He cites Lumen Gentium 14 implying that those who are saved in invincible ignorance are visible to us and every one needs not to enter the Church for salvation in the present times but only those who 'know' and who are known to us.The Prefect of the Congregation succumbs to the Richard Cushing virus.
Both Archbishop Muller and Di Noia in interviews to the National Catholic Register have assumed that there are known exceptions on earth to the the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.Di Noia indicates we know exceptions of those saved with grace 'elements of sanctification'(LG 14) and for the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith it is those in invincible ignorance etc.
That we can see the dead saved who are exceptions to a dogma defined by three Councils, the new CDF Prefect calls a 'development'.
Archbishop Muller , the Prefect of the CDF when asked about extra ecclesiam nulla salus (which Pope Pius XII called' the dogma' , the 'infallible statement' in the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston), says:
The Second Vatican Council also said this: Lumen Gentium 14 says: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” He who is aware of the presence of Revelation is obliged by his conscience to belong publicly
True, and we do not know these cases in the present times. We cannot judge who knows and is saved and who does not know. So this reasoning is irrelevant to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The text of the dogma does not mention any exceptions.The exceptions emerged in the 1940's.
He continues:
— and not only in his conscience, in his heart — to this Catholic Church by remaining in communion with the Pope and those bishops in communion with him.
A Catholic ' in his conscience, in his heart' can affirm implicit baptism of desire and being saved implicitly in invincible ignorance alongwith the literal interpretation of the dogma according to the Church Fathers, Church Councils, popes and saints.There is no contradiction.
Where is the contradiction ? Why has he to mention this?. He has to since for him those saved in invincible ignorance are not implicit but explicit.
As a Catholic I am in communion with the Pope, Pope Benedict XVI is my pope and I affirm the literal interpretation of the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus along with being saved implicitly in invincible ignorance etc.Can Archbishops Muller and Di Noia say the same? No. Since they assume that we can see the dead who are exceptions.
Archbsihop Muller continues:
But we cannot say that those who are inculpably ignorant of this truth are necessarily condemned for that reason.
We do not know who is 'inculpably ignorant of this truth' and ' are necessarily condemned for that reason' so this is a non issue. It is not related to the dogma and the saints who supported the dogma, in its traditonal sense, including St.Maximillian Kolbe in the 1930's.
We must hope that those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own, but who follow the dictates of their God-given conscience, will be saved by Jesus Christ whom they do not yet know.
Yes.However this should not be posited as an exception to the dogma.Since we do not know any of these cases.The dead and saved are known only to God in 2012.
Every person has the right to act according to his or her own conscience. However, if a Catholic says today, “I am going to put myself outside the Church,” we would have to respond that without the Church that person is in danger of losing salvation.
True - and this is not a contradiction to the literal interpretation of the dogma which says all need to convert for salvation .
Archbishop Muller's position is irrational, non traditional and sadly heretical. He is denying an ex cathedra dogma with alleged exceptions, none of whom he can name in the present times. He is using a hermeneutic which is a break from tradition.He is using the false premise of the dead who are saved are visible to us in the present times.This error comes from Boston in the 1940's and the CDF has still not identified it.-Lionel Andrades
Archbishop Gerhard Müller: 'The Church Is Not a Fortress'
1.
Do you, nevertheless, accept there’s been a weakening of the Church’s teaching because of this underlying confusion of terminology? One example sometimes cited is that the teaching of “no salvation outside the Church” seems to have become less prominent.
That has been discussed, but here, too, there has been a development of all that was said in the Church, beginning with St. Cyprian, one of the Fathers of the Church, in the third century. Again, the perspective is different between then and now. In the third century, some Christian groups wanted to be outside the Church, and what St. Cyprian said is that without the Church a Christian cannot be saved. The Second Vatican Council also said this: Lumen Gentium 14 says: “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.” He who is aware of the presence of Revelation is obliged by his conscience to belong publicly — and not only in his conscience, in his heart — to this Catholic Church by remaining in communion with the Pope and those bishops in communion with him.
But we cannot say that those who are inculpably ignorant of this truth are necessarily condemned for that reason. We must hope that those who do not belong to the Church through no fault of their own, but who follow the dictates of their God-given conscience, will be saved by Jesus Christ whom they do not yet know. Every person has the right to act according to his or her own conscience. However, if a Catholic says today, “I am going to put myself outside the Church,” we would have to respond that without the Church that person is in danger of losing salvation.
Therefore, we must always examine the context of these statements. The problem that many people have is that they are linking statements of doctrine from different centuries and different contexts — and this cannot be done rationally without a hermeneutic of interpretation. We need a theological hermeneutic for an authentic interpretation, but interpretation does not change the content of the teaching.
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