The SSPV, The Roman Catholic,  Fall 2003, p. 7: “With the strict, literal interpretation of this doctrine, however, I must take issue, for if I read and understand the strict interpreters correctly, nowhere is allowance made for invincible ignorance, conscience, or good faith on the part of those who are not actual or formal members of the Church at the moment of death.  It is inconceivable to me that, of all the billions of non-Catholics who have died in the past nineteen and one-half centuries, none of them were in good faith in this matter and, if they were, I simply refuse to believe that hell is their eternal destiny.”

The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jєωs 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, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. 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. CANTATE DOMINO

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.  Unam Sanctam

The foundation of the never-ending, incessant, creation of threads on BOD by False BODers like XavierSem, is their disbelief that un-baptized nice people are damned. They must find an answer to that disbelief, they are obsessed by this disbelief, and so they seek teachers according to their own desires. Here is that honest admission by the late Fr. Cekada R.I.P.:

Quote(* I am not talking about a believer in the strict BOD of the catechumen of St. Thomas, for that is a harmless theory. The few BODers who limit their belief to the catechumen of St. Thomas are rare, and never have I seen one start a thread, or write a book or article on the subject. Why? Because numerically speaking, it applies to no one, if compared to the billions who have perished since the time of the new covenant.)

The Objective

The objective of the false BODer is to send an un-baptized non-Catholic person to heaven:

1)  without the sacrament of baptism
2)  without the indelible mark
3)  without the sacrament of penance
4) without being a member of the Body
5) without belief in Christ and the Holy Trinity
6) even without any desire to be a Catholic, indeed, even while despising the Church, Christ, and the Trinity

All the points above are hurdles, which the False BODer is obsessed with overcoming and for which he seeks teachers according to his own desire.

Thank you, Decem Rationis. We both agree on the matter explicit faith and on its urgent importance for our time. Below, I'll post some Magisterial and other theological sources showing it's still considered an open question. I have been very happy to see Bp. Athanasius and Cardinal Burke, mainstream Catholic Bishops who accept both Vatican II and the CCC, both insist on this in their "Declaration of Truth": " 4. After the institution of the New and Everlasting Covenant in Jesus Christ, no one may be saved by obedience to the law of Moses alone without faith in Christ as true God and the only Savior of humankind (see Rom 3:28; Gal 2:16). 5. Muslims and others who lack faith in Jesus Christ, God and man, even monotheists, cannot give to God the same adoration as Christians do, that is to say, supernatural worship in Spirit and in Truth (see Jn 4:24; Eph 2:8) of those who have received the Spirit of filial adoption (see Rom 8:15) ... 7. True ecuмenism intends that non-Catholics should enter that unity which the Catholic Church already indestructibly possesses in virtue of the prayer of Christ, always heard by His Father, “that they may be one” (John 17:11), and which she professes in the Symbol of Faith, “I believe in one Church." https://gloria.tv/post/PnetDYciZ1zU12DTp8yDbWPcK


Ah, but Xavier, "cannot give to God the same adoration" is not "that cannot give God any adoration without faith in Jesus Christ." When I read these statements I can almost see/taste a room full of lawyers saying, "ok, we don't want to say our fellow monotheists must believe in Jesus Christ for salvation, but we must not say otherwise (i.e., that they don't have to), so how about this?"

And then there's the problem of simply labeling things so that "what is not is as if it is," like Archbishop Lefebvre when he says, "saved in their religion but not by," so that somehow their religion becomes a vehicle for salvation (in) without it being a vehicle of salvation (by)" at the same time. Similar comments of Bishop Fellay along these lines have been quoted.

So, as in that hypothetical room of lawyers, it's as if they know faith in Christ is necessary, so to leap that "hurdle" so they will simply say that their neighbor fellows in monotheistic religions are saved in Christ even if they don't know it. Think about that: even without knowing Him . . . somehow becoming "knowing Him."

If our Lord threw the lukewarm out of His mouth, what is he to do with these wordsmiths of deception, who wouldn't simply stand up and say, "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," and then when the neighbors balked and objected and refused to come to their council without a flattering and salving clarification, failed to add  "AND IN NO OTHER WAY."


Next, the Vatican released a bad statement of some theologians discussing the explicit vs implicit faith question, which was trying to promise salvation to Jҽωs without Christ. It was criticized by Bishop +Fellay on that account, as we'll see below. Here is the statement itself: "While affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ, the Church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel." https://motherofthemountcarmel.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/the-gifts-and-calling-of-god-are-irrevocable-vatican-docuмent-on-judaism/ So this was very bad, but it was clarified it was not from the Magisterium.

Bp. Fellay: "In the Council, surely, we find repeated a great number of dogmas; it says that there is the Holy Trinity, that Our Lord Jesus is God, it says all that! They even say, in the Council, that in order to be saved, one must go through Our Lord. That is said in the Council. There was even someone who had fun demonstrating that we were more faithful to the Council than the Jesuits ... And quite recently you have a docuмent published by Cardinal Koch on relations with the Jҽωs (Docuмent of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jҽωs, December 10, 2015). It is a terrible docuмent, completely heretical, which claims that the Jҽωs can be saved without coming through Our Lord (par. 36). Exactly the opposite of what Sacred Scripture teaches us, along with the first pope himself, Saint Peter, who says this to the Jҽωs: “There is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). In other words, there is no other means of being saved except through Our Lord. And here Cardinal Koch thinks that you can make a statement saying the contrary. But, he tells us in black and white (in the Preface): “This is not doctrinal teaching.” https://sspx.org/en/can-pastoral-council-be-debatable So Bp. Fellay here seems to reject salvation without knowing Christ.

And there we go: the old "through Our Lord," or even "except through Our Lord," as if He were some washing machine you simply have to figure out how to get the neighbor fellow monotheists through without them being aware of it (and objecting). Hey, simply imply that they're washed or at least don't tell them directly they're not . . . a simple moving of the mouth in the air or putting a pen on paper (or fingers on a keyboard) . .  . Words, words, words.

But we can't be sure what Bp. Fellay believes unless someone would contact H.E. and ask.

That would be nice - but don't expect a response. The closest I came to asking one of these guys and petitioning for a direct response was an email to Father Jenkins and the What Catholics Believe podcast, where they often read email questions get read to Father Jenkins, and he answers them. They didn't think that one worthy of response I guess. Pity. We really do need some "clarification." since apparently the Word of God isn't particularly clear on this point.

Fr. Laisney also, in a study, mentioned explicit faith as necessary. I believe H.E. would agree with St. Alphonsus. St. Thomas also taught: "When once grace had been revealed, all were bound to explicit faith in the Trinity". He quotes St. Augustine: "our faith is sound if we believe no one is released from the bonds of death except through the One mєdιαtor, Jesus Christ." St. Athanasius: "The Catholic Faith is this, that we worship God in Trinity and Trinity and Unity ... whoever therefore will be saved must think thus on the Trinity. Furthermore, it is also necessary for salvation that he believe faithfully in the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ". St. Alphonsus: "According to the more common and truer opinion, the explicit belief of these articles is necessary as a means without which no adult is saved".

Ah, yes, it's an "open question." That's the proverbial barn door, and I suspect that Vatican II went through, the Conciliar popes, and millions of millions of the sheep following. And now the wolf, beast, dragon is licking his chops and sating himself . . . and ironically - almost deliciously so if it weren't so tragic - they don't know it.

I would respectfully request anti-BODers not to bring up BOD in this thread, as the doctrine of BOD is not the topic here. This thread is about explicit vs implicit faith. Soul of the Church is taught by both St. Robert and St. Pius X and is not "heretical". Fr. Mueller, a Redemptorist who reiterated the teaching of St. Alphonsus, in a Catechism approved by Rome, taught God would give all who seek Him sincerely, the grace to believe in the Catholic Faith before death, including explicitly at least the Trinity and Incarnation.

"Q. Is it then right for us to say that one who was not received into the Church before his death, is damned?

A. No ... Because we cannot know for certain what takes place between God and the soul at the awful moment of death ... I mean that God, in His infinite mercy, may enlighten, at the hour of death, one who is not yet a Catholic, so that he may see the truth of the Catholic faith, be truly sorry for his sins, and sincerely desire to die a good Catholic ... We say of them that they die united, at least, to the soul of the Catholic Church, and are saved." http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/familiar.htm

Yes, we cannot know that (whether so or so before death exercised faith in Christ and is saved). But we can know this: personal faith in Jesus Christ for salvation is necessary, and that those who are saved will consciously believe in Him and this before death.

I think Father Mueller believed this and was saying this, and didn't need to be so direct in his day. But, in ours, Schneider, Burke, Fellay, Sanborn, et al need to be so direct, as the faith - ah, they have noticed - is under assault post-Vatican II.

Or perhaps in their failing to "clarify" Our Lord is telling us something about the root of the problem?

Other sources also including some manuals teach this as the authoritative meaning of what Pope Bl. Pius IX taught in QCM.

The New Catechism says in CCC 161: "Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. "Since "without faith it is impossible to please [God]" and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life 'But he who endures to the end" and in CCC 848: "848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338

It would be good if the Church in future would officially close the question and teach explicit faith's necessity in Her Magisterium.

That would be nice. But as precedent shows (old Israel), God likes leaving the wheat and tares in the same field until the harvest. I think this tare spreader will remain until then.

I'm sure the Pharisees also taught the Ten Commandments and a lot of true Revelation of God; they also made void the word of God by other teachings that they called "tradition" (Matthew 15, Mark 7). And so it continues.

The teachers of the sheep have always mixed in the true and good (which brought salvation to the elect, as God used them to do) with some bad. And the appointed nemesis, the Father of lies, loves ambiguity.

There is nothing new under the sun.