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

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.