The Undermining of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

John Henderson

In the May 2018 issue of Catholic Family News Matt Gaspers, the new editor of the newspaper, wrote an article titled “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus” in which Gaspers quotes as if it were of great authority the 1949 Cardinal Marchetti-Salvaggiani Holy Office Letter to Archbishop Cushing regarding the controversy surrounding Fr. Leonard Feeney and the St. Benedict Center. The Letter teaches that “no one will be saved who, knowing the Church to have been divinely established by Christ, nevertheless refuses to submit to the Church or withholds obedience from the Roman Pontiff.” This qualification completely undermines not only Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, but the Catholicity of all dogma. It implies that souls can be saved outside the Church as long as they do not know that the Church was divinely established by Christ. Orestes Brownson, one of America's greatest Catholic apologists, wrote, “To us there is something shocking in the supposition that the dogma, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, is only generally true and therefore not a Catholic dogma. All Catholic dogmas, if Catholic, are not only generally, but universally true, and admit of no exception or restriction whatever.”1

The language used by the Church in her dogmatic definitions very clearly affirms that Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus is a Catholic dogma in the sense that it is universally true:

“There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved.” (Lateran VI, Pope Innocent III)

“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 Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam)

“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.” (Council of Florence, Pope Eugene IV)

Catholic Family News has been criticizing Vatican II for a long time and it is doubtful that anyone who writes for them would be unfamiliar with Pope Paul VI's well known quote about Vatican II differing from other Ecumenical Councils in that it was pastoral and refrained from making any dogmatic definitions that are of themselves infallible. In saying thus, Paul VI was acknowledging that dogmatic definitions have been made at other Councils that are of themselves infallible. It logically follows that the first thing any Catholic who is confused as to what he must believe about a particular doctrine should do is look to the dogmatic definitions that have been made at the Church's first twenty Ecumenical Councils. Gaspers omitted entirely any reference to the of themselves infallible definitions of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus made at the Fourth Lateran Council and the Council of Florence. Instead, Gaspers quotes and emphasizes the modernist principle articulated in the 1949 Letter which teaches that, “dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church.” The truth is that dogmatic definitions are the sense in which the Church understands divine revelation. To say that dogma must be understood in the sense that the “teaching authority of the Church” understands it is to, as D.M. Drew perceptively writes, “claim for the theologian an authority that belongs to the dogma itself. When this modernist proposition is accepted, there is no dogmatic declaration that can be taken as a definitive expression of our faith for it will always be open to theological refinement...”2 Vatican I teaches, “The sense of the sacred dogmas is that which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.” This teaching from Vatican I on the immutability of dogma was quoted by Leo XIII in his encyclical Testem Benevolentiae and by St. Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi. The dogmatic definitions of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus made at Lateran IV and Florence give us the sense of the dogma which our “Holy Mother the Church has once declared” and which can never be “abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.”

The Manual of Christian Doctrine Comprising Dogma, Morals, and Worship teaches that the science of the true religion is the most excellent of sciences because it is the easiest and most certain.3 It is the easiest “because the Church presents it in clear, brief, and precise formulas, which the grace of God enables men of good will to understand.” It is the most certain “because it is founded on the word of God, who is truth itself.” For those who adhere to dogma as the rule of faith, Catholicism truly is the easiest and most certain of sciences. Dogmatic definitions are clear, brief, and precise formulas. The Catholic who adheres to dogma as the rule of faith can be absolutely certain that what he believes is true because every dogma is a formal object of Divine faith that can and should be believed on the authority of God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, revealing. One of the hallmark characteristics of the New Church has been its utter inability to teach anything in a clear, brief, and precise manner. The New Church thrives on prolixity, ambiguity, and deceit. The 1949 Letter is of the same kind as the scandalous documents that have come from the New Church and it should surprise no one that the 1949 Letter was referenced as a footnote in the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium. Nor should it surprise anyone that the 1949 Letter was inserted into the 1962 edition of Denzinger by the at the time editor of the book, Fr. Karl Rahner. With the Letter's rejection of dogma as the rule of faith, certainty as to what a Catholic must believe ceases to be possible and religion is reduced to a matter of mere opinion.

Regarding the nature of dogma, Cardinal Henry Manning wrote, “It is not enough that a truth should be definitely conceived; for if a teacher know the truth, and is not able to communicate it with accuracy, the learner will be but little the wiser. And therefore God, who gave His truth, has given also a perpetual assistance, whereby the Apostles first, and His Church from that day to this, precisely and without erring declare to mankind the truth which was revealed in the beginning; and in declaring that truth the Church clothes it in words, in what we call a terminology: and in the choice of those terms the Church is also guided. There is an assistance, by which the Church does not err in selecting the very language in which to express divine truth. For who does not see that, if the Church were to err in the selection of the words, the declaration of truth must be obscured?...Therefore a dogma signifies a correct verbal expression of the truth correctly conceived and known.”4 The very selection of words is protected from error in the definition of a dogma. Lateran IV defines that “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved.” It is very, very significant that this definition refers to the Church as being composed “of the faithful.” In the Missal there is a distinction made between the “Mass of the Catechumens” and the “Mass of the Faithful.” Catechumens are those who are preparing to enter the Church through baptism. The “faithful” are those who have already entered. The definition says that no one at all can be saved who is not a member of the Church of the faithful. This ought to end all speculation about souls being saved by “baptism of desire.” Souls can be justified (possess sanctifying grace) prior to the reception of the Sacrament of Baptism, but they cannot be saved unless they persevere in this state and enter the Church. We must, with St. Augustine, “Perish the thought that a person predestined to eternal life could be allowed to end this life without the sacrament of the mediator.”5

Traditional Catholic prayer books do not include prayers with petitions for the repose of any souls other than the “faithful departed.” “May all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace...” It would be uncharitable for the Church not to pray for the repose of the souls of those who were not members of the “Church of the faithful” if such non-members could make it to Purgatory. The Council of Braga decided that, “Neither commemoration nor chanting is to be employed for catechumens who have died without Baptism.” St. John Chrysostom wrote, “...For the Catechumen is a stranger to the Faithful. He has not the same Head, he has not the same Father, he has not the same City, nor Food, nor Raiment, nor Table, nor House, but all are different; all are on earth to the former, to the latter all are in heaven. One has Christ for his King; the other, sin and the devil; the food of one is Christ, of the other, that meat which decays and perishes; one has worms' work for his raiment, the other the Lord of angels; heaven is the city of one, earth of the other...If it should come to pass, (which God forbid!) that through the sudden arrival of death we depart hence uninitiated, though we have ten thousand virtues, our portion will be no other than hell, and the venomous worm, and fire unquenchable, and bonds indissoluble."6

Sacred Scripture, the Nicene Creed, and the Council of Vienne all infallibly teach that there is only one baptism. The Council of Trent defines as divinely revealed dogmas: “If any one saith, that true and natural water is not of necessity for baptism, and, on that account, wrests, to some sort of metaphor, those words of our Lord Jesus Christ; Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost; let him be anathema” (Session VII, On Baptism, Canon II). “If any one saith, that baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation; let him be anathema” (Session VII, On Baptism, Canon V). It is noteworthy that Trent refrained from defining the necessity of receiving the Eucharist for salvation in a like manner as it had done in regards to the necessity of Baptism. Reception of the Eucharist is necessary for salvation, but only by a necessity of precept. Baptism is necessary by a necessity of means. The necessity of Baptism for salvation has been defined as a Catholic dogma because Baptism is universally necessary for all men regardless of particular circumstances. This is what is meant when something is said to be necessary by a necessity of means. The Eucharist has never been defined as being absolutely necessary for the salvation of every creature because its necessity is not universal but admits of exceptions based on circumstance.

Catholics who want to read more in depth defenses of the true sense of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus would do well to read Fr. Leonard Feeney's Bread of Life and Fr. James Wathen's Who Shall Ascend. Adherence to this foundational salvation dogma is the basis for the labors of all who seek to maintain and restore traditional Catholicity.


1Orestes Brownson, Brownson’s Quarterly Review. “Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus”. April, 1874
2D.M. Drew “Open Letter to E. Michael Jones: Why the SSPX Cannot Effectively Defend Catholic Tradition” http://www.saintspeterandpaulrcm.com/OPEN%20LETTERS/Culture%20Wars%20reply%20for%20web%20posting%209-10.htm
3https://archive.org/stream/manualofchristia01brot#page/6/mode/2up
4Cardinal Henry Manning, The Glories of the Sacred Heart
5Brian Kelly “Baptism of Desire: Its Origin and Abandonment in the Thought of St. Augustine” http://catholicism.org/baptism-of-desire-its-origin-and-abandonment-in-the-thought-of-saint-augustine.html
6St. John Chrysostom “Homily 25 on the Gospel of St. John” http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240125.htm