In reading an article “Can Non-Catholics Be Saved?” by Mark Shea on Inside Catholic website (October 24), along with the long queue of comments, especially those of “I am not Sparticus,” I was struck by the adamancy of the author and commenters to undo the literal meaning of the doctrine of “No Salvation outside the Church.” Supernatural Charity does not dissimulate, it “rejoices in the truth,” especially when it is eternal salvation that is at stake (1 Cor. 13:6). Brother Francis, in his stirring article, “Sentimental Theology” (published in an early issue of From the Housetops), put the true challenge of the salvation doctrine thusly, “Only love can afford to be severe.”
Lesser magisterial decrees must be judged in the light of the solemn and infallible magisterium, not vice versa. Poster “I am Not Sparticus” does just the opposite in his arguments when he makes the Holy Office Letter of 1949 to Archbishop Cushing of Boston eviscerate the defined doctrine on salvation of any substance. Furthermore, the quote he provided by Father Ratzinger (the year being 1964) was our Holy Father’s personal opinion at the time. It is obvious from the quote that he was trying, at that time, along with countless other theologians, to find a way to expand the meaning of the term “Church” to include anyone who desires to follow the natural law.
Why is it that this dogma, and only this dogma, when it is uttered, must immediately be followed by a qualification? Are definitions not meant to clarify a theological point at issue? Hence Pope Eugene IV included in his Bull Cantate Domino (below) a definition of who they are who are “outside the Church” and of the judgment awaiting them if they should die in that state.
Concerning the Bull Unam Sanctam of Pope Boniface VIII (1302), which contains the ex cathedra definition, “We declare, say, define and pronounce that it is necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff,” one poster brought up baptized children as an objection, saying that they might be included among those who are not subject to the Roman Pontiff because they do not know there is a pope to be subject to. I assume the poster was being facetious, but, if not, he was wrong. Any validly baptized person becomes a subject at their baptism to the authority of the Vicar of Christ, as the visible head of Christ’s Mystical Body. They may immediately throw off this implicit subjection as in the case of a validly baptized adult heretic, who formally rejects the pope. In the case of the baby, their subjection is inchoative, it is there in seed. The baptized baby receives from God the infused theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, which are infused habits waiting for reason to blossom when they can be actualized.
Lastly the question of “invincible ignorance” is raised several times. Pius IX was the first pope to use the term in an official papal decree, but he did not teach, as false translations of the pertinent encyclical, Quanta Conficiamur, have it, that anyone unbaptized could be “saved” who is invincibly ignorant of Christ; however he did write that such souls would not suffer everlasting “torments” (suppliciis) for not believing what had not been announced to them. Saint Thomas teaches the same, adding, however, that they would suffer torments for actual sins that they committed against the law of God written on their heart.
It seems to me that the author of this article and almost all posters (except for Christopher Sarsfield & Ken) are trying to make a defined doctrine “reformable” by giving it a new form, i.e., a new meaning, certainly — if not totally contrary to — at least mollifying the original clear sense of the definition. I know of no definition, other than extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, that “needed” this kind of interpretation upon interpretation, to include interpretations of the interpretations. That is why pre-Father Feeney champions of the literal meaning of the salvation dogma, like the Scotish convert, Archbishop Gordon Hay, and the prolific writer Father Michael Mueller, CSsR, so staunchly defended the literal sense. Doctrinal definitions are of their very nature irreformable.
Vatican I definition of papal infallibility:
“The Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra — that is, when in discharge of the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding Faith or Morals to be held by the universal Church, by the divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that His Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding Faith or Morals; and therefore such definitions are irreformable of themselves, and not in virtue of consent of the Church.”
Irreformable: “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.)
Irreformable: “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 only 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 fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the 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 he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)
