We are bound by divine and Catholic faith to believe all those things which are contained in the word of God, whether it be Scripture or Tradition, and are proposed by the Church to be believed as divinely revealed, not only through solemn judgment but also through the ordinary and universal teaching office (magisterium).

   Now, among those things which the Church has always preached and will never cease to preach there is also contained that infallible statement by which we are taught that there is no salvation outside the Church.

   However, this dogma must be understood in the sense in which the Church itself understands it.  For Our Saviour gave the things that are contained in the deposit of faith to be explained by the ecclesiastical magisterium and not by private judgments.

   Now, in the first place, the Church teaches us that in this matter we are dealing with a most strict precept of Jesus Christ.  For He explicitly ordered His apostles to teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever He Himself had commanded.

   Now, not the least important among the commandments of Christ is that one by which we are commanded to be incorporated by baptism into the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church, and to remain united to Christ and to His Vicar, through whom He Himself governs the Church on earth in a visible manner.

   Therefore, no one will be saved who, knowing the Church to have been divinely established by Christ, nevertheless refuses to submit to the Church or withholds obedience from the Roman Pontiff, the Vicar of Christ on earth.

   The Saviour not only gave the precept that all nations should enter the Church, but He also established the Church as a means of salvation, without which no one may be able to enter the kingdom of eternal glory.

   In His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to salvation which are directed towards man’s final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circuмstances when these helps are used only in intention or desire (ubi voto solummodo vel desiderio adhibeantur).  This we see clearly stated in the Sacred Council of Trent, both with reference to the sacrament of regeneration and with reference to the sacrament of penance.

   In its own way, the same thing must be said about the Church, insofar as the Church itself is a general help to salvation.  Therefore, in order that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is required that at least he be united to it by intention and desire.

   However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but, when a person is involved in invincible ignorance, God accepts also an implicit intention (votum) which is so called because it is included in that good disposition of the soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God.

   These things are clearly taught in that dogmatic letter which was issued by the Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Pius XII, on June 29, 1943, “On the Mystical body of Jesus Christ.”  For in this letter the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are really (in re) incorporated into the Church as members and those who are joined to it only in intention (in voto).

   Discussing the members of whom the Mystical Body is composed here on earth, the same August Pontiff says:  “Only those who have received the laver of regeneration, who profess the true faith, who have not miserably separated themselves from the fabric of the Body or been expelled by legitimate authority by reason of very serious offences, are actually to be counted as members of the Church.”

   Towards the end of the same encyclical letter, when most affectionately inviting to unity those who do not belong to the body of the Catholic Church (qui ad Ecclesiae Catholicae compagem non pertinent), he mentions those who are “ordered to the Redeemer’s Mystical Body by a sort of unconscious desire and intention,” and these he by no means excludes from eternal salvation, but, on the contrary, asserts that they are in a condition in which “they cannot be secure about their own eternal salvation,” since “they still lack so many and such great heavenly helps to salvation that can be enjoyed only in the Catholic Church.”

   With these wise words he reproves both those who exclude from eternal salvation all those united to the Church only by implicit desire and those who falsely assert that men can be saved equally (aequaliter) in every religion.

   Nor must we think that any kind of intention of entering the Church is sufficient in order that one may be saved.  It is requisite that the intention by which one is ordered to the Church should be informed by perfect charity; and no explicit intention can produce its effect unless the man have supernatural faith:  “For he who comes to God must believe that God exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”  The Council of Trent declares:  “Faith is the beginning of man’s salvation, the foundation and root of all justification, without which it is impossible to please God and attain to the fellowship of His children.” - SUPREMA HAEC SACRA