The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1912-04-27
s5z2 H75.9INZadz ~


I'm a real sense of the words and
speaking of things as they are in the
eyes of God, we truly say that all who
are in the state of grace, whether
they have been baptized or not, are
inside the Church. Like her Divine
Founder, the Church is composed of
two elements-the one material, Wis
ible and of itself natural, and this we
call the body; the other the spiritual,
invisible and supernatural, which we
call the soul. We may belong to the
soul of the Church and not belong to
the body; and we may be member
of the body without belonging to the
soul. All men are bound to belong to
the soul of the Church as a matter of
indispensable necessity, but member
ship of the body is matter of di-
which one may be excused, but only
| by impossibility or inculpable fgnor-
ance, There is only one con-
dition necessary in order to belong to
the soul of the Church, and it is to
be in the state of grace. Anyone who
it outside the Church in the sense that
| the guilt of mortal sin is on his soul
can have no hope of salvation as long
as he remains in that state. There is
nothing harsh or extreme or intoler
ant about this doctrine, for it is moth
ing more than the well known Scrip
tural teaching that for the unrepent-
ant sinner as such, there is and there
can be no hope of pardon.
To the question: Are we obliged by
divine precept to belong to the true
Church? The children in our Catholic
schools are taught to confidently re-
ply: Yes, and no one can be saved
out of it. But, strange as it may
sound, there is no Church which has
even shadow of a claim to be re-
garded as Christian that would not
give the same answer. The various
denominations differ fundamentally
from the Catholic Church on many
things, they differ hopelessly from
Her and from one another upon the
claims of the several churches to be
regarded as the true Church of Christ,
but they all agree in declaring that
our Divine Lord laid a divine precept
upon men, obliging them to belong to
His Church. There is no room for
any disagreement upon this point, as
we may see by looking to the sacred
councils of the Church.
'It is evident, then, that as matter
of plain fact our Divine Lord has laid
grave obligation on men to become
incorporated into His mystical body
by baptism and to be faithful to the
duties which Church membership in
! wolves.
Many are invincibly ignorant of the
existence of any divine precept; their
knowledge is confined to what is neces-
sary to be believed, independently of
every precept. Others, whilst recogniz-
ing this divine precept, find it impos-
sible to make out what is that con-
stitutes membership or which of the
various churches that claim their al
legiance is the true Church of Christ
Many allow themselves to be persuad-
cd that the fact of their having been
born and reared in a certain religious
| 0u14SACAL SF1uCuSC VI
the will of God in their regard They
will tell you that one religion is as
good as another; that it makes little
difference to what religion a man be-
longs if he lives an upright life; that
Almighty God will not hold man re-
sponsible for what he believes, but for
what he does; that, besides Catholic
ism, there are other legitimate forms
of Christian religion, and that separa
ton from the Catholic Church is there
fore no obstacle to salvation.
"It is not indeed for us Catholics to
peremptorily pronounce sentence of
damnation upon anyone who dies out
side the body of the Church. The
judgments of God are inscrutable to
us, and as we are not to condemn even
those who appear to us to have died
in the very act of sin, so neither are
we straightway to canonize every one
who appears to us to have lived an
upright life, Notwithstanding his relig
Gus beliefs. We must leave these
things to the infinitely just judgment
of God"