The Salvation of Non-Catholics

I've had quite a response to an earlier post answering a question about salvation of non-Catholics. Some of you have asked me to expand on this.

Pope Boniface VIII in 1302 wrote this:
"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." It declares that those who resist the Roman Pontiff are resisting God's ordination.

Now before you launch into rage stay with me. When a pope declares, says, pronounces, and defines, he is using the formula to make crystal-clear that he is delivering not his personal opinion but the dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church. The fact is, Boniface VIII committed the Church to this proposition for the rest of her history. We cannot dodge this with a convenient “that was then, this is now.” If it was dogma once, it still is.

However, the Second Vatican Council 660 years after Unam Sanctam formulated Lumen Gentium, in which she declared, “The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter.”

Hummm... What to do now? I admit this sounds like a flat contradiction. Yet the Church, centuries before Vatican II, regarded Orthodox sacraments as valid, which is awfully hard to do if you don’t think Christ can be found anywhere but in the Catholic Church. Similarly, it has always regarded the baptism of non-Catholics as valid—and a valid baptism means you are, in some sense, in union with Christ. In fact Rev. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for insisting that only people in visible communion with the Catholic Church could be saved. So this simplistic “We’re in, you’re out” reading of Unam Sanctam (and the corollary that Lumen Gentium “cancelled” it) doesn’t fly.

Scripture speaks to this. John said to him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us“ (Mk 9:38–40).

Jesus’ point is in following Him, both the man casting out demons and the apostles—whether the man or the apostles realized it or not—were brought into some kind of union with one another through Him. It didn’t matter whether the apostles or the man were conscious of it. Their mutual obedience to Him put them in relationship to each other. The fact is, it is His Spirit, who is the principle of unity holding His Body together and drawing its members into ever more perfect union with each other.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that unity with the Body of Christ doesn’t matter. For to be brought into union with the Body of Christ at all is to be brought into the order that Christ has established for that Body.

If one is a Christian at all, one is, as Lumen Gentium says, in some kind of union with the Church, the Body of Christ. It's the extent of that unity that is questioned. This is why the Church teaches and has always taught that “outside the Church, there is no salvation.” For the Church is the company of the saved.

There is but one source that has remined infalliable. That source is not confined to a human being, despite the physical presence of any chosen pope. Rather it is the position and office itslef that is guided, protected and sustained by the Holy Spirit. Therefore anyone who seeks to be led by the Holy Spirit is in fact subject to the pontiff. While many non-catholisc might not be conscience of this fact, it is the Catholic church that at the root of faith Christian faith.

To be in the most perfect union possible a Christian should be in the fullness of Christ’s revelation in the Catholic communion. That includes the common life, common worship, and common teaching of the Church; as well as the seven sacraments, the accumulated wisdom of the Tradition both in Scripture and in the life of the Church, the Magisterium (including the papacy), and the “riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints” (Eph 1:18). Other churches use elements in various combinations and to varying degrees but in order to accpect the fullness of God's plan, believers do well to avail themselves of as much of God’s gifts as they can.