From EWTN expert, EWTN website
Outside The Church There Is No Salvation
The doctrine that "Outside the Church there is no salvation" is one that is constantly misinterpreted by those who won't submit to the Magisterium of the Church.
Lionel : The 'Magisterium' like EWTN assumes invisible cases of the baptism of desire(BOD, baptism of blood(BOB) and being saved in invincible ignorance(I.I) are visible exceptions to the traditional interpretation of the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation.
This is an objective error and cannot be 'magisterial'.
Hypothetical cases cannot be objective exceptions to the dogma EENS, as it was known for example, in the 16th century.
To assume people saved with the BOD etc and who are now in Heaven, are also visible on earth, to be practical exceptions to EENS, violates the Principle of Non Contradiction.How can someone be seen in two places?
Also who among us can say, that a particular non Catholic will go to Heaven without 'faith and baptism'?
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Faith does not depend upon our ability to reason to the truth but on our humility before the Truth presented to us by those to whom Christ entrusted that task. This is why the First Vatican Council taught that it is the task of the Magisterium ALONE to determine and expound the meaning of the Tradition - including "outside the Church no salvation."
Lionel: For centuries, including the time of Vatican Council I, the Church always taught the 'rigorist' interpretation of the dogma, outside the Church there is no salvation.
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Concerning this doctrine the Pope of Vatican I, Pius IX, spoke on two different occasions. In an allocution (address to an audience) on December 9th, 1854 he said:
We must hold as of the faith, that out of the Apostolic Roman Church there is no salvation; that she is the only ark of safety, and whosoever is not in her perishes in the deluge; we must also, on the other hand, recognize with certainty that those who are invincible in ignorance of the true religion are not guilty for this in the eyes of the Lord. And who would presume to mark out the limits of this ignorance according to the character and diversity of peoples, countries, minds and the rest?
Lionel: The pope here, does not state that those saved in invincible ignorance are personally known people, saved outside the Church. This false inference has to be made and it is made by the EWTN theologian.
Over the centuries it was known that those who are saved in invincible ignorance refer to hypothetical cases.They are theoretical possibillities.So they are not exceptions to the dogma EENS. An invisible person cannot be an exception to EENS. Someone who is not there cannot be relevant to EENS.
But this was the mistake made in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 and then it was repeated in Vatican Council II.it was then supported by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican.He did not correct the mistake.
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Again, in his encyclical Quanto conficiamur moerore of 10 August, 1863 addressed to the Italian bishops, he said:
It is known to us and to you that those who are in invincible ignorance of our most holy religion, but who observe carefully the natural law, and the precepts graven by God upon the hearts of all men, and who being disposed to obey God lead an honest and upright life, may, aided by the light of divine grace, attain to eternal life; for God who sees clearly, searches and knows the heart, the disposition, the thoughts and intentions of each, in His supreme mercy and goodness by no means permits that anyone suffer eternal punishment, who has not of his own free will fallen into sin.
Lionel: Again the reference to invincible ignorance is a reference to a hypothetical case, something hoped for.So it cannot be postulated as being relevant or an exception to the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation.
This is a false inference made here by Colin B.Donovan STL.
I read the same passage and do not see any practical exception to Feeneyite EENS or EENS as it was known to St.Robert Bellarmine or the Jesuits in the Middle Ages.Since I do not make the false inference.I do not use the false premise as do the apologists at EWTN.
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These statements are consistent with the understanding of the Church contained in the documents of Vatican II, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Lionel. They are interpreted by EWTN with a false premise. It is wrongly assumed that invisible cases of being saved in invincible ignorance are visible and known people saved outside the Church. I call this Cushingism.
But when hypothetical cases are accepted as just being hypothetical I call Feeneyism.EWTN interprets these magisterial documents with Cushingism.
Similarly EWTN's apologists interpret Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church(1994) with Cushingism. I interpret Vatican Council II, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Quanto Conficiamur Moerore etc with Feeneyism. So my conclusion is different from that of EWTN. There is no rupture with the past ecclesiology for me.
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as well as explaining why the rigorist position of Fr. Feeney (that all must be actual members of the Catholic Church to be saved) has been condemned by the Magisterium.
Lionel: Fr. Leonard Feeney refused to say that invisible cases of the BOD, BOB and I.I were visible exceptions to traditional EENS.Instead, the cardinals who issued the Letter of the Holy Office in 1949 and the Archbishop of Boston Richard Cushing, were saying that BOD, BOB and I.I were explicit and so were exceptions to the traditional interpretation of the dogma EENS. This was irrational. It was non traditional and heretical.This still is the official interpretation of the Church and it cannot be Magisterial since the Holy Spirit cannot make an objective mistake and violate the Principle of Non Contradiction.
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It is ironic that precisely those who know their obligation to remain united to the Magisterium, and thus on whom this doctrine is morally binding, keep themselves from union with the Roman See on this point.
Lionel : The 'Magisterium' in 1949 was in schism with the past popes.In March 2016(Avvenire) Pope Benedict confirmed that EENS today was no more like it was for the missionaries in the 16th century. So there is a rupture with the past and it is official. It means that at one time the 'magisterium' was wrong.Also the present day ecclesiastics with Cushingism are interpreting Vatican Council II as a rupture with Tradition when the Council can also be interpreted with Feeneyism and it would not contradict the past exclusivist ecclesiology of the Church.
-Lionel Andrades
Answered by Colin B. Donovan, STL
https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/outside_the_church.htm
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