The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1917-11-10
OUTSIDE THE CHURCH.


Catholic Church there is no saliva
tion," is misunderstood by most non
Catholics and, we may add, by not a
few Catholics. Count Xavier de
Maistre, e.g., was fully convinced that
his loyalty to the Church demanded
that he regard his wife, woman of
angelic virtue, as doomed to damna-
tion if she remained a schismatic.
(Cfr 'Lettres 1nedites de Xavier de
Maistre a sa Famille," ed. F. Klein de
LIE Correspondent, Paris, Dec. 25, 1902,
PIP. 1109 sq.) He attributed this
strange belief to a priest whom he
had consulted regarding the matter.
No doubt the Jealous count had mis-
understood this priest. Had he inves-
tigated, he would have found that the
Catholic Church holds no man lost
except through his own fault. Plus
TX says in his encyclical of August
10, 1863, that chose who are in
vincibly ignorant of our holy religion
and who F.. .. nevertheless, lead an
honest and upright life, can, under
the influence of divine light and grace.
attain to eternal life; for God, who
knows and sees the mind, the heart,
the thoughts, and the dispositions of
every man, cannot in His infinite
goodness. and clemency, permit any
one to suffer eternal punishment who
is not guilty through his own fault"
(Denzinger's "Enchiridion," ed. Bann-
wart, Freiburg, 1908, n. 1870.
But how can this truth be squared
with the ancient axiom that there is
no salvation outside the Catholic
Church?
Theologians are not agreed in ex-
planning this apparently simple axiom.
Most of them insist on the well-known
distinction between the body and the
soul of the Church. Father J. Balm
| vel, S. j., in a little treatise just
translated into English by the Rev. J..
L.. Weidenham, els There Salvation
Outside the Catholic Church," B.
| Herder Book Co., st. Louis, Mo-; so
cts. metz, gives the most satisfactory
explanation we have yet seen. He
says that the axiom, Outside the
Church there is no salvation refers
to the ordinary workings of Provi-
dence; in other words, it is the rule,
not. the exception. It is the order de-
sired by God that all men shall be
saved within the Catholic Church.
The exceptional cases referred to by
Plus TX (be they ever so numerous,
but they are less numerous than ap-
pear at first sight, lie outside the
divine intention (praeter intentionem,
per accidens), because of defect of
the human will, and are supplied by
God with an extraordinary economy,
a special providence, granted accord
ing to the measure of necessity. The
souls so saved may with equal truth
be said to belong to the Church and
not to belong to it. They belong to
it because, at heart, they are united
to God in faith and charity; but the
ties by which they are affiliated are
invisible Ito human eyes. 'Conse.
quently, although it may be truly said
that there have been souls who have
gained salvation outside the Church.
we cannot say, because of this fact
that salvation is equally possible for
those without as we'll as for those
within the Church, since those very
souls who are saved outside the
Church THAT is, without being, prop
erly speaking, members of the visible
Church), are not saved except by the
Church and in so far as they are her
members (page 62). &.
In the, light of this explanation we
can understand why the Church, in
Espite of the objections raised by those
who are ignorant or impervious to
divine wisdom, calmly persists in
teaching and in demanding that her
children accept as an article of faith
/ the ancient formula "Outside the
Church there is no salvation.
Fonni0htlD Repfew.
II e + - = =