Thursday, November 12, 2020

Authoritative Catholic Sources Affirming “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus”

While many modern (usually liberal) Roman Catholics deny the teaching of “outside the Church there is no salvation,” such is the dogmatic teaching of Roman Catholicism. Note the following from one traditional Roman Catholic author:

 

. . . the Catholic Church has infallibly defined at least three times the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus est (outside the Church there is no salvation):

 

There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved. (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)

 

We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff. (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Una Sanctam, 1302.)

 

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 and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fats, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian solider. 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 he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church. (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1442.)

 

In keeping with this infallible teaching, the Church has repeated again and again that outside of her no one may be saved:

 

Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590-604): “Now the holy Church universal proclaims that God cannot be truly worshipped, saving from within herself, asserting that all they that are without her shall never be saved” Moralia, XIV:5).

 

Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566): “infidels, heretics, schismatics and excommunicated persons” are “excluded from the Church’s pale” (Catechism of the Council of Trent, McHugh & Callan Translation, [Rockford, Illinois: TAN Books and Publishers, reprinted 1982], page 101).

 

Pope Leo XII (1823-1829): “. . .we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church . . . the Church is the pillar and firmament of truth, as the apostle Paul teaches. (1 Tim. 3) In reference to these words St. Augustine says: ‘Whoever is without the Church will not be reckoned among the sons, and whoever does not want to have the Church as Mother will not have God as Father’” (Ubi Primum, inaugural encyclical of Pope Leo XII, May 8, 1825).

 

Pope Pius VIII (1829-1830): “ . . . the people must be assured, Venerable Brethren, that the profession of the Catholic Faith is alone the true one, since the Apostle tells us that there is one Lord and one baptism. As Jerome says, the man who eats the lamb outside of this house is profane, and the man who is not in the ark of Noe is going to perish in the deluge. Neither is there any other name apart from the name of Jesus Christ given to men by which we must be saved” (Traditi Humiliati Nostrae, May 24, 1829).

 

Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846): “The holy universal Church teaches that it is not possible to worship God truly except in her (the Catholic Church); all who are outside her will not be saved” (quoting Pope St. Gregory the Great) (Summo Iugiter Studio [1832], n. 5).

 

Blessed Pope Pius IX (1846-1878): “It must be held as a matter of faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood.” (Singulari Quadem)

 

The Catechism of Pope Pius X (1903-1914): “Outside the true Church are: Infidels, Jews, heretics, apostates, schismatics, and excommunicated persons . . . No one can be saved outside the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, just as no one would be saved from the flood outside the Ark of Noah, which was a figure of the Church.” (Christopher A. Ferrara, EWTN: A Network Gone Wrong [Pound Ridge, N.Y.: Good Counsel Publications, 2006], 71-73)

 

Such was reiterated during Vatican II. In Lumen Gentium we read the following in paragraph 14:

 

This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.

 

They are fully incorporated in the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and are united with her as part of her visible bodily structure and through her with Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. The bonds which bind men to the Church in a visible way are profession of faith, the sacraments, and ecclesiastical government and communion. He is not saved, however, who, though part of the body of the Church, does not persevere in charity. He remains indeed in the bosom of the Church, but, as it were, only in a "bodily" manner and not "in his heart." All the Church's children should remember that their exalted status is to be attributed not to their own merits but to the special grace of Christ. If they fail moreover to respond to that grace in thought, word and deed, not only shall they not be saved but they will be the more severely judged.

 

Catechumens who, moved by the Holy Spirit, seek with explicit intention to be incorporated into the Church are by that very intention joined with her. With love and solicitude Mother Church already embraces them as her own.