Them and Us
By Dwight Longenecker
Steve is a convert. In fact he
jumped ship from his own little rowboat to that great ocean
liner called HMS Queen Mary (aka
the Barque of Peter) before I did. Even in our Evangelical
days at college Steve was a bit of a hard-liner, so I guess
I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s suddenly gone and joined
the Society of St Pius X. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no lover
of the services of Fr Folkmass, but I don’t really have much
time for Monsignor Maniple either. I’m sure Latin Masses can
be beautiful and dignified and I’m sure they are straight down
the line on the old time religion. I’m glad those who like
the Latin Mass have more permission to celebrate the old ways.
But why oh why do they have to go off on such an extreme and
form their own little ‘us and them’ group? Then the icing on
the cake is when I get this email from Steve quoting three
popes and saying how all non-Catholics are headed for hell.
Phew! Lefebvrist and Feeneyite all wrapped up in one.
The first papal snippet was by
Pope Innocent III from the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.
It says, “There is but one
universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at
all can be saved." The second one was a real whopper.
In 1302 Pope Boniface VIII said, "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." The
last one is from Pope Eugene IV in 1441. He writes, "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.
Only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments
of the Church unto salvation. 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."
Steve forgot to say that even
in the Middle Ages this teaching wasn’t new. Cyprian of Carthage
wrote a wonderful discourse on the unity of the church. Called De Catholicae Ecclesiae,
it’s where you find the quote, ‘He cannot have God for his
father who has not the church as his mother.’ Cyprian is also
the one who first coined the phrase, ‘Outside the Church there
is no salvation.’ As it stands, the evidence seems pretty strong
for Steve’s position. There is the dramatic statement by Cyprian,
and there are three strong and unequivocal statements by three
Popes. If this is so, how can the new Catechism come up with
the following statements?
‘The Church knows that she is joined in
many ways to the baptised who are honoured by the name of Christian,
but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have
not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who
believe in Christ and have been properly baptised are put in
a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic
Church." (CCC, para. 838)
Furthermore,
many elements of sanctification and of truth" are found outside the visible confines of
the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life
of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior
gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements." Christ's
Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means
of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace
and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church.
All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are
in themselves calls to Catholic unity. (CCC, para. 819)
Has the modern Catholic Church really changed
the age-old faith in a touchy-feely attempt to be all ecumenical
and nice?
Where’s Your
Audience?
In attempting
to understand any ancient text it is important to look at
the context. This means looking
at the whole document, but also looking at the historical context,
and asking to whom the document is addressed. When Cyprian
wrote his treatise on the unity of the Church he was dealing
with the schismatic group called the Novatians. They were followers
of a Roman priest called Novatian who was a rigorist. He opposed
the merciful position the Roman church took towards those who
had compromised during the persecutions under Decius. When
Cyprian said, ‘Outside the Church there is no salvation, ‘ he
was not talking about the eternal destiny of pagans, but addressing
fellow Catholics who had gone into schism.
Likewise with
Pope Innocent III. Pope Innocent was a great medieval Pope.
He tried hard to root out heresy
with discussion and debate. He was the Pope who espoused the
Franciscans and encouraged them. Innocent’s statement at the
Fourth Lateran Council was, like Cyprian's, aimed at Catholics
who were tempted by schism and heresy. The Pope's teaching
is for people who know and understand the claims of the Catholic
Church and deliberately depart on their own way because they
do not like the present trends of the Church. Innocent therefore
calls his sheep and reminds them that to have known the way
of salvation and departed from it is far worse than never to
have known it.
Pope Boniface
VIII was one of the notorious popes. J.N.D.Kelly says of
him, he 'was singularly unsympathetic,
combining exceptional ability with arrogance and cruelty, insatiable
acquisitiveness for his family, and insensitive contempt for
his fellow men, feared and hated, he could not keep a friend.'
Boniface’s famous statement from his bull Unam Sanctam is tainted
by the fact that it was more a frustrated call for Philip IV
of France to submit politically than it was a call for spiritual
submission to the authority of Peter’s successor. Nevertheless,
the audience for this papal call to unity in the church is
addressed, once more, to a son of the Church who is finding
it difficult to submit. It is not a statement about the condition
of non-Catholics. The same is true of Pope Eugene IV’s statement.
Made in 1441, his words are not so much a comment on the eternal
state of Protestants, pagans and infidels as they are a call
to the Catholic faithful not to lapse into schism or depart
in heresy.
Its interesting
then to look more closely at Cyprian’s debate with the Novatians.
The Novatians were rigorists. They saw every issue in black
and white. They even
called themselves Puritans. They not only wanted a strict policy
of rehabilitating those who had given in under persecution,
but they also wanted to withhold absolution from anyone guilty
of mortal sin. Like all self-righteous people they wanted to
boost their own stakes in the goodness game by putting others
down. Novatian got himself elected as an anti-pope and began
setting up an alternative purist hierarchy. In other words,
their rigorist self-righteous position meant they would even
divide the church. Am I the only one who sees the startling
similarity to the Feeneyites and Lefebvrists? Convinced that
they are the pure church, undefiled by modernism, they are
willing to form a schism or even divide the church if need
be.
Cyprian’s stern words were spoken about
these schismatic Catholics—not pagans. Those who know and understand
the truth are in a different category than those who have never
heard the truth, cannot understand the truth, or through no
fault of their own, cannot submit to the truth. Likewise when,
Innocent III, Boniface VIII and Eugene IV declare that there
is no salvation outside the church they are not speaking to
those outside the church, but to those who are inside and are
thinking of leaving. Their declarations are not statements
about the eternal destiny of non-Catholics, but a warning to
Catholics.
What’s the
Point?
It is sometimes
argued that the modern church has turned its back on the
stern assessment of Cyprian, Innocent
III, Boniface VIII and Eugene IV. It hasn’t. The Catechism
re-affirms,
The Second Vatican
Council's Decree on Ecumenism explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church
alone,which is the universal help toward salvation, that the
fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was
to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head,
that we believe that our Lord entrusted all the blessings of
the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body
of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated
who belong in any way to the People of God." (CCC, para.
816)
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.
(CCC, para. 846)
However, we
also have to admit that we are in a different historical
context. Cyprian, Innocent III, Boniface
VIII and Eugene IV all lived in an era of undivided Western
Christendom. The New World with its hoards of pagan peoples
hadn’t been discovered and the Western Church had not yet been
torn apart by the Reformation. Now we live in a situation where
many are baptised and live the life of Christian faith in a
separate orbit from the Catholic Church. If they have been
born into a community which is separated from full communion
they cannot be blamed for the sin of schism. So the catechism
says, ‘
However, one cannot charge with the sin
of the separation those who at present are born into these
communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them
are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church
accepts them with respect and affection as brothers... All
who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated
into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians,
and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by
the children of the Catholic Church. (CCC, para. 817)
Notice it doesn’t say that those who are
outside will be saved. It simply acknowledges that by God’s
grace it may be possible for them to be saved.
Those who, through no fault of their own,
do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless
seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in
their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates
of their conscience -- those too may achieve eternal salvation.
(CCC, para. 847)
The full teaching of the Catholic
Church therefore is subtle and graded. Looking at the whole
picture, it is still true
that there is no salvation outside the church, but those most
in danger from this warning are Catholics, who, for whatever
reason, dissent from the full teaching of the Catholic Church
and go their own way. In this category are both the extreme
liberals who make up their own religion and contradict the
Pope and the extreme conservatives who do the same. The second
category of warning is to those Christians who know and understand
the claims of the holy Catholic Church, but deliberately reject
those claims or refuse, for selfish reasons, to come into full
communion with the Catholic Church. In this category may well
be a large number of Anglicans, Lutherans and Orthodox. The
third level of warning must be to those who are somewhat interested
in the Catholic Church, and are attracted to her, but because
of selfish or lazy motivations do not move further towards
the fullness of the faith. Below them are sincere non-Catholic
Christians who have been born into schism and who genuinely
believe the Catholic Church is wrong. Finally there is the
category of people who have never heard of the Catholic Church
or the Christian faith. They too are warned that there is no
salvation outside the church, but that warning is accompanied
by the realisation that Christ’s sacrifice was for all mankind
and that God is not willing for any to perish. Christian charity
demands the faith and hope that God is doing far greater things
than we can ever ask or think in the lives of those who have
never hear of his Son.
This doesn’t
let us off the hook though. Full scale missionary and apologetics
work still needs to be
engaged in. The Catechism goes on to exhort us to reach out
in dialogue, in evangelisation and in apologetics work to explain
the fullness of the Catholic faith. This fullness is one which
is both strict and forgiving. It is full of both justice and
mercy. It has room for our friends and foes. After all, the
reason its called the Catholic faith is because it is universal.
That means it has room for both liberals and Lefebvists, Puritans
and Pacifists, Feminists and Feeneyites. Just think of it,
if the church has room for all of those loonies it might just
have room for you and me too.
