(Death, Heaven, Purgatory, Hell)
Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults
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Question 35: What is meant by the statement “Outside the Church there is no salvation”? Does that mean that all non-Catholics will go to Hell?
Answer: The Catholic Church makes claims about herself that are easily misunderstood, especially in the modern atmosphere of pluralism and ecumenism. Among these claims, the most fundamental is the doctrine of the Church's necessity for salvation.
The New Testament makes it plain that Christ founded the Church to be a society for the salvation of all men. The ancient Fathers held the unanimous conviction that salvation cannot be achieved outside the Church. St. Ireneus taught that, "where the Church is, there is the spirit of God, and where the spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace" (St. Ireneus, Adversus Haereses, II, 24, 1.) Origen simply declared, "Outside the Church nobody will be saved." (Origen, Homilia In Jesu Nave, 3, 5.) And the favorite simile in patristic literature for the Church's absolute need to be saved is the Ark of Noah, outside of which there is no prospect of deliverance from the deluge of sin.
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).
The Church teaches that she is the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church” instituted by Christ, for man’s salvation, and that a person must be affiliated with her in some way to be saved. That is what St. Cyprian meant when he wrote: “No one can have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother” (On the Unity of the Church, 6). Many people, who are apparently outside the Church, are in truth, really within her fold in the sight of God. While not united with the Church in fact, they are in communion with her in desire. Whoever is saved owes his salvation to the one Catholic Church founded by Christ. It is to this Church alone that Christ entrusted the truths of revelation which have by now, though often dimly, penetrated all the cultures of mankind. It is this Church alone that communicates the merits won for the whole world on the cross.
This dogma "Outside the Church, there is no salvation" refers to those who are outside the Church by their own choice. There is a command to enter the Church, which is the prescribed way to Heaven. He who obstinately refuses to join the Church, when recognizing that the Catholic Church is the one true Church established by Jesus, forfeits salvation. But those who are in invincible ignorance will not be condemned merely on account of their ignorance. "It is to be held as of faith that none can be saved outside the Apostolic Roman Church ... but nevertheless it is equally certain that those who are ignorant of the true religion, if that ignorance is invincible, will not be held guilty in the matter in the eyes of the Lord" (Pius IX, allocution of December 9, 1854). Those non-Catholics who are saved are outside the visible body of the Church, but are joined invisibly to the Church by charity and by that implicit desire of joining the Church, which is inseparable from the explicit desire to do God's will.
The Church has always taught that no one is lost except through his own fault; that no one is held responsible before God for a duty that he cannot fulfill because of invincible ignorance.
Ignorance is invincible (from the Latin meaning "unconquerable") when it is present indeed but there is no reasonable way, here and now, of dispelling it so that the person cannot be held responsible for doing what he does not know is wrong. He may not even suspect his ignorance, as when a child uses profane or obscene language that was learned from adults, and in such cases the child is not responsible. Or a man may vaguely suspect his ignorance on a point of moral obligation but, under the circumstances, feels it is practically impossible to acquire the knowledge required.
Vincible ignorance can be cleared up if only a person wants to do so. A person would be condemned, not for seeing that the Catholic Church is true, but because, having acknowledged this, continue to close their eyes to it. The measure of his negligence to learn the truth determines his guilt when he does something wrong through lack of sufficient knowledge. Considering the amount of information available to one today, it would be difficult for anyone living in contemporary society to claim invincible ignorance.
This dogma also teaches that if a person is a member of the Church and understands that the Church is the one, true Church established by Christ for the salvation of souls, he forfeits his salvation by separating himself. A rejection of Christ’s Church is a rejection of Christ Himself.
