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"Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus" 
A well-known doctrine continually taught and repeatedly proclaimed by the 
Magisterium of the Church is that '"Outside the Church there is no salvation" 

This is a dogma of our Faith, and, as such it is infallibly true and it admits of 
absolutely no exceptions. In holding to this dogma we are bound absolutely to 
understand it and to profess it as the Church Herself understands it, following this 
prescription laid down by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Humani Generis : 

"Hence Our Predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, teaching that the most 
noble office of theology is to show how a doctrine defined by the Church is 
contained in the sources of revelation, added these words, and with very good 
reason: 'in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church'. " 

Our discussion of this subject by using the most authentic sources will explain 
this dogma "in that sense in which it has been defined by the Church." In doing 
so, we will follow the scholarly theological explanations of it so brilliantly 
expounded by the late Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton in his book entitled, 
"The Catholic Church and Salvation," the Newman Press, 1958; and we will be 
quoting from and citing this book often in this article. 

In the course of gaining a clear understanding of this dogma, we will encounter 
certain key words and phrases, which must be mastered and understood in their 
precise and exact meanings in which the Church uses them. For example: in 
the statement itself "Outside the Church there is no salvation" we must have 
clearly in mind the exact meanings of: (1) "outside" as opposed to "within"; (2) 
"the Church"; and (3) "salvation." Lest anyone might think that this is to belabor 
the obvious or the elementary, let it be said here that these very words have 
often been the source of misunderstandings and false notions about this 
doctrine. Also, we must know the precise and rigorous meanings of: ( I ) "the 
faithful"; (2) "Mystical Body"; (3) "member" of the Mystical Body, as opposed to 
"non-member"; (4') "explicit desire" for membership; (5) "implicit desire" for 
membership; (6) "invincible ignorance." All these terms will be explained in the 
course of this article, according to the meanings given them by official papal 
docuмents of the Church. 

To understand this dogma and to profess it as the Church teaches it, we need to 
consider all the teachings concerning it that the Church has laid down. To 
consider only a part of this body of teaching, while overlooking, disregarding, or 
neglecting other parts of it, is bound to lead one astray. For such selecting or 
"picking and choosing" is the very soul, and the definition, of heresy. 

As stated earlier, the absolute necessity of the Roman Catholic Church for the 
attainment of eternal salvation is a dogma, having no exceptions whatsoever, 
which we must believe and profess under the penalty of severing ourselves from 
the Mystical Body, which is the Church. "A dogma is a truth which the Church 
finds in Scripture or in divine apostolic tradition and which, either in solemn 
judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching activity, it presents to its people 
as a doctrine revealed by God and as something which all are obligated to 
accept with the assent of divine and Catholic faith" (Fenton, op. cit., P. 3). 

Though it may seem at first to be a contradiction, or at least a paradox, the 
Church also teaches - and this is actually a part of or an aspect of the same 
dogma "Outside the Church ..." - that a person who dies without ever becoming 
an actual member of the Roman Catholic Church can attain eternal salvation. 

The word "can" has attached to it very specific and rigorously defined conditions, 
which will be explained a little later. Consequently, we have these two teachings, 
or rather two aspects of the same dogma, namely: (1) Outside the Roman 
Catholic Church there is absolutely no salvation; and (2) It is possible for a non- 
member of the Catholic Church to attain eternal salvation. 

In Interdum #1 ("Insights Into Heresy"), we saw that the nature of heresy is to 
exaggerate or overemphasize one aspect of a truth, so that another different, but 
related, aspect is under emphasized and eventually altogether denied. Some 
twenty or twenty-five years ago, a group of Catholics centered in the Archdiocese 
of Boston began to overemphasize, and then to distort, the first truth: "Outside 
the Church there is no salvation." As could have been predicted, this 
exaggeration took its toll of the second, closely related, truth that it is possible for 
a non-member of the Catholic Church to be saved. The principal figure in this 
so-called "Boston Heresy Case" was eventually excommunicated on Feb. 4, 1953. 

Today the pendulum has swung back in the other direction, and we can now 
perceive the "rebound" from the "Boston Heresy." Today the second of our pair 
of truths - that a person can be saved even though he dies without ever 
becoming an actual member of the Catholic Church - is so exaggerated and 
overstressed that the necessity of the Roman Catholic Church for salvation is 
being emphatically denied in some quarters. The conditions attached to this 
word "can," which are very specific, are being entirely overlooked and scorned 
by the Robber Church, so that nowadays non-membership in the visible Roman 
Catholic Church is actually regarded as, practically some sort of sacrament! 
"Some reduce to a meaningless formula," said Pope Pius XII, "the necessity of 
belonging to the true Church in order to gain eternal salvation" (Humani Generis). 
Though occasionally giving lip service to this dogma, the Robber Church, and 
particularly the Vatican 1 1 decrees, have truly reduced to a "meaningless 
formula" the doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Church.