The Meaning of the Church's Necessity for Salvation
By Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton
The following is an exact reproduction
of the American Ecclesiastical Review, February, 1951, pages 124-143,
published by the Catholic University of America Press.
THE MEANING OF THE CHURCH’S NECESSITY
FOR SALVATION
PART I
Three years ago The American Ecclesiastical Review carried a rather long
article, entitled “The Theological Proof for the Necessity of the Catholic
Church.” [1] This article contained a statement and an analysis of what the
documents of the Church’s magisterium taught on the subject of the Church’s
necessity for salvation. It listed and evaluated the various scriptural proofs
and rationes theologicae employed by outstanding modern theologians in support
of this thesis. It closed with a brief description of what the author
considered, and still considers, to be the material from which the most
effective theological demonstration of this thesis can and must be constructed.
As it is very title indicated, the article was concerned primarily with the
process of theological demonstration. It took cognizance of the fact that an
adequate theological proof carries with it necessarily an indication of the
meaning of the thesis or conclusion supported by that proof. The immediate
purpose of the article, however, prevented it from going into any detail on the
statement of the thesis itself. It considered only indirectly and summarily the
form into which the recent manuals and monographs had put the thesis on the
Church’s necessity for salvation and the basic explanation of this thesis in
current theological literature.
The appearance of the Holy Father’s encyclical Humani generis, with its
reproval of those who “reduce to an empty formula the necessity of belonging to
the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation,” [2] has made it expedient
to take up in some detail the question of the form and the fundamental
explanation of the doctrine. The teaching of the Humani generis is of the
utmost importance. The encyclical itself spoke of this importance, and the Holy
Father referred to it again in his allocution Penitus commoto animo when
he listed the teaching of Humani generis, “ad catholicam doctrinam
integram et indemnem servandam,” among the concerns “quae summi quidem
momenti Nobis cordi sunt.” [3] In view of the seriousness of this teaching,
and because of the fact that the doctrine on the Church’s necessity for
salvation is one of the theses that have been mishandled throughout the world
and not merely in one particular region, a consideration of this thesis,
particularly from the point of view of the recent encyclical, should prove
advantageous.
Thus, in the present article, we shall first inquire into the meaning of the
encyclical’s expression, “reduce to an empty formula.” We shall try to see what
the expression means and look into its connotations as it is applied to the
Catholic teaching on the necessity of the Church for salvation. This section of
the article will be followed by a listing and an explanation of some
presentations of the thesis found in current theological literature, some of
which in one way or another certainly tend to reduce this doctrine to a vain and
empty formula.
The second portion of this article will consider the background of the various
inadequate presentations of this section of sacred theology. As it stands in
modern theological textbooks, the teaching on the necessity of the Catholic
Church for eternal salvation has a distinctive and somewhat unfortunate
background, a history such as to make inadequate presentation of the material
somewhat easier and more likely here than in other sections of sacred doctrine.
Apart from this general consideration, some of the less laudable statements of
the thesis have their own particular histories in the chronicle of sacred
theology. These histories are such as to throw considerable light on the proper
expression of the thesis itself.
The third and final portion of the article will be devoted to a consideration of
the elements which must be brought into an adequate statement of this teaching.
It will end up with the listing of the basic propositions that can serve as a
faithful and unequivocal expression of the doctrine on the Church’s necessity
for salvation.
“REDUCE TO AN EMPTY FORMULA…”
In the Humani generis the Holy Father declared that some Catholics
“reduce to an empty formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in
order to gain eternal salvation.” The terminology he employed in this statement
is a matter of particular importance. It would be impossible to use exactly the
same expression in dealing with an inadequate or inaccurate handling of almost
any other section of sacred theology. The teaching about the necessity of the
Catholic Church for salvation is, in by far the greater number of current
theological writers, inextricably bound up with a definite formula, the “extra
ecclesiam nulla salus,” or “no salvation outside the Church.” There is no
comparable situation existing in any other section of theological science.
Under various equivalent forms, this formula has been presented as a dogma of
the Catholic Church many times during the course of ecclesiastical history. For
this reason, no writer who claims the name of Catholic will ever presume to deny
or to reject the formula outright. All the different types of explanation of the
Church’s necessity for salvation presented in the literature of Catholic
theology claim to set forth the real meaning of this formula. Thus the bare
axiom of formula has always been retained, no matter how erratically it may have
been interpreted by individual authors.
The first and the most objectionable method of mishandling the teaching of the
Church’s necessity for salvation is to make the formula “extra ecclesiam
nulla salus” mask or an excuse for disobedient and schismatical conduct
towards legitimate ecclesiastical authority. Such unfortunately has been the
procedure of a widely publicized group in our country during the past two years.
At the hands of the spokesman for this group, the expression which is meant to
crystallize the revealed doctrine on the Church’s place in the divine economy of
salvation has become a rallying-cry for opposition, from outside the Church, to
the ecclesia docens of the present day. It is hard to see how men can
reduce this teaching to an empty formula more effectively than by employing the
formula itself as an instrument to draw their fellows into an obstinate
withdrawal from the Catholic community.
One also reduces the doctrine of the Church’s necessity for salvation to an
empty formula when, professing to retain and to explain the assertion that there
is not salvation outside the Church, he actually presents a teaching that runs
counter to the obvious and primary meaning of this doctrine. The man who acts
thus claims to hold the axiom “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” as an
unquestioned statement of Catholic dogma while, at the same time, he holds that
de facto people can save their souls even though they live and die
outside the true Church of Jesus Christ.
There is still another way in which the usual statement of the Church’s
necessity for eternal salvation can be reduced to a mere empty formula. This
occurs when the assertion is explained in a way that is incompatible with the
statement of this truth in the documents of the Church’s magisterium. It
so happens that the Church’s official pronouncements on this subject are not and
have not been couched in the very words “extra ecclesiam nulla salus.”
Thus the profession of faith prescribed by Pope Innocent III for those who were
returning to the Church after having lived for some time tin the heresy of the
Waldensians, spoke of “the one Church, not that of the heretics but the holy
Roman, Catholic and apostolic (Church), outside of which we believe no one to be
saved.”[4] The first chapter of the dogmatic constitution Firmiter credimus,
issued by the Fourth Oecumenical Council of the Lateran, under the same Pope
Innocent III, states that “there is one universal Church of the faithful,
outside of which on one at all is saved.” [5]
But, where these two documents had stated that no person could achieve salvation
without being “inside” the Church, the Bull Unam sanctam issued by Pope
Boniface VIII, employed the terminology which has become more usual in our own
time. It referred to “the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church…outside of
which there is neither salvation nor remission of sins.”[6] This type of formula
expresses the Church’s teaching that salvation itself is something to be found
only inside the Church. The other kind of proposition had set forth the other
aspect of the same dogma, the truth that men themselves must be “inside” the
Church if they are to obtain their eternal happiness in heaven.”
Eugenius IV, in his Bull, Cantate Domino, a document which stands as not
only the declaration of the Sovereign Pontiff, but also as a decree of an
oecumenical Council, that of Florence, teaches that “none of those not existing
within the Catholic Church…can become partakers of eternal life, but that [such
persons] are going to go into the everlasting fire ‘that is prepared for the
devil and his angels’ unless, before the end of life, they become joined (aggregati)
to that same [Church].”[7] Thus the Cantate Domino adopts the same sort
of terminology as that previously employed by Innocent III himself and by the
Fourth Council of the Lateran over which he presided.
Pope Pius IX habitually employed this same form in teaching about the necessity
of the Church for eternal salvation. In his allocution Singulari quadam,
he qualified as an exitiosus error the then widely disseminated opinion
that we may well hope “for the eternal salvation of all those who have never any
way lived within the true Church of Christ.”[8] In the same allocution he stated
that “we must certainly hold on faith that no man can be saved outside of the
apostolic Roman Church, that this is the only ark of salvation, that the man who
does not enter into it is going to perish in the deluge.” [9] The same Pontiff
repeated these formulae almost word for word in his encyclical Quanto
conficiamur moerore.[10]
In this last named document there is a rather complicated sentence which has
occasioned a certain amount of confusion among some recent writers.
‘But it is also a very well known Catholic dogma that no one can be saved outside of the Catholic Church, and that those who are contumaciously opposed to the authority and the definitions of that same Church, and who are obstinately separated from the unity of that Church and from Peter’s successor, the Roman Pontiff, to whom the guardianship over the vineyard has been entrusted by the Lord, cannot obtain salvation’. [11]
Certain Catholic publicists and not a few theologians
have misinterpreted this passage by imagining the presence of the word “only”
before the passage that begins “those who are contumaciously opposed.” Thus they
wrongly consider the second portion of this proposition as a limitation of the
first part, and represent Pope Pius IX as teaching that the expression “no one
can be saved outside of the Catholic Church” means merely that the Church is
necessary with a necessity of precept. Actually the statement asserts that the
Church is necessary with the necessity of means and also with that of precept.
The assertion that “there is no salvation outside the Church,” or, to use the
form in which it is presented in most ecclesiastical documents, that “no one at
all can be saved outside the Church,” becomes merely a meaningless series of
sounds or “an empty formula” in the hands of a Catholic teacher who presumes to
interpret it in some manner incompatible with the manifest significance of any
one of these declarations of the Church’s magisterium in which the
assertion occurs, in one way or another.
Theological writers can reduce the teaching on the Church’s necessity for
salvation to an empty or idol formula in this way when they take the declaration
of Boniface VIII, for example, in his Unam sanctam, and state that the
designation of the Catholic Church as the thing “outside of which there is
neither salvation nor the forgiveness of sins” implies that all the means for
supernatural salvation belong to the Church, in the sense that the individual
who employs these means is actually, whether he knows it or not, availing
himself of something which belongs to the Church, and then declare that the
teaching on the Church’s necessity for salvation involves nothing more than
this. The writers who adopt such a course leave that teaching a mere empty
formula as it stands in those documents of the Church’s magisterium which
obviously claim that an individual cannot be saved unless he himself is in some
way “within” rather than “outside of” the true Church of Jesus Christ.
In short, the error deplored by the Holy Father in the encyclical Humani
generis is to be found wherever the formula or, to be more exact, the
formulae that tell of the Church’s necessity for eternal salvation must be
considered as meaningless in some or in all of the contexts in which this
teaching is to be found in the authentic documents of the Church’s
magisterium. The same error is to be found wherever the explanation involves
a notion of the Church or of salvation incompatible with the Church’s
declarations on these subjects, and wherever the expressions “within” and
“outside of” are explained in some manner that would exclude the ordinary
meanings generally attached to these terms in speech or in writing.
THE THESIS ON THE NECESSITY OF THE CHURCH IN CURRENT
THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE
It is imperative that we examine the various statements of the thesis on the
Church’s necessity for salvation in current theological literature in order that
we may see which among them can be said to fall under the censure of the Holy
Father. An examination of the literature on this subject produced since the time
of the Vatican Council shows that, while there are many definitely acceptable
presentations of the thesis, and that while, among scholastic writers, these
acceptable presentations manifestly outnumber those of lesser worth, there are
still some statements and explanations of the Church’s necessity for salvation
which lay themselves open to the charge that they reduce this teaching to an
empty formula. Some writers on this subject have carried through their attempts
to minimize the significance of this teaching to such an extent that, for all
intents and purposes, they have left the statement that there is no salvation
outside the Church void of all real meaning.
One group of writers and teachers who have set out to explain this thesis have
offered what seems to be nothing more or less than an outright denial of the
teaching they intended to interpret. Such is the case with Arnold Harris
Mathew’s exposition of the formula “extra ecclesiam salus nulla” in the
symposium he edited forty-five years ago.
‘Now the further question arises as to how far Catholics are bound to hold that for those outside the Roman Church there is no salvation. Catholics are not bound to hold anything of the kind. The question resolves itself into the other question, how far those who are outside the Roman Church are in good faith or not’. [12]
At the very beginning of Mathew’s brief article, he protests against the
statement, attributed to some “leading Protestant divine,” to the effect that
Catholics “are obliged by their creed to regard all who die outside the Roman
Church as in hell.” [13] Mathew’s somewhat vehement retort states that his
co-religionists “are not only not bound to hold any such opinion, but they are
bound to hold exactly the opposite.” [14] It is difficult to see how the
teaching on the necessity of the Catholic Church for eternal salvation could
more effectively be reduced to a mere empty formula than by this type of
“explanation.”
Because of the manifest incoherence of his teaching, and particularly because of
his unfortunate defection from the Catholic Church during the latter phase of
the Modernist crisis, Mathew as an individual never had any direct influence in
the field of theological writing. Nevertheless, explanations of the Church’s
necessity for salvation roughly similar to his have appeared in Catholic
periodicals from time to time during the past half-century, produced by well
meaning but ill informed individuals who were so intent upon the task of
overthrowing charges of intolerance that had been levelled against the Church
that they completely overlooked the bounds of doctrinal accuracy in their own
statements. Sometimes this tendency to explain the doctrine of the Church’s
necessity by what amounts to a denial of its practical import has assumed a less
offensive though equally inaccurate form, as in the case of Otto Karrer’s
Religions of Mankind, the thirteenth chapter of which is entitled “Salvation
outside the Visible Church.” [15]
A second type of explanation of this thesis is to be found in Cardinal Newman’s
last published study of this subject, a study incorporated into his Letter to
the Duke of Norfolk. Mathew, who quoted the entire section in extenso,
was convinced that the Cardinal had “dealt with the question in such a masterly
way that it is impossible to improve upon what he says.” [16] As a group, the
theologians of the Catholic Church have shown no disposition to share Mathew’s
enthusiasm.
The great English Cardinal considered this teaching in his Letter, not
directly for the sake of the doctrine itself, but primarily as an example of
something which he believed could offer “the opportunity of a legitimate
minimizing.” [17] Following this line, he held that the principle “out of the
Church, and out of the faith, is no salvation,” admits of exceptions, and he
taught that Pope Pius IX, in his encyclical Quanto conficiamur moerore,
had spoken of such exceptions. Newman quotes these words of Pius IX.
‘We and you know, that those who lie under invincible ignorance as regards our most Holy Religion, and who, diligently observing the natural law and its precepts, which are engraven by God on the hearts of all, and prepared to obey God, lead a good and upright life, are able, by the operation of the power of divine light and grace, to obtain eternal life’. [18]
Newman believed these words conveyed what he called
“the doctrine of invincible ignorance – or, that it is possible to belong to the
soul of the Church without belonging to the body.” [19] He concluded his
treatment of this thesis by the following question: “Who would at first sight
gather from the wording of so forcible a universal [Out of the Church, and out
of the faith, is no salvation], that an exception to its operation, such as
this, so distinct, and, for what we know, so very wide, was consistent with
holding it?” [20]
It is hard to see how a universal negative proposition that admits of “distinct,
and, for what we know, so very wide” exceptions can be other than an empty or
meaningless formula. As we have seen, the statement on the necessity of the
Catholic Church for salvation must be considered, not as a mere series of words
taken out of all context, but precisely in the manner in which it stands in the
various monuments of the Church’s official magisterium. As that teaching
is found in, for instance, the Cantate Domino, it definitely does not
admit of any “exceptions.” If Newman was right, and if persons in invincible
ignorance can be saved other than in the Church, the teaching of Eugenius IV and
of the Council of Florence is definitely inaccurate. And, on the other hand, if
it be Catholic dogma that none of those who dwell outside the Church can be
saved unless before they die they become joined to the Church, then there is
certainly no room for any sort of “exception” to the rule of the Church’s
necessity for eternal salvation.
It is interesting to note that Newman interpreted the doctrine of invincible
ignorance as meaning that “it is possible to belong to the soul of the Church
without belonging to the body.” [21] He was convinced that his citation from the
text of the Quanto conficiamur moerore, the citation reproduced a few
lines above, constituted an expression of this teaching. There is absolutely
nothing in the statement of Pope Pius IX to give the impression that a man could
be saved apart from those factors which some writers of the time designated
collectively as the “body” of the Church, just as there is nothing to indicate
that he considered the possibility of “exceptions” to the sovereign rule of the
Church’s necessity for salvation.
There have been a few recent theologians who have attempted to explain the
necessity of the Church exclusively, or at least primarily in terms of the
“soul” of the Church. In this group we find the Spanish writer, Valentine Saiz-Ruiz,
who insisted that the teaching “Outside the Church, no salvation,” could be
considered as absolutely true and could be fully grasped only when it is
understood with reference to the Church’s soul.[22] The Claretian, Michael
Blanch, sets out to prove the thesis that “the Church is a necessary society,
into which all men and all civil societies are bound to enter, and which they
are bound to obey.” [23] When he comes to discuss what is usually termed the
“necessity of means,” however, he speaks of “sanctifying grace, which is the
soul of the Church,” and makes no adequate reference to the necessity of any
factor designated as the “body” or the visible aspect of the Church. One of the
most striking instances of this mentality, however, is to be found in the
influential English manual of sacred theology which Wilhelm and Scannell based
upon the “dogmatic” of Scheeben. These writers conclude that “not every member
of the Church is necessarily saved; and, on the other hand, some who belong only
to the soul of the Church are saved.” [24] The first portion of their conclusion
is magnificently accurate. The second section, however, is inadequate in that it
discounts the real necessity of the visible Church itself.
We find a somewhat similar approach to the question in the recent treatise of
Fr. Riccardo Lombardi. He teaches that the means of salvation willed by God is
the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church alone, in such a way that no man
can be saved outside of it. He is convinced that the normal means of salvation
is official membership in the visible Church. He also teaches, however, that
there are many who belong to the soul of the Church who are not members of its
body. [25] Thus, in the last analysis, it is the soul of the Church which is
essential for salvation according to his doctrine.
Fr. A. J. Lutz also explains the Church’s necessity in function of the “soul,”
but makes this metaphor refer to God the Holy Ghost. This writer holds that “the
Protestant in the state of grace is in reality a Catholic,” by reason of what he
considers the fact that “a person can be a member of the Church without being
incorporated visibly into it.” He continues: “What difference does it make if he
thinks differently from the Catholics! We do not belong to Christ primarily by
reason of our thought, but through his spirit which gives us life.” [26]
It would appear that this type of explanation of the Church’s necessity serve to
reduce this teaching to an empty formula. As it stands in the Cantate Domino,
to take one example, the teaching on the necessity of the Church for salvation
manifestly involves the fact that no one can attain to the beatific vision
unless he attaches himself to the Church before the end of this mortal life. The
teachings that stress the necessity of the Church’s “soul,” and which do not
insist upon the necessity of the visible Church itself, leave on under the
impression that union with or entrance into the visible and true Church need not
be a matter of anxiety for anyone. Attachment to the Church is represented as
something necessarily involved in the process of acquiring grace itself, and not
as a matter of immediate urgency.
Some other strange methods of explaining the Church’s necessity for salvation
have been employed during the first half of the twentieth century. For example,
Sertillanges, followed by Lippert, Michalon, and to a certain extent by Heris,
gave the impression that no man could be considered as completely outside the
Catholic Church. [27] This teaching would certainly reduce the thesis on the
Church’s necessity to an empty formula, since it would imply that no man had any
particular reason to adhere to the Church before his death, since he is in it
necessarily and always.
Henri de Lubac taught that infidels can be saved, though not in the normal way
of salvation, by reason of the mysterious bonds that join them to the faithful.
He considers these individuals as contributing to the good of the Church through
their efforts in building up and maintaining the various cultures in which the
Church is meant to live and to praise God. [28] Thus, he believed that these men
“can be saved because they constitute an integral part of the humanity that will
to be saved.” [29] It was his contention that God, who wills that all men should
be saved and who, in practice does not permit all me to be visibly in the
Church, has nevertheless decreed that all who answer His call should be saved in
some way through the Church. [30]
Yves De Montcheuil has followed and developed De Lubac’s teaching. He has put on
a level with the statement that there is no salvation outside the Church, the
assertion that “no one anywhere, before or after Christ, will be condemned if he
has not sinned against the light, if there is nothing culpable in the religious
ignorance in which he finds himself.” [31] In line with that contention, he
taught that some of those to whom the Gospel has been preached and who have not
accepted it must not be considered to have been lacking in good will. [32]
Primarily, according to De Montcheuil, the formula “outside the Church no
salvation” refers to the Church triumphant. [33] He has taught that
non-believers, though not belonging visibly to the Church militant, must not be
considered as absolutely without connection with it. They belong invisibly to
the Church, not only because the grace by which they are saved is joined to the
Church, but also because, even without knowing it, they are preparing the
material of the Church in civilizations and in individuals. [34]
Another member of this same group, Jean Danielou, accepts and attributes to
“most theologians” the belief that belonging to the visible Church is not an
absolute necessary condition for salvation, and holds we can think that souls of
good will outside the Church are saved. [35] It does not seem that this type of
explanation can legitimately be employed since the appearance of the Humani
generis.
With these statements we must class the teachings of other writers, who have
interpreted the statement that there is no salvation outside the Church in terms
of an invisible Church. Thus Edward Ingram Watkin wrote that “it is therefore
only the invisible Church whose membership is absolutely and without
qualification necessary, since incorporation into the invisible Church is one
and the same thing as supernatural union with God.” [36] Astonishingly enough,
Joseph Falcon, and apologist and theologian of deservedly high reputation,
employs this terminology in the course of his own explanation of the Church’s
necessity for salvation. According to Falcon, the statement that there is no
salvation outside the Church can be understood as a law or as the assertion of a
fact. In the first case it simply marks the Church as something which is
necessary with the necessity of precept. In the second, it applies to an
invisible Church, whose members are to be found both within and outside of the
visible society. Those who live outside the visible society “are only deprived,
by reason of their outward position, of the abundance of spiritual helps which
are the privilege of this society.” [37]
A rather considerable number of theologians, in explaining the Catholic Church’s
necessity for eternal salvation, employ the distinction between the “body” and
the “soul” of the Church and state that it is necessary with the necessity of
means to belong to the “soul,” while it is necessary only with the necessity of
precept to belong to the “body” of this society. The manuals of Cardinal
Camillus Mazzella, and those of Marchini and of Prevel all offer this type of
explanation. [38] The theory, however, has become linked to the name of Edouard
Hugon, the great theologian of the Angelico, who developed it at some length in
his monograph, Hors de l’eglise, point de salut. Hugon speaks of the
obligation of belonging to the body of the Church, and of the necessity of
pertaining to its soul. [39] Tepe, MacGuinness, Tanquerey, Herve, Zubizarreta
and Lahitton all employ the notions of “body” and “soul” in their explanations,
but speak of attachment to both as necessary with the necessity of means. [40]
They teach that salvation is possible only for those who are joined to the body
of the Church either in re or in voto. Garrigou-Lagrange holds this same view,
although his terminology agrees more in some respects with that of Hugon. [41]
An astonishingly large number of theologians explain that the formula extra
ecclesiam nulla salus in itself signifies that the Church is requisite for
salvation with the necessity of precept, even thought their own teaching on the
Church’s necessity for salvation takes cognizance of a real necessity of means.
Egger, Brunsmann, and Van Noort, among others, claim that historically the axiom
that there is no salvation outside the Church has reference to the necessity of
precept. [42] Hurter, Ottiger, Schouppe, Casanova, and Orazio Mazzella all
insist upon the necessity of precept, and despite the comparative complexity of
his explanation, Pesch centers his teaching on this thesis around the same
notion of the necessity of precept. [43] Herrmann, Dorsch, Herve, and Calcagno
all claim this as the meaning of the axiom, although they give a far stricter
interpretation of the thesis itself. [44] Marengo interprets the axiom as
signifying that those who belong in no way to the Church, or who do not belong
to the body of the Church through their own fault, cannot be saved. [45]
Michelitsch combines this teaching on the necessity of precept with the
explanation that the Church is the ordinary means of salvation, [46] and the
teaching of Bartmann on this thesis can be reduced to the same type of
explanation. [47]
Among the ecclesiologists who have treated this question since the time of the
Vatican Council, however, the group which is by far the most imposing, in
numbers, in authority, and in the attention they have devoted to this thesis ,
is that of the men who have taught that the Church itself is necessary for
salvation with the necessity of means. Franzelin and Hunter added the
explanation that it is possible to belong to the visible Church invisibly. [48]
Crosta spoke of the possibility of being in the Church either corde seu
affective or corpore seu effective. [49] Most of the others have followed
the example of Billot, Palmieri, Lambrecht, and Straub, and have explained that
it is possible to be saved if one is within the Church in re or in
voto. [50]
Casanova, Herrmann, Schultes, Egger, and Calcagno all base their explanation of
the thesis on this form of teaching, although they weaken it to some extent by
introducing other elements into it. [51] Among the great twentieth-century
manuals of ecclesiology, those of Dieckmann, D’Herbigny, Bainvel, Lercher, De
Guibert, and Felder insist that the Church itself is necessary for salvation
with the necessity of means. [52] The teaching of Manzoni, though somewhat has
developed, must also be interpreted in this sense. [53] The recent treatises of
Vellico, Zapelena, Parente, Philips, and Graham are all explicit on this point.
[54] The thesis developed in the same line in the special works of Bainvel,
Caperan, and Dublanchy. [55] De Groot and Berry both speak of membership in the
Church as necessary in re or in voto. [56]
The idea that a votum, that is a desire or an intention, of entering the
Church can bring a man “within” the Church sufficiently to allow for the
possibility of his salvation is one of the dominant factors in recent
theological writing on the Church’s necessity. The notion itself is a part of
Catholic doctrinal tradition, although this particular terminology, or, to be
more exact, the application of this terminology to the thesis that there is no
salvation outside the Church, goes back only to the latter part of the sixteenth
century, to the time of Stapleton and St. Robert. [57] Now the idea, and to a
lesser extent the terminology itself, is definitely a standard part of the
scholastic treatment of this thesis.
Likewise, and by force of the very content of Catholic theology, it is standard
scholastic teaching that the votum or desire of entering the Catholic
Church may be merely implicit and still sufficient to bring a man “within” the
Church so as to make his salvation possible. Salvific faith must be explicit on
four points. No man can believe in God as he must believe in order to possess
the life of sanctifying grace without distinctly acknowledging the existence of
God as the Head of the supernatural order, the fact that God thus rewards the
good and punishes evil, the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, and the mystery of
the Incarnation. The mystery of the Catholic Church is not one of these facts
which must be believed explicitly in salvific faith.
In the magazine From the Housetops, Mr. Raymond Karam wrote that, in
order to be saved, a person “must have an explicit will to join the Catholic
Church.” [58] If this statement were true, then it would follow that practically
all that has been written in the literature of scholastic theology on the
necessary explicit content of salvific faith since the question was first
considered in the schools would be lamentably incorrect. What Mr. Karam presents
as an expression of pure Catholic doctrine proves, upon examination, to be
merely another tentative in opposition to received ecclesiastical teaching.
The statement that the Church (not merely the “soul” or the “body” of the
Church) is necessary for salvation with the necessity of means in such a way
that no man can be saved unless he is within the Church either in re or
by either an explicit or an implicit votum must be considered as an
accurate statement of the revealed teaching on the Church’s necessity for
eternal salvation and as the standard terminology of most modern theologians on
this subject. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that this mode of expression is
not completely adequate, and this it does not entirely close off the possibility
of a seriously erroneous perspective in this section of sacred doctrine. One
example may suffice to show how this terminology may be abused.
When we assert that the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation with the
necessity of means, in such a way that a man must belong to it in re or
in voto if he is to attain to the beatific vision, there is a danger that
we may be misunderstood and that people may consider the appurtenance to the
Church in voto as the thing that really counts, and think of belonging to
the Church in re, that is, actually being a member of the true and
visible Church of Jesus Christ, as something more or less accidental in the
schema of the supernatural order. Unfortunately there have been and there still
are individuals who look upon the Church as really necessary only for the
complete fulness of those revealed truths and other supernatural aids which,
according to their teaching, can be obtained outside the Church and
independently of it less perfectly, although still to an extent sufficient to
make salvation possible. Obviously such an interpretation of the Church’s
necessity for salvation reduces this teaching to a mere empty formula.
It remains now to consider briefly the explanations of the Church’s necessity
which involve the use of the terms “soul” and “body” of the Church. There is a
definite tendency among modern writers to recognize the radical inadequacy of
this terminology. [59] Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the Holy
Father, in his encyclical Mystici Corporis, did not employ it at all in
his statements on the subject of the Church’s necessity. [60]
The terminology, it must be admitted, had the advantage of taking cognizance of
the fact that the life of grace and of charity, and the activity of faith
itself, really belong to the Church, and of inculcating the truth that the three
theological virtues, together with the other infused virtues and the gifts of
the Holy Ghost, are actually the internal bond of union within the visible
Church itself. It had, however, the tremendous disadvantage of leading to the
inference that the internal bond of union within the Church could be regarded as
requisite for salvation without any sufficient or adequate reference to the
outward bond or to the visible Church itself. As it has been employed in the
scholastic thesis on the necessity of the Church, this terminology has served to
obscure the understanding of the divinely revealed truth on this subject, rather
than effectively to explain it.
The assertion that the axiom “no salvation outside the Church” refers to the
soul of the Church alone, and the teaching that the soul of the Church alone is
necessary with the necessity of means, have contributed in large measure to the
imperfect teaching on this subject which the Holy Father deplores and reproves
in the Humani generis. The forthcoming section of this article will
attempt to show, from the history of this treatise in scholastic theology, how
such an effect has been achieved.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, D.C.
1. Cf. AER, CXVIII, 3, 4, and 5 (March, April, and May, 1948), 214-28;
290-305; 361-75.
2. In the NCWC edition, p. 12, n. 27.
3. In the Osservatore Romano, for Nov. 2, 1950.
4. DB, 423.
5. DB, 430.
6. DB, 468.
7. DB, 714.
8. DB, 1646.
9. DB, 1647.
10. Cf. DB, 1677.
11. Ibid.
12. Mathew, in his chapter, “Extra Ecclesiam Salus Nulla,” in the symposium
Ecclesia: The Church of Christ, edited by Arnold Harris Mathew (London:
Burns and Oates, 1906), p. 148.
13. Ibid, p. 146.
14. Ibid.
15. In Karrer’s Religions of Mankind (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1938),
pp. 250-78.
16. Mathew, op. cit., p. 148.
17. In Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching
(London: Longmans, Green, and Co. 1896), II, 334.
18. DB, 1677. Newman quotes this passage in op. cit., pp. 335 f.
19. Ibid., p. 335.
20. Ibid., p. 336.
21. Ibid., p. 335.
22. Synthesis sive notae theologiae fundamentalis (Burgos, 1906), p.328.
23. Theologia generalis seu tractatus de sacrae theologiae principiis
(Barcelona, 1901), p. 346.
24. A Manual of Catholic Theology, 3rd edition (London: Kegan Paul 1908),
II, 344.
25. Cf. La Salvezza di chi non ha fede, 4th edition (Rome: Civilta
Cattolica, 1949), pp. 523, 574 f.
26. Jésus-Christ et les Protestants (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1939), p.
226.
27. Cf. Sertillanges, The Church (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1922), p.
225; Lippert, Die Kirche Christi (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1935), p.
271; Michalon, in his essay, “L’étendue de l’église,” in the symposium Église
et unité (Lille: Editions “Catholicité,” 1948), p. 119; Héris, L’église du
Christ (Juvisy: Éditions du Cerf, 1930), p. 21. Hétis teaches that all the souls
susceptibles de recevoir la grâce belong visibly or invisibly to the
Church as they do to Christ.
28. Cf. Catholicisme, 4th edition (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1947), pp.
193f.
29. Ibid., p. 194.
30. Cf. ibid., p. 195.
31. Aspects de l’église (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1949), p. 131.
32. Cf. ibid., p. 126.
33. Cf. ibid., p. 132.
34. Cf. ibid., pp135f.
35. Cf. Le mystère du salut des nations (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1946),
p. 138.
36. In his essay, “The Church as the Mystical Body of Christ,” in the symposium,
God and the Supernatural, edited by Father Cuthbert, O.S.F.C. (London:
Longmans, Green, and Company, 1920), p. 266.
37. La crédibilité du dogme catholique (Lyons: Vitte, 1948), p. 488.
38. Cf. Card. Mazzella, De religione et ecclesia praelectiones
scholastico-dogmaticae, 6th edition (Prato, 1905), pp. 394 f.; Marchini,
Summula theologiae dogmaticae (Vigevano, 1898), pp. 47ff. ; Prevel,
Theologiae dogmaticae elementa (Paris : Lethielleux, 1912), I, 188ff. ; 194.
39. Hors de l’église point de salut, 3rd edition (Paris : Téqui, 1927),
pp. 153ff. ;266ff.
40. Cf. Tepe, Institutiones theologicae in usum scholarum (Paris:
Lethielleux, 1894), I, 361; Tanquerey, Synopsis theologiae dogmaticae
fundamentalis, 24th edition, revised by Fr. Bord (Paris: Desclée, 1937), p.
555; Hervé, Manuale theologiae dogmaticae 18th edition (Paris: Berche et
Pagis, 1939), I, 342; Zubizarreta, Theologia dogmatico-scholastica ad mentem
S. Thomae Aquinatis, 3rd edition (Bilbao : Elèxpuru, 1937), I, 333 ;
Lahitton, Theologiae dogmaticae theses (Paris : Beauchesne, 1932), III,
129-37.
41. Cf. De revelatione per ecclesiam catholicam proposita, 4th edition
(Rome: Ferrari, 1945), II, 407.
42. Cf. Egger, Enchiridion theologiae dogmaticae generalis, 6th edition,
(Brescia, 1932), p. 517; Brunsmann-Preuss, A Handbook of Fundamental Theology
(St. Louis: Herder, 1931), III, 328; Van Noort, Tractatus de ecclesia
Christi, 5th edition by Fr. Verhaar (Hilversum: Brand, 1932), pp. 183f.
43. Cf. Hunter, Theologiae dogmaticae compendium, 2nd edition (Innsbruck:
Wagner, 1878), I, 190: Ottiger, Theologia fundamentalis (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 1911), II 261: Schouppe, Elementa theologiae dogmaticae,
22nd edition (Lyons: Delhomme et Briguet, 1861), I, 176; Casanova, Theologia
fundamentalis (Rome, 1899), p. 254; Archbishop Orazio Mazzella,
Praelectiones scholastico dogmaticae, 6th edition (Turin: Società Editrice
Internazionale, 1944), I, 394
44. Cf. Herrmann, Institutiones theologiae dogmaticae, 7th edition
(Lyons: Vitte, 1937), I, 377; Dorsch, Institutiones theologiae fundamentalis,
2nd edition (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1928), II, 539; Hervé, op. cit., p. 345;
Calcagno, Theologia fundamentalis (Naples: D’Auria, 1948), p. 169.
45. Cf. Institutiones theologiae fundamentalis, 3rd edition (Turin:
Salesian Press, 1894), II, 251.
46. Cf. Elementa apologeticae sive theologiae fundamentalis, 3rd edition
(Graz: Styria, 1925), p. 278.
47. Cf. Bartmann, Précis de théologie dogmaticae (Mulhouse : Salvator,
1936), II, 166. Bartmann combines a teaching on the visible Church as necessary
for salvation with a teaching on the absolute necessity of the “community of
grace.”
48. Cf. Franzellin, Theses de ecclesia Christi (Rome, 1887), p. 424;
Hunter, Outlines of Dogmatic Theology, 3rd edition (New York: Benzinger, 1894),
I, 255.
49. Cf. Theologia dogmatica, 3rd edition (Gallarate, 1932), I, 195.
50. Cf. Billot, Tractatus de ecclesia Christi, 5th edition (Rome:
Gregorian University, 1927, I, 117ff.; Palmieri, Tractatus de Romano
Pontifice cum prolegomeno de ecclesia, 2nd edition (Prato, 1891), pp. 15ff.;
Lambrecht, Demonstratio catholica seu tractatus de ecclesia (Ghent,
1890), p. 30; Straub, De ecclesia Christi (Innsbruck, 1894), pp. 233ff.
51. Cf. Casanova, op. cit., p. 254; Herrmann, op. cit., pp.
372ff.; Schultes, De ecclesia catholica praelectiones apologeticae
(Paris: Lethielleux, 1931), pp. 267ff.; Egger, op. cit., pp. 514ff.;
Calcagno, op. cit., 166ff.
52. Cf. Dieckmann, De ecclesia tractatus historico-dogmatici (Freiburg im
Breisgau: Herder, 1925), II, 252f.; D’Herbigny, Theologica de Ecclesia,
3rd edition (Paris: Beauchesne, 1927), I, 149ff. X; Bainvel, De ecclesia
Christi (Paris: Beauchesne, 1925), pp. 88ff.; Lercher, Institutiones
theologiae dogmaticae, 2nd edition (Innsbruck: Rauch, 1934), I, 441ff.; De
Guibert, De Christi ecclesia, 2nd edition (Rome: Gregorian University,
1928), pp. 155ff.; Apologetica sive theologia fundamentalis, 2nd edition
(Paderborn, 1923), II, 18ff. Felder speaks of participation in the Church as the
condicio sine qua nemo salvatur.
53. Cf. Compendium theologiae dogmaticae, 4th edition (Turin, 1928), I,
184.
54. Cf. Vellico, De ecclesia Christi tractatus apologetico-dogmaticus
(Rome: Arnodo, 1940), pp. 457-64; Zapelena, De ecclesia Christi (Rome:
Gregorian University, 1940), II, 152ff.; Parente, Theologia fundamentalis
(Turin: Marietti, 1946), pp. 129ff.; Philips, La sainte église catholique
(Tournai: Casterman, 1947), pp. 262ff.; Graham, “The Church on Earth,” in The
Teaching of the Catholic Church, edited by Canon Smith (New York: Macmillan,
1949), II, 709f.
55. Cf. Bainvel, Is there Salvation outside the Catholic Church? (St.
Louis: Herder, 1920), pp. 25ff.; Caperan, Le problème du salut des infidèles
: Essai théologicae, 2nd edition (Toulouse : Grand Séminaire, 1934), pp.
103ff. ; Dublanchy, “Église,” in DTC, IV, 2166ff.
56. Cf. De Groot, Summa apologetica de ecclesia catholica, 3rd edition
(Regensburg, 1906), p. 142; Berry, The Church of Christ, 2nd edition (St.
Louis: Herder, 1927), p. 235.
57. Stapleton seems to have been the first to employ this terminology with
reference to the necessity of the Church, in his Principiorum fidei
doctrinalium demonstratio methodica (Paris, 1579), p. 314. St. Robert
employed it in his De ecclesia militante, in the Ingolstadt edition of
the Controversies (1586 edition), col. 1206.
58. Raymand Karam, in “Reply to a Liberal,” in From the Housetops, III,
3, (Spring, 1949), p. 61.
59. Cf. Caperan, op. cit., 104f.; Philips, op. cit., pp. 276ff.
60. The encyclical speaks of those non-members of the Church who are “within” it
according to the sense of the axiom, not as belonging to the soul of the Church,
but as ordered “inscio quodam desiderio ac voto ad mysticum Redemptoris
Corpus.”