The ‘Magnificent Declaration’ of Faith by Father Davide Pagliarani, SSPX, on Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

Yesterday, the SSPX Superior General, Father Davide Pagliarani, published a “Declaration of the Catholic Faith” that he addressed to Pope Leo XIV with these words: 

The Society places this simple Declaration of Faith in Your hands. It seems to us to correspond to the minimum indispensable to be in communion with the Church, and to truly call ourselves Catholics and, consequently, your sons.

I highly recommend reading the entirety of this beautiful Declaration, not because we are SSPX loyalists, but because it is a wonderful profession of faith, one that includes articles of faith most attacked in our day. Eight paragraphs of the Declaration are so good and so “up our alley” because they touch upon Saint Benedict Center’s raison d’être (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), that we reproduce them below. These paragraphs touch upon the most pressing matters in the life of the Church today.

It is worth noting what the Dominican Theologian, Father Thomas Crean said of the Declaration. While he had one point of disagreement (regarding a part of the Declaration not reproduced below) he praised it on X as “a magnificent declaration”:

The claim about all jurisdiction coming from the pope seems to me out of place since that (unlike his universal jurisdiction) isn’t a point of faith. But apart from that, a magnificent declaration. https://t.co/zKErsQ8HnU

— Fr Thomas Crean OP (@crean_fr) May 14, 2026

Here are the eight paragraphs we find worthy of special attention:

There is only one Faith and one Church by which we may be saved. Outside the Roman Catholic Church, and without the profession of Faith that she has always taught, there is neither salvation nor remission of sins.

Consequently, every man must be a member of the Catholic Church in order to save his soul, and there is but one baptism as the means of being incorporated into her. This necessity concerns the whole of humanity without exception and embraces without distinction Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists.

The mandate received by the Apostles, to preach the Gospel to every man and to convert every man to the Catholic Faith, remains binding until the end of time and responds to the most absolute and most pressing necessity in the world. “He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”3 Therefore, to renounce the fulfilment of this mandate constitutes the gravest of crimes against humanity.

The Roman Church alone possesses simultaneously the four marks that characterize the Church founded by Jesus Christ: Unity, Holiness, Catholicity, and Apostolicity.

Her unity flows essentially from the adherence of all her members to the one true Faith, faithfully preserved, taught, and handed down by the Catholic hierarchy throughout the centuries.

The denial of even a single truth of the Faith destroys faith itself and renders radically impossible all communion with the Catholic Church.

The only possible path to restoring unity among Christians of different confessions consists in the urgent and charitable appeal addressed to non-Catholics to profess the one true Faith within the one true Church.

The Catholic Church can in no way be regarded or treated on an equal footing with a false form of worship or a false church.

…

Menzingen, 14 May 2026,
on the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord

Davide Pagliarani