Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother Church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding. May understanding, knowledge and wisdom increase as ages and centuries roll along... but this only in...the same doctrine, the same sense, and the same understanding. First Vatican Council, 3, 4
In the first post of this series we began our discussion on the dogma that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church, looking at the first part of Suprema Haec Sacra. In this our second and last post of the series we will try to understand how one can be united to Christ without being a visible member of His Church. We begin with the second group of main points made in Suprema Haec Sacra.
II. Invisible Membership
1. [Christ] decreed the Church to be a means of salvation...not by intrinsic necessity but only by divine institution. 2. [T]hat one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing. 3. However, this desire need not always be explicit...but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire ...whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God. 4. It is necessary that the desire by which one is related to the Church be animated by perfect charity.
5. Nor can an implicit desire produce its effect, unless a person has supernatural faith. 6. Pius XII [in Mystici Corporis]...reproves...those who falsely assert that men can be saved equally well in every religion...
1. Means of Intrinsic Necessity vs. Means of Extrinsic Necessity
The second distinction Suprema Haec Sacra makes is between those means of salvation that are such extrinsically versus the means of salvation that is such intrinsically. The Sacraments are extrinsically necessary because Christ requires us to use them as the ordinary means of salvation.
We are bound to the Sacraments, but He is not. The effect of the Sacraments is grace, the Divine Life in the soul, which is intrinsically necessary for salvation. While the Sacraments are the instrumental cause of that grace, God alone is the efficient cause, the author of grace Who is making use of those instruments. As such He is free to give someone the intrinsically necessary grace without using the Sacraments, as He did to the patriarchs before Christ.
No one is saved without the intrinsically necessary effect of the Sacraments. However, God is free to directly give this effect, before the instrumental use of the Sacraments or entirely without the Sacraments. Hence, there is such a thing as baptism of desire, as well as forgiveness of sins through perfect contrition. (Find a fuller explanation in my article 'Without the Sacraments'.)
2. Visible Membership vs. Union by Desire
The Council of Trent carefully qualifies the necessity of the Sacraments to include also Sacraments received in desire only:
If any one saith that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification; (though all are not indeed necessary for every individual;) let him be anathema.
When we apply this reasoning to Church membership, it is clear that membership in the Church may take place without the Sacraments, although never without the sacramental effect.
Hence, being grafted onto the Body of Christ as a visible member of the Catholic Church is not the only way to become joined to the Church. Anyone who has obtained the sacramental effect of baptism by desire, without having received baptism of water, must be invisibly joined to Christ and to His Church.
The use of the words 'actually' and 'formally', 'enter,' 'incorporated' or 'joined' and 'related to,' which words are used variously in Church documents, can be confusing. To make the meaning more clear in the following document I have qualified them with the words 'invisible' and 'visibly.'
[M]any people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the Gospel revelation or to [visibly] enter the Church. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of grace which, while having a mysterious [invisible] relationship to the Church, does not make them formally [visibly] part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio 1990, 10.
In general, the language referring to those members who are joined to the Church by desire is not always the same throughout these relevant Church documents. Sometimes 'enter' means only to visibly enter, and those who are 'not members' includes those who are invisibly joined. However, the reality that is expressed is that the sad group which is outside of the Church and cannot be saved in that situation, does not include those who are invisibly joined to the Church by desire.
In this post we will refer to those baptized with water as the 'visible members,' and to those only united by baptism of desire, as 'invisibly joined.'
3. Explicit vs. Implicit Desire
Obtaining a sacramental effect presumes the desire to have that sacrament, as Christ does not impose Himself on anyone who does not desire union with Him.
Though We desire...that all the straying sheep may hasten to enter the one fold of Jesus Christ, yet We recognize that this must be done of their own free will; ...for the "faith without which it is impossible to please God" is an entirely free "submission of intellect and will." Pius XII, Mystici Corporis 1943, 103
Explicit is the kind of desire that catechumens have whereby they have already come to recognize the Catholic Church for what it is, and so wish to become a member. This desire is based on clear and distinct knowledge. Implicit is a desire to will what God wills, though this desire has not yet been shaped by a person’s recognition of the Catholic Church as the one true Church.
Catechumens who, moved by the Holy Spirit, desire with an explicit intention to be incorporated into the Church, are by that very intention [invisibly] “joined” to her. With love and solicitude mother Church already embraces them as her own... Nor shall divine providence deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those who, without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, and who, not without grace, strive to lead a good life. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, 14, 15 1964
The Church teaches that either explicit or implicit desire is sufficient to obtain the baptismal effect.
Those with an implicit desire are marked by invincible ignorance.
But, nevertheless, we must likewise hold it as certain that those who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if the [ignorance] be invincible, will never be charged with any guilt on this account before the eyes of the Lord. Now, who is there who would arrogate to himself the power to indicate the extent of such ignorance according to the nature and the variety of peoples, regions, talents, and so many other things? Pope Blessed Pius IX, Singulari quadam,1854
Invincible ignorance is that for which one is not culpable because it is not something chosen either positively or by omission. This state is complicated and not something we can judge from the outside. However, one thing we can objectively say about it:
Once this invincible ignorance is lifted, the implicit desire of persons to be united to Christ's Church becomes explicit. The change is in the intellect, not in the will which had been a good will all along.
It is known to Us and to you that those who are in invincible ignorance regarding our most holy religion, but who carefully observe the natural law and its precepts, engraved by God in the hearts of all; who are willing to obey God and who lead an honest and righteous life, can, with the help of divine light and grace, achieve eternal life. Pius XI, Quantum Conficiamur, 1863
This does not mean we can say that all 'nice' well-intentioned people claiming to love God have an implicit desire joining them to the Church. There are more distinctions we must make.
4. Perfect Charity
To desire something with one's will can be a voluntas simplex, a simple willing or a wish, or it can be a voluntas efficax, which is an efficacious desire and longing that culminates in action.
[T]he Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation...Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium,1964,14-15
In order for a desire to be efficacious in uniting someone to the Church - a voluntas efficax, it must be motivated by perfect charity and supernatural Faith.
While charity is a kind of good will, it is not simply good will. It is supernatural love, as distinguished from a natural love whereby one recognizes that the Creator deserves our worship. Nor again is it initial love (diligere), which is only the preparation for justification.
Now they are disposed unto the said justice, when...they begin to love (diligere) Him as the fountain of all justice; and are therefore moved against sins by a certain hatred and detestation, to wit, by that penitence which must be performed before baptism: lastly, when they purpose to receive baptism, to begin a new life, and to keep the commandments of God... This disposition, or preparation, is followed by justification itself...whence, man, through Jesus Christ, in whom he is ingrafted, receives, in the said justification, together with the remission of sins, all these (gifts) infused at once, faith, hope, and charity. For faith, unless hope and charity be added thereto, neither unites man perfectly with Christ, nor makes him a living member of His body. For which reason it is most truly said, that faith without works is dead and profitless. Catechism of Trent 1564, Chapter VI
Justification is not merited by works, but is a free gift of God, which occurs when charity is poured forth by Him into a person's heart.
The perfect charity necessary to be an invisible member of the Church is what changes lifeless faith such as that had by the devils, into the living and meritorious faith necessary for salvation.
St. Thomas refers to this 'perfection of charity' as that whereby one turns from mortal sin, the obstacles to God's grace.
Such perfection [of charity] as this can be had in this life...by the removal from man’s affections of all that is contrary to charity, such as mortal sin; and there can be no charity apart from this perfection, wherefore it is necessary for salvation. ST II-II, 184, 2
Perfect charity is not necessary in order to receive the effect of Baptism and Confession when those Sacraments are received visibly. However, without the Sacraments, perfect charity is necessary for the sacramental effect and is intrinsically necessary for salvation. Again, whereas the attrition necessary for absolution within the Sacrament of Penance requires only an imperfect supernatural motive, the contrition necessary for absolution of mortal sin outside of that Sacrament is contrition motivated by perfect charity.
5. Faith
St. Thomas further delineates what kind of faith is necessary for salvation. First, it is clear that faith in the Trinity and in Christ's Incarnation is always necessary.
Therefore belief of some kind in the mystery of Christ’s Incarnation was necessary at all times and for all persons, but this belief differed according to differences of times and persons... ST II-II, 2,7
Although Faith in the Trinity and in Christ's Incarnation is always necessary for salvation, St. Thomas says that at one time this Faith could be implicit.
Wherefore just as, before Christ, the mystery of Christ was believed explicitly by the learned, but implicitly and under a veil, so to speak, by the simple, so too was it with the mystery of the Trinity. And consequently, when once grace had been revealed, all were bound to explicit faith... ST II-II, 2, 8
It has pleased God that the faith of His people in these two mysteries would at times and in some of the faithful, be explicit, whereas at other times and in other of the faithful, it would be implicit. Just as simple Jews before Christ's birth had an implicit faith, there are those now who have not had the opportunity to know Christ who can have implicit faith.
Accordingly we must conclude that, as regards the substance of the articles of faith, they have not received any increase as time went on: since whatever those who lived later have believed, was contained, albeit implicitly, in the faith of those Fathers who preceded them. But there was an increase in the number of articles believed explicitly, since to those who lived in later times some were known explicitly which were not known explicitly by those who lived before them. ST II-II, 1, 7
If from the Church throughout time Christ has been pleased to accept a simple Faith, lacking only in proportion to one's invincible ignorance, then certainly it is plausible to think that He continues to do so according to a person's circumstances.
Yet even so, all the articles of Faith that are implicitly contained in the most simple and basic faith are necessary in the sense of a person's willingness to explicitly believe them once they are proposed to him.
Once again we see that our willingness to learn and embrace all aspects of the faith is evidence of our union with Christ in His Mystical Body the Church, as long as it results from charity which gives life to our faith.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Invincible ignorance is not opposed to faith and charity. But heresy and schism are directly opposed to them and that is why each definitively separates us from Christ and His Church, to our own peril.
6. Other Religions
On the one hand, salvation is not limited to visible Church members, but also includes those united to the Church by implicit desire. On the other hand, it does matter whether a person becomes a fully incorporated visible Catholic. From what we have said, it is pretty clear that it would be unusual and rare to be saved without the Sacraments, and without the Church's true doctrine.
While Christ can use other churches insofar as they contain elements which "belong by right to the one Church of Christ" (Unitatis Redintegratio), without the fullness of doctrine and sacramental life, these churches are greatly deficient to say the least.
For it is through Christ’s Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means salvation can be obtained... It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God.” Second Vatican Council, Unitatis Redintegratio 1964
Consequently, those who are only united to the Church through an implicit desire are at great risk.
We ask each and every one of them to correspond to the interior movements of grace, and to seek to withdraw from that state in which they cannot be sure of their salvation... they still remain deprived of those many heavenly gifts and helps which can only be enjoyed in the Catholic Church. Mystici Corporis ,103
Without the visible means of salvation, the dogmas of the Faith as well as the Sacraments, they are like people hanging onto a ship's lifesaver in the midst of a storm, unlike the visible members who are safely within the ship. If these poor deprived souls do not safely and visibly enter the Church, they are unlikely to weather the storms and, before the end, may well be lost.
Hence let us, as Christ's instruments through our prayers and missionary efforts, meet the urgent need to dispel the darkness of ignorance in all those who are not visible members of Christ's Mystical Body, the Church.
[S]trive to take these people [in invincible ignorance] out of the darkness of error. Pius XI, Quantum Conficiamur, 1863