What does 'extra ecclesiam nulla salus' mean?

[Hoonbaba]

Hi guys,

I posted a thread already asking about 'outside the church.....' but it was deleted because of the content I submitted. And so I'm posting it again differently.

And here's what I'd like to know: What does Outside the Church, there is no salvation (extra ecclesiam nulla salus exactly mean?

Just by reading it alone, it sounds like it means if you're not Catholic then you're not saved. Yet the Church doesn't teach that. Can someone clarify?

I think this will be useful later on as a sticky thread, since it seems to be a huge misconception.

Thanks!

-Jason

 

[Markh]

It does not mean that all people who are not Catholic (in terms of having received the sacraments) cannot be saved.

so basically good protestants can be saved- but they will be saved through the Catholic Church and not their protestant denomination that they had been a member of.

I think that is the starting point to answeing this question.

 

[Hoonbaba]

Anyone else care to comment, or clarify?

 

[Paul S]

It first means that all who are saved are saved through Jesus and the Catholic Church, whether they know this or not.

It also means that those who knowingly reject the Catholic Church will not be saved. One who remains outside the Church through no fault of his own can still be saved if he leads a good, moral life, since God will not judge us for things that are not our fault.

How many people are truly in invincible ignorance is unknown. Some think many are; some think only a few, but the true number is known only to God. We should pray for the salvation of non-Catholics, but we should also teach them why the Catholic Church is the one true Church.

 

[JeffreyLloyd]

Slogans can be dangerous. For example, "Remember the Alamo!" rings out with calls for vindictive revenge. To many, the phrase "The immemorial Tridentine Mass" implies that other forms of the Eucharistic Sacrifice (such as the order of the Mass promulgated since Vatican II) just don't cut it historically, doctrinally or liturgically. The phrase, "active participation of the faithful" has been used to justify frenetic activity and odd and even illicit forms of lay involvement in the action of the Sacred Liturgy. Or how about the often heard "We are Church" catch-phrase, which is a mischievous expression usually used to lend an aura of credibility to those who dissent from the authentic doctrine of the divinely ordained teachers of the Church. It's a blatant appeal to American principles of political equality.

The truth is that slogans can be useful, so long as we know that they generally conceal as much of the truth as they reveal. In other words, like all shorthand expressions, slogans have value as far as they go, and as long as those using them realize their limitations.

And so it is with the theological slogan, extra ecclesiam nulla salus (Latin for "outside the Church, no salvation"). This is a doctrine of the Catholic Church, one that's found in every age of Catholic history, and it's held to by the Church's best and most influential minds. Understood properly, its dogmatic truth is beyond question. The problem arises, however, when this slogan is given a life of its own. And so it was in the 1940s with Fr. Leonard Feeney. For those who don't know, Fr. Feeney was a brilliant and popular chaplain at Harvard University. Unfortunately, he began to preach and teach an extreme form of extra ecclesiam which the then Archbishop of Boston, Richard Cushing, found problematic. When asked either to modify his position or to be silent, Fr. Feeney responded by accusing the Archbishop himself of heresy, leading to an investigation of Feeney's work by the Holy See, with the attendant decision by the Jesuit Order to silence him. When he refused to accept this decision, he was dismissed from the Society of Jesus and eventually excommunicated, taking with him many men and women whom he formed into a community of religious and laity — all committed to his rigorist interpretation of extra ecclesiam.

Can Outsiders Be Insiders? - Read Full Article Here.

 

[PeterPaul]

And just like "the immemorial Tridentine Mass" also makes some curl up in a ball and think of orthodox Catholics. LOL

 

[garydench]

I think we must remember that all are members of the Catholic Church through their baptism - they just have yet to accept the truth which the Catholic Church Church offers.

But I think that even those who have never known the light and friendship of Christ have the possibility of achieving Salvation so long as they listen to their conscience and seek to do what is in accordance with the will of God.

 

[Benedicta00]

You don't have to be a full fledge member 'in' the Catholic Church but you do have to have some sort of relationship to her in order to be saved. Some faiths have a very close relationship to her like the EO and some are much farther away. Salvation isn’t impossible if you are not in full communion with the Catholic Church but it is a lot harder.

 

[Paul S]

Since there's only one Church, every valid baptism is done into the Catholic Church. People can choose to leave later, through schism and heresy, but culpability for those sins depends on whether or not they know what they're doing, and many Protestants nowadays may not know.

 

[Benedicta00]

No, you must be baptized in the Roman Catholic Church.

To be saved? No, that is not what the Church says.

 

[Defensor Fidei]

To be saved? No, that is not what the Church says.

Really? Then what does it say?

 

[Benedicta00]

Really? Then what does it say?

You have to excuse me, I thought you were defenders of faith, you are someone else?? Not Chris?

Anyway, you must be SSPX. The Church does not teach that Protestants go to hell. There is no salvation outside the Church, one does not have to be a full pledge member…much like yourself, you aren’t in communion with Rome if you are SSPX but you have a relationship to her, a closer one that a Protestants would have. A person can be saved through a connection to the Church through Christ.

 

[Paul S]

The church teaches that heretics and schismatics go to hell. However, heresy and schism are mortal sins, and like any mortal sin, there are three requirements: grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent of the will. Today's Protestants, who grow up knowing only their denomination and possibly hearing nothing but negative comments about the Church, do not have the full knowledge or full consent to commit the sin of heresy.

There likely are some Protestants and other non-Catholics who are heretics, but unless the Church has declared this, we do not know the state of their soul, so they may still be within the Church.

There is a difference between a material heretic, a person who believes in a false doctrine, and a formal heretic, who has committed the sin of heresy and incurred excommunication latae sententiae. Many non-Catholics today most likely fall in the former category, not the latter.

 

[Paul S]

What about a person who has never heard of Christianity and had no opportunity to be baptised? Since God is perfect justice, it would be unjust to condemn this person to hell for something which was not his fault.

The Church teaches that all those baptised are baptised into the Church. The Church also teaches that non-Catholics may be saved, if not being Catholic is due to no fault of their own. This is Church teaching, both before and after Vatican II.

Catholics must accept invincible ignorance. The number of those who are truly in invincible ignorance is unknown, and one can personally believe anywhere from very few to most are saved. However, the number is known only to God, and we should not try to judge the state of anyone's soul.

 

[Paul S]

Here's what the Catechism says:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336


847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

 

[Benedicta00]

The Catholic Church does not teach she knows who goes to hell and who does not. All judgment is left to God, all the Church does is teach us what the road to heaven is and it is not limited to those who BY NO FAULT of their own are not Catholic.

 

[Benedicta00]

What does 'outside' mean to you both? It means we have to have a connection to her/Christ. There is no Salvtion outside Christ.

 

[Benedicta00]

It isn’t a broad as some want to think it is. I am the last one to say that all roads lead to heaven because I certainly know better but a holy Protestant who is humble and by no fault does not know the Church is the True Church can be saved.

 

[entropy_rising]

What does "by no fault of their own" mean?

 

[Michelina]

Temporarily Closed for Review and Cleanup.