IN THE SAME SENSE

A "Safe Way Forward" Project

The fourth and traditional manner of explaining the axiom extra Ecclesiam nulla salus uses the terms in re and in voto or some of the manifold variations of these expressions. It states that, in order to be saved, a man either be a member of the Catholic Church or intend to become a member. Alone among the procedures used to explain the necessity of the Church, this one is perfectly consonant with all the Pontifical and Conciliar pronouncements on the subject. No man whatsoever can be saved without actually willing to live and to die within the Church of Jesus Christ.

Seen in its proper perspective then the axiom extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a powerful and profound statement of the fact that the charity which is absolutely requisite for eternal life involves a sincere desire to dwell within the Catholic Church which is the House of the Lord. No man can be said to love God with the affection of benevolence or friendship unless he actually wishes to do what God has commanded. Now God wills that men should worship Him, not as scattered and unorganized individuals, but as members of a society which is the Kingdom of God. No man can be said to have charity unless he intends to enter this Kingdom.

Excerpted from Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol 110, April 1944, pp. 300-306

Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, 27 (12 August 1950)
Some say they are not bound by the doctrine which teaches that the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing. Some reduce to a meaningless formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation. Others finally belittle the reasonable character of the credibility of Christian Faith. These and like errors, it is clear, have crept in among certain of our sons who are deceived by imprudent zeal for souls or by false science.

Pope Pius IX, Singulari Quidem, 4 (17 March 1856)
You see, dearly beloved sons and venerable brothers, how much vigilance is needed to keep the disease of this terrible evil from infecting and killing your flocks. Do not cease to diligently defend your people against these pernicious errors. Saturate them with the doctrine of Catholic truth more accurately each day. Teach them that just as there is only one God, one Christ, one Holy Spirit, so there is also only one truth which is divinely revealed. There is only one divine faith which is the beginning of salvation for mankind and the basis of all justification, the faith by which the just person lives and without which it is impossible to please God and to come to the community of His children.[Rom 1; Heb 11; Council of Trent, session 6, chap. 8.] There is only one true, holy, Catholic church, which is the Apostolic Roman Church. There is only one See founded in Peter by the word of the Lord,[St. Cyprian, epistle 43.] outside of which we cannot find either true faith or eternal salvation. He who does not have the Church for a mother cannot have God for a father, and whoever abandons the See of Peter on which the Church is established trusts falsely that he is in the Church.[St. Cyprian,de unitat. Eccl.] Thus, there can be no greater crime, no more hideous stain than to stand up against Christ, than to divide the Church engendered and purchased by His blood, than to forget evangelical love and to combat with the furor of hostile discord the harmony of the people of God.[St. Cyprian, epistle 72.]

Pope Leo XII, Ubi Primum, 14 (5 May 1824)
Certainly many remarkable authors, adherents of the true philosophy, have taken pains to attack and crush this strange view. But the matter is so self-evident that it is superfluous to give additional arguments. It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth Itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards on their members. For we have a surer word of the prophet, and in writing to you We speak wisdom among the perfect; not the wisdom of this world but the wisdom of God in a mystery. By it we are taught, and by divine faith we hold one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is given to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we must be saved. This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church.

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, Cantate Domino (1442 AD)
The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire ‘which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Mt. 25:41) unless before death they are joined with Her… 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 they abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.

Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam (1302 AD)
Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,‘ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed... Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, Constitutions 1, Confession of Faith (1215 AD)
There is indeed one universal church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved, in which Jesus Christ is both priest and sacrifice.

Pope Innocent III, Eius exemplo (18 December 1208) [DS 423]
By heart we believe and by mouth confess the one Church, not of heretics but the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church outside which we believe that no one is saved.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great (590-604)
The holy universal Church teaches that it is not possible to worship God truly except in Her and asserts that all who are outside of Her will not be saved.

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