@Vanderhoven7
No one is
incorporated into Christ by a doctrinal checklist; the decisive question is
whether the soul dies in sanctifying grace, which can be possessed only through
union—at least implicit—with the visible Church that is Christ’s Mystical Body.
When a Protestant is validly baptized in the Trinitarian formula, the indelible
character of that sacrament grafts him onto the Church in re, not
merely in voto. From that moment every supernatural act of faith,
hope, and charity he makes is nourished by juices that rise through Catholic
roots, because the one saving economy established by God admits of no rival
streams of grace. The Council of Trent therefore acknowledged the validity of
baptism conferred even by heretics, and Vatican II, echoing Pius XII, speaks of
“many elements of sanctification and truth” that subsist in the ecclesial
communities separated from Rome; through these the Holy Spirit “impels towards
Catholic unity.”
Yet the
same Fathers also insisted that these communities suffer grave wounds: the
absence of sacramental priesthood and Eucharist, the eclipse of Marian dogma,
the loss of the ordinary means of reconciliation, a diminished sense of the
communion of saints. These privations are not neutral; they are objective
defects in the substance of revealed religion and, if knowingly embraced,
constitute formal heresy or schism, which severs supernatural life. The
distinction is crucial. Most Protestants are heirs, not architects, of
separation; they reject our claims not out of contumacy but from inherited
convictions and cultural formation. In Thomistic terms they are “material”
rather than “formal” dissenters; whatever error clings to their intellect is
often accompanied by an upright will sincerely seeking God. Where invincible
ignorance excuses, grace can heal: the theological virtues elicited by baptism
dispose them, at the hour of death, to the further light by which Christ may
manifest the full deposit of faith and invite explicit assent. Should they
accept, they die within the Church, though history had kept them outside her
canonical boundaries.
This mercy,
however, is no charter for complacency. Because God has willed that the
ordinary means of perseverance are the sacraments and doctrine entrusted to
Peter, a Protestant knowingly refusing those remedies, or a Catholic abandoning
them, imperils salvation. Likewise the Catholic may not adopt a false irenicism
as though Marian dogmas or the sacrifice of the Mass were expendable ornaments.
They are part of the “whole Christ,” without whom the seed of baptism struggles
to reach full stature. Hence the Church both acknowledges what is already
Catholic in our separated brethren—real though incomplete communion—and at the
same time pleads for their return, knowing that the plenitude of truth and the
ordinary assurance of final perseverance are found only where Peter’s faith
cannot fail.
We readily
admit that it often costs a person considerable effort to discover the
essential difference between false or erroneous religions and the true one.
Upbringing, environment, and prejudices absorbed without critical reflection
can make orientation very difficult. Yet it is objectively impossible that God
should have rendered the true religion so unrecognizable, giving it no marks by
which it can be known and distinguished from error. In fact, whoever pursues
the matter seriously and studies the Catholic religion and the other religions
without bias will, with almost infallible certainty, arrive at the recognition
of the one true Church.
The mere
fact that we worship one God does not mean it is irrelevant how we worship Him
or what we regard as His revelation and command. Jews and Muslims, too, worship
the one God, yet it surely makes a difference whether one is a Jew, a Muslim,
or a Christian. Likewise, it is not indifferent whether, as a Christian, I
serve and adore God within the framework of the Catholic religion—which
possesses the fullness of faith and rests on the divine will—or within systems
that in greater or lesser matters conflict with God’s ordinances.
At the same
time, we do not claim that everyone outside the Catholic Church is
automatically lost and only Catholics can be saved. One question is whether a
religion is in itself true and exclusively correct; quite another is whether
individuals who are objectively in error may nonetheless be free of personal fault
and therefore not morally culpable for their mistake. A person who clings to an
erroneous religion not out of negligence, contempt, or obstinacy, but because
he is the victim of honest misjudgment, commits no sin on that account and need
not be damned for it. Nevertheless, it is everyone’s most sacred duty to seek
the truth, God’s revelation and will—hence the true religion—according to the
best of one’s ability, and, once found, to embrace it in spite of every
obstacle. If someone remains in error through no fault of his own, he does not
sin; but if he recognizes the truth and refuses to follow it, he commits a
grave sin and may be lost because of it.
We
acknowledge that other denominations, too, have devout and God-fearing members,
and even martyrs; for it is one thing to ask whether the creed they profess is
true and legitimate, and quite another to judge how fully they, as individuals,
conform in conscience to the law they recognize as right. Subjectively, even a
pagan can be God-fearing, noble, heroic, even martyr-spirited; that does not
follow that pagan doctrines are therefore true. Moreover, Christians who stand
in error do not err in every article, but only in certain teachings. In most of
the fundamental questions the Eastern Orthodox hold the full truth: the
existence of God, the Trinity, the Incarnation and Redemption, judgment and
eternal life, the necessary co-operation of grace and free will, the
sacraments. The Eastern Orthodox go to confession, receive Communion and
confirmation as we do; they honor the Blessed Virgin, celebrate a valid Mass,
possess validly ordained bishops and priests, and so on. Even broken fragments
of the true religion radiate such vital power that, under their influence, many
upright and well-intentioned souls among its adherents bring forth heroic
manifestations of holiness and piety. Likewise, among Protestants there lives
much of the ancient Catholic truth and much heartfelt devotion; many deeds
pleasing to God are done. Yet all this does not cancel the fact that their
doctrines are erroneous in certain essential matters—above all in denying
ecclesial unity.
Is it
therefore possible that someone who follows an erroneous faith may nevertheless
be saved, even become a saint and a martyr? Yes, it is possible. We must
suppose that even among non-Christians many obtain grace if in spirit they have
sought the path of truth and have remained within some non-Christian religion
only through inculpable error. The working of grace embraces a wider circle
than the Church’s visible boundaries. By Christ’s appointment the Church is the
ordinary guardian for obtaining and increasing divine grace and holds its
special and abundant means; but this does not mean that the stream of grace
never trickles beyond her banks. The two theses are not mutually exclusive:
that the Catholic Church is Christ’s true Church, and yet that in extraordinary
ways those outside her visible fold can be saved—through that very Church to
which they belonged, albeit unconsciously, in spirit.
You might
ask whether it then makes no difference to which denomination one belongs. That
conclusion would be false. It matters greatly. If a person recognizes the true
Church and yet refuses to follow her, he commits a grave sin against the Holy
Spirit and, unless he repents and repairs it, cannot be saved at all.
Membership of the Church is Christ’s most stringent command and an objective
condition for salvation. “If he refuses to hear the Church,” says Jesus
(Mt 18:17), “let him be to you as a heathen and a tax-collector.” This
means: whoever, in spite of the lawful preaching of the Church’s ministers,
does not believe will be condemned (Mk 16:16). Non-membership is guiltless only
when it results from invincible and honest error—that is, when someone neither
knows nor suspects that he ought to join the Catholic Church. This is the sense
of the ancient Christian expression “no salvation outside the Church.”
Many say
the notion of “the one saving Church” is extreme intolerance; yet, as shown, it
is not. Were this principle intolerant, then Christ Himself would have
committed the first and greatest intolerance when He declared that whoever will
not receive the teaching of His disciples and believe it “will be condemned.”
There, on Christ’s own lips, is the first formulation of the one saving Church.
Is it intolerant if we say, “we have only one homeland”? If a country can be
but one, why should not the Lord Jesus’ realm, the Church, be even more
indivisibly one?
Our Lord
instituted only one lawful and unified Church; therefore every “church” or
denomination that stands opposed to this one lawful Church and separates itself
from her is in error and illegitimate. This is not lack of tolerance, but
consistency and fidelity to Christ’s ordinance. Of course, tolerance remains a
Christian virtue, and the Catholic Church is tolerant. Yet tolerance is of two
kinds. There is doctrinal or theoretical “tolerance,” which, for the sake of
peace, would sacrifice divine revelation itself: that the Church rejects. And
there is civil or practical tolerance, which seeks to live in peace and charity
with neighbors who are in error, without approving their error or placing it on
a level with the truth. The Catholic Church knows no doctrinal tolerance—she
would see that as treason against Christ—but she does practice civil tolerance,
often to a degree surpassing others.
You may ask
whether, then, every Protestant must be considered a wrong-doer because he
still clings to Luther’s and Calvin’s doctrines. If someone, knowing all this, willfully
clings to ecclesiastical rebellion, he indeed cannot be acquitted of grave
guilt and complicity in sin. Most present-day Protestants, however, do not know
these facts and perhaps cannot easily understand them, because from childhood
they have been taught and made to believe that Luther’s and Calvin’s revolt was
not only lawful but divinely ordained. The chief strength of Protestantism lies
in its skillful and unceasing propaganda, by which it continually re-inculcates
its ideas into its adherents; only a few realize that the whole mental
framework in which they were trained is erroneous. Yet whoever does realize it
generally draws nearer to the Catholic Church; in countries like in the UK or in
the USA tens of thousands return every year, including ministers. Religious
division today is maintained chiefly by ignorance on one side and passion on
the other, not by calm consideration, solid reasoning, or sound evidence.
So, the
answer is twofold. Protestant Trinitarians who, through no grave fault of their
own, remain outside visible unity can indeed be saved, but
never by a salvation proper to Protestantism. If they reach heaven, it is
because the merits of Christ and the mediation of His Catholic Church have
secretly nourished them and, in their last conscious moment, found no obstinate
resistance. Those who would knowingly repudiate the Church once they have
recognized her as the divine ark place themselves under the condemnation Saint
John describes. Charity therefore obliges Catholics to evangelize, and prudence
forbids us to narrow God’s mercy into channels of our own devising while it
equally forbids us to widen the gate by denying the objective claims of the one
fold and one Shepherd.
