When I say that
the Catholic Church today in Vatican Council II says outside the Church there
is no salvation, I am referring to Ad Gentes 7/ Lumen Gentium 14.
Therefore, all must be converted to Him, made
known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by
baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by
stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark
16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into
which men enter by baptism, as by a door.-Ad Gentes 7
This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church.-Lumen Gentium 14
Ad Gentes 7/ Lumen Gentium 14 is cited in the Catechism
of the Catholic Church under the title “Outside the Church there is no
salvation “.
III. THE CHURCH IS
CATHOLIC ⇡
"Outside the Church there
is no salvation"
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336
It says:
Therefore that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always
required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member.-Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston
The dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus says it is necessary. The dogma EENS defined by three Church Councils says all need to be members of the Church.It does not mention any exception.
Ad Gentes 7/ Lumen Gentium 14 says all need faith and the baptism of water for salvation. All. We cannot know
of any exception on earth. If anyone is saved outside the Church they are in
Heaven. They are known only to God.
The Letter
says:
However, this desire need not always be explicit, as
it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God
accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good
disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the
will of God. - Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston
It mentions
a person in implicit ignorance with implicit desire who is saved. This cannot be known on earth. Why is this mentioned with reference to all needing to be members of the Catholic Church ? There are no known cases of being saved
in invincible ignorance. So, I repeat, why is it mentioned with reference to outside the
Church there is no salvation?
The Letter says:
In His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to salvation which are directed toward man's final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circumstances when those helps are used only in desire and longing.- Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston
They can be ‘obtained
in certain circumstances when those helps are used only in desire and longing’.
But desire and longing leading to salvation is always only hypothetical. They are not known people. These are not objective exceptions for Feeneyite extra ecclesiam nulla salus. So why is it mentioned with reference to
Feeneyite EENS? Invisible cases mentioned as visible exceptions for EENS?
It is as if there are known non Catholics
saved outside the Catholic Church. It wrongly suggests here that there are
objective cases of being saved with implicit desire or in invincible ignorance.
In this way the 1949 Letter heretically rejects the dogma EENS and produces and
EENS with known exceptions.This was a public mistake.
So we can
affirm the first part of the 1949 Letter of the Holy Office which supports
traditional EENS. we can reject the second part which contradicts the first part, which suppprts traditional EENS. The second part of the Letter contradicts the first part with the False Premise (invisible people are
visible in the present times).
So we can also
affirm Feeneyte EENS along with Vatican Council II (AG 7). Since hypothetical
cases of LG 8, LG 14,LG 16, UR 3, NA 2, GS 22 etc, which are speculative, theoretical possibilities and which
exist only in our mind are not objective exceptions for Ad Gentes 7. They do not contradict EENS.
Lumen Gentium 16 ( invincible ignorance) and Lumen Gentium 14 ( baptism of desire) are always hypothetical.
St.
Thomas Aquinas mentions the case of the man in the forest in invincible ignorance that was to be saved. This case is always theoretical.It does not
contradict the traditional strict interpretation of the dogma EENS.
______
Brother Andre Marie micm, Prior, St. Benedict Center, New Hampshire, USA, has written that Ad Gentes 7 is one of the lesser known and quoted text of Vatican Council II. It supports the dogma EENS when it says that all need faith and baptism for salvation.
So when I say that dogma outside the Church there is no salvation is supported by Vatican Council II and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this is what I mean. Here above is the proof.-Lionel Andrades
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