Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus

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The Latin phrase Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus, meaning: "Outside the Church there is no salvation", is a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, defined in the form, "it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff" in Pope Boniface VIII's 1302 bull Unam Sanctam. It also appears in the profession of faith of the Fourth Lateran Council: "One, moreover, is the universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved."

1 Roman Catholic interpretation
2 Feeneyism
3 Contrast between Feeneyism and Roman Catholic view
4 Implications of Feeneyism
5 Protestantism
6 Notes
7 External links

[edit] Roman Catholic interpretation

The Church's own understanding of the significance of the phrase is expressed in its Catechism of the Catholic Church, 846-848 as follows:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation" - How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 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" (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 14).

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" (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 16).

"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" (Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes, 1).

It is therefore in this sense that the Catholic Church interprets the following statements by Councils and Popes:

Fourth Lateran Council (1215): "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved."

Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctam (1302): "We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff."

Pope Eugene IV, Bull Cantate Domino (1441): "The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church."

Pope Pelagius II (578-590): "Consider the fact that whoever has not been in the peace and unity of the Church cannot have the Lord. ...Although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or, thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be (for them) that crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness. ...Such a one can be slain, he cannot be crowned. ...[If] slain outside the Church, he cannot attain the rewards of the Church" (Denzinger 246-247)

Saint Gregory the Great (590-604), Moralia: "Now the holy Church universal proclaims that God cannot be truly worshipped saving within herself, asserting that all they that are without her shall never be saved."

Pope Innocent III (1198-1216): "With our hearts we believe and with our lips we confess but one Church, not that of the heretics, but the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside which we believe that no one is saved" (Denzinger 423).

Pope Leo XII (1823-1829), Encyclical Ubi Primum: "We profess that there is no salvation outside the Church. ... For the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. With reference to those words Augustine says: `If any man be outside the Church he will be excluded from the number of sons, and will not have God for Father since he has not the Church for mother.'"

Pope Gregory XVI (1831-1846), Encyclical, Summo Jugiter: "It is not possible to worship God truly except in Her; all who are outside Her will not be saved."

Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), "It must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood" (Denzinger 1647).

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), Encyclical Annum Ingressi Sumus: "This is our last lesson to you; receive it, engrave it in your minds, all of you: by God's commandment salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church."

idem, Encyclical Sapientiae Christianae:"He scatters and gathers not who gathers not with the Church and with Jesus Christ, and all who fight not jointly with Him and with the Church are in very truth contending against God."

Pope Pius X (1903-1914), Encyclical Jucunda Sane: "It is our duty to recall to everyone great and small, as the Holy Pontiff Gregory did in ages past, the absolute necessity which is ours, to have recourse to this Church to effect our eternal salvation."

Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922), Encyclical Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum: "Such is the nature of the Catholic faith that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole, or as a whole rejected: This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved."

Pope Pius XI (1922-1939), Encyclical Mortalium Animos: "The Catholic Church alone is keeping the true worship. This is the font of truth, this is the house of faith, this is the temple of God; if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. ... Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ, no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors."

Pope Pius XII (1939-1958), Allocution to the Gregorian University (17 October 1953): "By divine mandate the interpreter and guardian of the Scriptures, and the depository of Sacred Tradition living within her, the Church alone is the entrance to salvation: She alone, by herself, and under the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the source of truth."

Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, 14: "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."

[edit] Feeneyism

Others have interpreted the phrase "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" to mean that only explicit adherents of the Roman Catholic Church can be saved.

This interpretation is associated in particular with the Rev. Leonard Feeney, M.I.C.M. (1897-1978). Feeney had originally been a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Jesuit order. On account of disobedience, the Jesuit order dismissed Feeney in 1949, and on 4 February 1953 the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) declared him excommunicated "on account of grave disobedience to Church Authority, being unmoved by repeated warnings". This declaration was approved by Pope Pius XII on 12 February 1953 and published on the following day. His followers formed the group known as the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

It was traditionally believed that, as well as through sacramental baptism ("baptism of water"), salvation is granted through "baptism of blood" (martyrdom for the faith) and "baptism of desire" (dying, perhaps as a catechumen, before being able to fulfil the wish to be baptized). Some tended to broaden the notion of "baptism of desire" to cover the situation of all who try to live good lives, while perhaps desiring no relationship with the Catholic Church. Taken to its extreme, this broadened interpretation is practically the equivalent of the notion of universal salvation. Father Feeney, on the other hand, accepted no form of baptism other than by water and only within the Catholic Church as opening the way to salvation.

The followers of Father Feeney interpret as supporting their view the 1302 bull Unam Sanctam of Pope Boniface VIII ("We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff"), and the strong restatement of the "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" doctrine by Pope Eugene IV in the bull Cantate Domino of 1441.[1]]

[edit] Contrast between Feeneyism and Roman Catholic view

As indicated above, the Catholic Church rejects both Father Feeney's teaching and (by stating that "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") the contrary notion that one can be saved while knowingly and deliberately rejecting the Catholic Church.

It holds that, among those who "do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter ... those who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 838), and that "(t)hose who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways" (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 839).

The Second Vatican Council further explained the status of non-Catholic Christians ("separated brethren") as follows (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3):

But even in spite of them it remains true that all who have been justified by faith in Baptism are members of Christ's body, and have a right to be called Christian, and so are correctly accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.

Moreover, some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.

The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation.

It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.

The 2000 declaration Dominus Iesus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith states that "it must be firmly believed 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 (cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door." Dominus Iesus then adds that "for those who are not formally and visibly members of the Church, salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church, but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit; it has a relationship with the Church, which “according to the plan of the Father, has her origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit."[2]

[edit] Implications of Feeneyism

A notable controversy is how Vatican II's document, Lumen Gentium, can be consistent with the statement at the Council of Florence (15th century) that Jews, Muslims, pagans, and heretics were damned (thus reaffirming Pope Boniface VIII's papal bull, Unam Sanctam, in 1302 that non-Catholics were damned). If Feeneyism is true, the current Catholic interpretation conflicts with its interpretaion in the middle ages. [3] The Church does address the issue in the Catechism. [4]

One Catholic response to reconcile Lumen Gentium and Unam Sanctum is usually as follows. This restrictive view of salvation to only Catholics was not largely held by the fathers of the early Church. When the early Church fathers spoke of no salvation outside the church, they were only refering to heretics and schismatics -- those who had explicitly rejected the Catholic Church. Those ignorant of the orthodox, catholic faith could still be saved (and through Christ but without explicit knowledge of Christ as the instrumental means of their salvation). So why is the medieval view so restrictive? The answer is simply that the medieval worldview did not see beyond the Muslim territories that surrounded Christian Europe and knew nothing of the pagan lands across the Atlantic. They believed that the Church had reached to all nations (as Christ said that it must do). It was presumed that Muslims, Jews, and any who remained pagan had heard enough of the gospel to be culpable for their remaining outside of the Church. Indeed, the violence of Muslims toward Christians in the East (which began the Crusades) only confirmed this view of their rejection of the true faith. Thus, the medieval magisterial statements on salvation outside the Church cannot be interpreted as applying to those who were inculpably ignorant. These statements were only addressed to those believed to be culpable, just as the early Church fathers addressed their statements of no salvation outside the Church to those believed to be culpable.

Some scholars point out, however, that the idea of "new geographic knowledge" is condemned in Vatican 1, where the view that Church dogmas must sometimes be given meaning according to the progress of science, different from what has always been taught, is denounced. Few books have tackled this issue, though some, such as by Francis A. Sullivan have laid a crucial foundation. [5] Beyond the geographic arguments, the simple fact the statements are so strong, coupled with the rigorous belief by a notable amount of traditional Catholics, makes some non-Catholics question whether the Church in the middle ages truly condemned anyone not within the physical realm of the Catholic Church. To assume the Church cannot contradict itself in order to reconcile rigorous and lenient interpretations, assumes too much, necessarily, for skeptics of the Church. Because rew works such Sullivan are exant, more scholarly information from the middle ages showing the intent of the Church would be helpful.

[edit] Protestantism

The Latin phrase's antiquity has assured its continuance even within the Protestant tradition. Martin Luther, the foremost leader of the reformation, spoke of the necessity of belonging to the church in order to be saved:

Therefore he who would find Christ must first find the Church. How should we know where Christ and his faith were, if we did not know where his believers are? And he who would know anything of Christ must not trust himself nor build a bridge to heaven by his own reason; but he must go to the Church, attend and ask her. Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach; they surely have Christ in their midst. For outside of the Christian church there is no truth, no Christ, no salvation.^[1]

The Genevan reformer John Calvin, writing his Institutes of the Christian Religion at the very time of the Reformation, wrote therein "beyond the pale of the Church no forgiveness of sins, no salvation, can be hoped for".^[2] Calvin wrote also that "those to whom he is a Father, the Church must also be a mother,"^[3] echoing the words of the originator of the Latin phrase himself, Cyprian: "He can no longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother."^[4]

The mother of Philip Melanchthon had followed her son in the Reformation. Dying, she called him and asked him in which faith she should die. He answered: "My mother, the Protestant doctrine is easier, the Catholic doctrine surer!"^{[citation needed]}^[5]

The idea is further affirmed in the Puritan Anglican Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 that "the visible Church . . . is the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." Despite this, it is not necessarily a commonly held belief within modern Protestantism, especially Evangelicalism and those denominations which believe in the autonomy of the local church. The dogma is related to the universal Protestant dogma that the church is the body of all believers and debates within Protestantism usually centre on the meaning of "church" (ecclesiam) and "apart" (extra).

See Sola Ecclesia for a Calvinist exposition of extra ecclesiam nulla salus.