Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
Not in the sense in which it is meant. It would be monstrous if we said that no one outside the Catholic Church, whether through his own fault or not, can be saved. I am speaking, of course, of a person's public profession of adherence to the visible Catholic Church in this world. This is a profound subject which raises the questions as to whether it is necessary to belong to the Church, and to which Church, and in what way or to what extent one must belong to it in order to be saved. On all these aspects of the problem we shall see more as we go along. Here I will content myself with asking you whether it was monstrous for Christ to say: "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." Matt., XVIII, 17. Or again, when Saul was persecuting the Church and Christ appeared to him and said: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?" Acts, IX, 4, can we escape the conclusion that, if persecution of the Church is persecution of Christ, our salvation must in some way be bound up with our attitude to the Church? The whole point is whether or not the Catholic Church is the one true Church as depicted in the New Testament. Catholics believe that it is; and therefore they hold with the Bible that the salvation of souls is bound up with their relationships to the Catholic Church.
For a man who has had it sufficiently put before him and who has realized its truth, yes. But if a man has never known the truth of the Catholic religion, he can be saved provided he complies with other necessary conditions applicable to him.
The Athanasian Creed was written by Catholics for people already Catholics, and it tells them that they will not remain Catholics unless they accept the explanations contained in it of the particular aspects of the Christian religion with which it deals. And all Catholics know quite well that fidelity to their Catholic Faith is necessary for their salvation. But a person who had never at any time realized the truth of the Catholic Church and the binding character of the Athanasian Creed would not forfeit salvation by a refusal to believe what he is unaware of any obligation to believe.
Your difficulty arises from confusing an objective statement of truth for all who know the Catholic religion to be that of Christ, with the question of the subjective dispositions of those who have never attained to such knowledge. It is one thing to state the truth which all sufficiently informed people must hold. It is quite another to say that insufficiently informed people are not morally to blame for what they have never realized. Nor, because such people are not morally to blame for their mistake, does it follow that it is as good to be mistaken as to know the truth.
He did, in order to stress the serious obligation of every man to join the Catholic Church once he becomes aware of its truth. But until a man becomes aware of its truth, he cannot be obliged to join it. In fact, if a man sincerely believed the Catholic Church to be false, or even Antichrist (some people do!), he would be obliged not to join it whilst laboring under such a delusion. And he would be guilty of grave sin before God if he did join it against the dictates of his conscience.
It is complete in regard to the particular aspect of the relationship of the Catholic Church to the salvation of souls with which it deals. But there is another and equally important aspect of the subject with which it did not intend to deal, of which the explanation is to be sought elsewhere and in its own proper place.
Never.
In that case you know better than the Catholic Church herself the meaning of her own teachings! For on Dec. 9, 1854, Pope Pius IX declared: "We must hold as of faith that out of the Apostolic Roman Church there; is no salvation; that she is the only ark of safety, and whosoever is not in her perishes in the deluge. We must also, on the other hand, recognize with certainty that those who are in invincible ignorance of the true religion are not guilty for this in the eyes of the Lord." On August 10, 1863, he further said: "Those who are in invincible ignorance of our most holy religion, but who observe carefully the natural law graven by God on the hearts of all men, and who, being disposed to obey God, lead an honest and upright life, aided by divine grace, attain to eternal life.
By saying that they are concerned with different things. In the one case, omitting considerations of the subjective and personal dispositions of men, we can ask whether the Catholic Church is in itself the true Church to which Christ intends men to belong. To that we reply, yes. The Catholic Church is the Church Christ Himself established and of which He said: "If a man will not hear the Church, let him be as the heathen." Matt., XVIII, 17. When, however, we turn from considering the truth and the necessity of the Catholic Church in itself, and ask about the position of people who do not belong to it, we have to say that they are to blame for not belonging to it if they know it to be the true Church, but not if they do not know this. And if they are living good lives according to such convictions as they do possess, we have to rank them among those of whom Christ said: "Other sheep I have who are not of this fold." Jn., X, 16. The absence of contradiction is, therefore, clear once one realizes that "one doctrine deals with the objective truth of the Catholic Church in itself, whilst the other deals with the subjective dispositions and responsibility of individuals in relation to its claims. The whole position is summed up in the ordinary Catholic Catechism for children by the statement that no one outside the Catholic Church "through his own fault" can be saved.
All Catholics believe that for themselves it is necessary for them to continue as members of the Catholic Church if they wish to save their souls. It is definitely not the general belief of Catholics that those outside the Catholic Church who have never realized the truth of the Catholic Church cannot be saved.
If a person belongs to some other Church in quite good faith, not suspecting his position to be mistaken, God will not deny to him personally the graces necessary for his salvation. If he has the goodwill to correspond with those graces, he will save his soul. But salvation will not be granted to him through the wrong Church to which he belongs, nor because of it. As salvation is possible only through Christ, so it can be mediated to men only through the one true Church He founded�the Catholic Church. No Church set up by men independently of that Church has the vocation and power to save mankind. The non-Catholic who saves his soul will do so through an influence overflowing to him from the Catholic Church, not through any specific influence of the wrong religion he mistakenly accepts. He may not realize this in the present world, but he will in Heaven. Salvation, then, is possible for those who happen to belong to Churches other than the Church of Rome, but not through those Churches.
It ought to. Let us take a doctrine you Protestants yourselves admit. You, together with Catholics, accept the teaching of Acts, IV, 12, in reference to Christ: "There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." If, therefore, some poor pagan who has never heard of Christ saves his soul, Protestants themselves would have to admit that it would be through the grace of Christ, although the pagan would be quite unaware of that until he got to heaven. Having received the grace of Christ, the soul of that apparent pagan would have belonged to Christ without knowing it. Now we Catholics hold also that the Catholic Church is the one true Church established by Christ, that there is no other Church given to men whereby they may be saved, and that all who are members of Christ by grace are somehow or other, whether they know it or not, members of that one true Church. Implicitly, even though not externally, and even though they deny it as that good pagan would have denied that he was a Christian, all who are in the grace and love and friendship of Christ belong in their souls to the Catholic Church, and they go to heaven through that membership of the Catholic Church, of the truth of which they have not been conscious in this world. Of course, had they become aware of the truth of the Catholic Church they would not have remained in a non-Catholic denomination but would have transferred their allegiance externally to the Catholic Church, as so many converts, including myself, have done. But that transfer is not of obligation until one does realize clearly the truth of the claims of the visible Catholic Church to be the one true Church in this world. This explanation may have seemed long and involved, but we are dealing with a profound question which cannot be settled off-hand by a single superficial statement.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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