The Catechism of the Catholic Church, following historic Christian
theology since the time of the early Church Fathers, refers to the Catholic
Church as "the universal sacrament of salvation" (CCC 774–776), and states: "The
Church in this world is the sacrament of salvation, the sign and the instrument
of the communion of God and men" (CCC 780).
Many people misunderstand the nature of this teaching.
Indifferentists, going to one extreme, claim that it makes no difference what
church one belongs to. Certain radical traditionalists, going to the other
extreme, claim that unless one is a full-fledged, baptized member of the
Catholic Church, one will be damned.
The following quotations from the Church Fathers give the straight story. They
show that the early Church held the same position on this as the contemporary
Church does—that is, while it is normatively necessary to be a Catholic to be
saved (see CCC 846; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 14), there are
exceptions, and it is possible in some circumstances for people to be saved who
have not been fully initiated into the Catholic Church (CCC 847).
Notice that the same Fathers who declare the normative necessity of being
Catholic also declare the possibility of salvation for some who are not
Catholics.
These can be saved by what later came to be known as "baptism of blood" or "
baptism of desire" (for more on this subject, see the Fathers Know Best tract,
The Necessity of Baptism).
The Fathers likewise affirm the possibility of salvation for those who lived
before Christ and who were not part of Israel, the Old Testament People of God.
However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent
ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or
schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church),
no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in
Catholic unity.
Ignatius of Antioch
"Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a
schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange
doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take
care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to
God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union
of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my
fellow servants, the deacons" (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D.
110]).
Justin Martyr
"We have been taught that Christ is the first-begotten of God, and we have
declared him to be the Logos of which all mankind partakes [John 1:9].
Those, therefore, who lived according to reason [Greek, logos] were
really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among
the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others like them. . . . Those who lived
before Christ but did not live according to reason [logos] were wicked
men, and enemies of Christ, and murderers of those who did live according to
reason [logos], whereas those who lived then or who live now according to
reason [logos] are Christians. Such as these can be confident and
unafraid" (First Apology 46 [A.D. 151]).
Irenaeus
"In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other
working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to
the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse
way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit
of God is, there is the Church and all grace" (Against Heresies 3:24:1
[A.D. 189]).
"[The spiritual man] shall also judge those who give rise to schisms, who are
destitute of the love of God, and who look to their own special advantage rather
than to the unity of the Church; and who for trifling reasons, or any kind of
reason which occurs to them, cut in pieces and divide the great and glorious
body of Christ, and so far as in them lies, destroy it—men who prate of peace
while they give rise to war, and do in truth strain out a gnat, but swallow a
camel. For they can bring about no ‘reformation’ of enough importance to
compensate for the evil arising from their schism. . . . True knowledge is that
which consists in the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of
the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the
body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have
handed down that Church which exists in every place [i.e., the Catholic Church]"
(ibid., 4:33:7–8).
Clement of Alexandria
"Before the coming of the Lord, philosophy was necessary for justification to
the Greeks; now it is useful for piety . . . for it brought the Greeks to Christ
as the law did the Hebrews" (Miscellanies 1:5 [A.D. 208]).
Origen
"[T]here was never a time when God did not want men to be just; he was always
concerned about that. Indeed, he always provided beings endowed with reason with
occasions for practicing virtue and doing what is right. In every generation the
wisdom of God descended into those souls which he found holy and made them to be
prophets and friends of God" (Against Celsus 4:7 [A.D. 248]).
"If someone from this people wants to be saved, let him come into this house so
that he may be able to attain his salvation. . . . Let no one, then, be
persuaded otherwise, nor let anyone deceive himself: Outside of this house, that
is, outside of the Church, no one is saved; for, if anyone should go out of it,
he is guilty of his own death" (Homilies on Joshua 3:5 [A.D. 250]).
Cyprian of Carthage
"Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress [a
schismatic church] is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he
that forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is an
alien, a worldling, and an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father who has not
the Church for his mother" (The Unity of the Catholic Church 6, 1st ed.
[A.D. 251]).
"Let them not think that the way of life or salvation exists for them, if they
have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since the Lord says in the book of
Deuteronomy: ‘And any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the
priest or judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die’ [Deut.
17:12]. And then, indeed, they were killed with the sword . . . but now the
proud and insolent are killed with the sword of the Spirit, when they are cast
out from the Church. For they cannot live outside, since there is only one house
of God, and there can be no salvation for anyone except in the Church" (Letters
61[4]:4 [A.D. 253]).
"When we say, ‘Do you believe in eternal life and the remission of sins through
the holy Church?’ we mean that remission of sins is not granted except in the
Church" (ibid., 69[70]:2 [A.D. 253]).
"Peter himself, showing and vindicating the unity, has commanded and warned us
that we cannot be saved except by the one only baptism of the one Church. He
says, ‘In the ark of Noah a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water.
Similarly, baptism will in like manner save you" [1 Peter 3:20-21]. In how short
and spiritual a summary has he set forth the sacrament of unity! In that baptism
of the world in which its ancient wickedness was washed away, he who was not in
the ark of Noah could not be saved by water. Likewise, neither can he be saved
by baptism who has not been baptized in the Church which is established in the
unity of the Lord according to the sacrament of the one ark" (ibid., 73[71]:11).
"[O]utside the Church there is no Holy Spirit, sound faith moreover cannot
exist, not alone among heretics, but even among those who are established in
schism" (Treatise on Rebaptism 10 [A.D. 256]).
Lactantius
"It is, therefore, the Catholic Church alone which retains true worship. This is
the fountain of truth; this, the domicile of faith; this, the temple of God.
Whoever does not enter there or whoever does not go out from there, he is a
stranger to the hope of life and salvation. . . . Because, however, all the
various groups of heretics are confident that they are the Christians and think
that theirs is the Catholic Church, let it be known that this is the true
Church, in which there is confession and penance and which takes a
health-promoting care of the sins and wounds to which the weak flesh is subject"
(Divine Institutes 4:30:11–13 [A.D. 307]).
Jerome
"Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw
from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes
damnation. Between heresy and schism there is this difference: that heresy
involves perverse doctrine, while schism separates one from the Church on
account of disagreement with the bishop. Nevertheless, there is no schism which
does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church" (Commentary
on Titus 3:10–11 [A.D. 386]).
Augustine
"We believe also in the holy Church, that is, the Catholic Church. For heretics
violate the faith itself by a false opinion about God; schismatics, however,
withdraw from fraternal love by hostile separations, although they believe the
same things we do. Consequently, neither heretics nor schismatics belong to the
Catholic Church; not heretics, because the Church loves God; and not schismatics,
because the Church loves neighbor" (Faith and the Creed 10:21 [A.D.
393]).
"[J]ust as baptism is of no profit to the man who renounces the world in words
and not in deeds, so it is of no profit to him who is baptized in heresy or
schism; but each of them, when he amends his ways, begins to receive profit from
that which before was not profitable, but was yet already in him" (On
Baptism, Against the Donatists 4:4[6] [A.D. 400]).
"I do not hesitate to put the Catholic catechumen, burning with divine love,
before a baptized heretic. Even within the Catholic Church herself we put the
good catechumen ahead of the wicked baptized person . . . For Cornelius, even
before his baptism, was filled up with the Holy Spirit [Acts 10:44–48], while
Simon [Magus], even after his baptism, was puffed up with an unclean spirit
[Acts 8:13–19]" (ibid., 4:21[28]).
"The apostle Paul said, ‘As for a man that is a heretic, after admonishing him
once or twice, have nothing more to do with him’ [Titus 3:10]. But those who
maintain their own opinion, however false and perverted, without obstinate ill
will, especially those who have not originated the error of bold presumption,
but have received it from parents who had been led astray and had lapsed . . .
those who seek the truth with careful industry and are ready to be corrected
when they have found it, are not to be rated among heretics" (Letters
43:1 [A.D. 412]).
"Whoever is separated from this Catholic Church, by this single sin of being
separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may
imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him"
(ibid., 141:5).
Fulgentius of Ruspe
"Anyone who receives the sacrament of baptism, whether in the Catholic Church or
in a heretical or schismatic one, receives the whole sacrament; but salvation,
which is the strength of the sacrament, he will not have, if he has had the
sacrament outside the Catholic Church [and remains in deliberate schism]. He
must therefore return to the Church, not so that he might receive again the
sacrament of baptism, which no one dare repeat in any baptized person, but so
that he may receive eternal life in Catholic society, for the obtaining of which
no one is suited who, even with the sacrament of baptism, remains estranged from
the Catholic Church" (The Rule of Faith 43 [A.D. 524]).
NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004