. Objectively speaking, the Church by the will of Christ is said to be the sole mediatrix of salvation in such a way that subjectively no one obtains salvation, unless he is united with the Church in some manner. It is not asked objectively whether Christ could have used other ways and means to bestow salvation upon men, but whether He willed to institute the Church as the unique organ of salvation. Hence, even subjectively it is not investigated who is saved, but the condition sine qua non of salvation is laid down. For union with the Church is not the sole condition of salvation. Many members of the Church will be damned, because they lacked the spiritual life of the Church, i. e., they were destitute of sanctifying grace, by which alone man is supernaturally united to God and attains eternal beatitude. Nevertheless, participation with the Church is the condition sine qua non of salvation. For although God Himself infuses sanctifying grace, He nevertheless willed that this grace be communicated to men through the ministry of the Church. Therefore he who is united with the Church in no way is incapable of eternal salvation.

2. He who cannot be united with the Church in reality, but embraces her by desire, is not excluded from salvation. In reality they are members of the Church who are actually found in the visible society of the Church;¹ by desire, those who are held by the desire of the Church. This desire, however, can be explicit, as it is in the catechumen who knows the Church, or implicit, as it is in him who is ignorant of the Church, yet is prepared to fulfill the divine commandments and hence also the commandment of entering the Church, wherever he shall have found her. Whoever conceives at least this implicit desire of entering the Church, although he does not belong to the "body" of the Church, nevertheless belongs to the "soul" of the Church, i. e., he undergoes the manifold influence of the graces dispensed by the Church. Indeed, by an act of faith and charity he can acquire the state of sanctifying grace and consequently eternal life.²

This doctrine Pius IX expressly enunciates thus: "It is known to us and to you that those who labor under invincible ignorance concerning our most holy religion, and who, diligently observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God in the hearts of all, and being prepared to obey God, lead an honest and upright life, can, by the operative power of divine light and grace, attain eternal life."³

3. Therefore neither non-Catholics nor non-Christians of good will, but only those are incapable of salvation who die outside the Church by their own grave fault. The holy Fathers and the theologians of the Middle Ages teach that heretics and schismatics who in good faith profess the Christian religion outside the Church can be saved.⁴ For these non-Catholics can be justified the more easily, the greater part of the revealed faith and certain means of justification, especially baptism, they have in common with the Church. The Fathers and theologians also affirm that catechumens who have faith and charity are saved, even if they die before they have entered the Church through baptism.⁵ Finally they hold that even the pagans themselves, who had never heard anything about the Christian religion and the Church, can with the help of God attain justification, provided they do what lies in themselves.⁶ For although the work of salvation becomes more difficult for these, since they are destitute of the doctrine and the sacraments of the Church, it nevertheless does not on that account prove to be impossible. For: "To him who does what lies in himself, God does not deny grace." God, "who wills all men to be saved"⁷ also gives to all the means by which they may attain salvation.⁸ On the contrary, those cannot be partakers of salvation who, whether Christians or non-Christians, remain and die outside the Church by their own grave fault. And this indeed must be proved.

1. Christ says to the apostles set over the Church: "Going into the whole world, preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."¹ "He who hears you, hears me: and he who despises you, despises me. But he who despises me, despises him who sent me."² "But if he will not hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican."³ "Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven."⁴ By these and similar words the Lord clearly teaches that men, despising the Church, are spurned by God, receive no remission of sins, and in the end are damned.

2. The apostles adjudge apostates from the Church to damnation. Thus Paul bids the heretic, i. e. the man who has fallen away from the Church, to be avoided in these words: "He that is such a one is subverted, and sins, being condemned by his own judgment."⁵ John, although he is the apostle of love, says of heretics: "If any man comes to you and brings not this doctrine, receive him not into the house nor say to him, God speed you."⁶ Of the same apostle Irenaeus reports: "And there are those who heard him [Polycarp] saying that John, the disciple of the Lord, going at Ephesus to bathe, when he had seen Cerinthus within, sprang out of the bath-house unwashed, saying that he feared lest the bath-house fall down, while Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, was within."⁷

3. The Fathers exclude formal heretics and schismatics from salvation. Ignatius martyr: "Do not err, brethren: if anyone follows one who makes a schism, he does not attain the inheritance of the divine kingdom."⁸ Origenes: "Let no one therefore persuade himself, let no one deceive himself: outside this house, i. e. outside the Church, no one is saved."⁹ Cyprianus: "Whoever, being separated from the Church, is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he who has left the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger, he is profane, he is an enemy. He cannot have God as father, who has not the Church as mother."¹⁰ Augustinus: "Outside the Church [the schismatic Emeritus] he can have everything except salvation. He can have honor, he can have the sacrament, he can sing Alleluia, he can answer Amen, he can hold the gospel, he can both have and preach the faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: but nowhere except in the Catholic Church will he be able to find salvation."¹¹ "Whoever, therefore, shall have been separated from this Catholic Church, however laudably he may think himself to live, by this one crime alone, that he has been cut off from the unity of Christ, he will not have life, but the wrath of God abides upon him."¹² Theodoretus: "For us, moreover, salvation comes through the Church; but those who are outside her do not enjoy eternal life."¹³

Therefore the assertion about the Church alone saving was promulgated by Christ himself, constantly professed by the apostles, and firmly celebrated already in the first Christian centuries; nay, this axiom stands of itself from the fact that the Church in the concrete is the same as the Christian religion, the sole mediatrix of salvation. Accordingly: 1°. all men, as many as wish to be saved, are bound to seek the Church with all their desires, to enter it and to remain in it unto the end; 2°. the Church must strive with the greatest effort for its own propagation, conservation and efficacy, rejecting schism, heresy and every error;¹⁴ 3°. the adversaries unjustly reproach the Catholic Church with "intolerance" for the reason that she applies to herself the axiom set forth and proved above. For whatever Christian body wishes to be the true Church of Christ must also contend that it is the unique institution of salvation; but whatever Christian body holds that it is not the unique institution of salvation, by that very fact proclaims that it is not the true Church of Christ.