A. The Catholic Church is by divine institution the guardian and dispenser of the means of grace.
I. Christ confided to His Church the means of grace instituted by Him for the salvation of man; and thus He made it the
ordinary medium of salvation in the New Law. (a) He gave to His Church the same mission which He Himself had received from
His Heavenly Father: As the Father hath sent Me, I also send you
(John 20: 21). The Church is, therefore, the dispenser of
that salvation of which Christ is the author, and consequently, the ordinary medium of salvation in the New Dispensation.
<(b) Christ charged His Apostles and their successors in the priesthood with the administration of the Sacraments,
or means of grace. But what Christ conferred on the Apostles, as the rulers and representatives of His Church, He made permanent
in His Church. Therefore the Church is the permanent dispenser of the Sacraments, or means of grace.
The administration of the Sacrament of Matrimony, although its ministers are the contracting parties themselves, was confided to the Church, not only inasmuch as it requires Baptism as a necessary condition, but also inasmuch as the recipients, in order to receive it licitly and validly, must comply with the Church's laws.
II. Christ committed the means of salvation to the true Church – to the Catholic Church only. (a) He confided them to the Apostles whom He had commissioned to propagate His Church; but the Apostles represented the true Church only; therefore the true Church alone was constituted the guardian and dispenser of the means of grace. (b) Although some Sacraments may be validly administered outside the Church, and are in themselves means of grace, yet as a matter of fact, they are not means of grace for those who presume to receive them in the state of apostasy from the true Church.
By Baptism deliberately received outside the communion of the true Church, the grace of regeneration is not conferred. Absolution cannot be obtained from a priest who is not in communion with the Church, as such a one has no jurisdiction. (In danger of death however, the Church gives any validly ordained priest the jurisdiction to absolve.) The graces attached to Confirmation, the Holy Eucharist, Extreme Unction, and Holy Orders, are, in like manner, not imparted to those who knowingly receive these Sacraments from ministers not in communion with the Church, with whom communication in sacred things is forbidden. (However, the indelible character is still imparted by Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders validly administered by those not in communion with the Church.)
B. The members of the Church are those who have validly received the Sacrament of Baptism and who are not separated from the unity of the confession of the Faith, and from the unity of the lawful communion of the Church.
I. In the Encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi, Pope Pius XII declared: Only those are to be accounted really
members of the Church who have been regenerated in the waters of Baptism and profess the true Faith, and have not cut themselves off
from the structure of the Body by their own unhappy act or been severed therefrom, for very grave crimes, by the legitimate authority.
According to this declaration three conditions are demanded for membership in the Church: 1) The valid reception of the Sacrament of Baptism. 2) The profession of the true Faith. 3) Participation in the Communion of the Church. By the fulfillment of these three conditions one subjects oneself to the threefold office of the Church – the sacerdotal office (Baptism), the teaching office (Profession of Faith), and the pastoral office (obedience to legitimate Church authority). As the three powers perpetuated in these offices – the power of sanctifying, the power of teaching, and the power of governing – constitute the unity and the visibility of the Church, subjection to each and all of these powers is a condition for membership in the Church. On reception of Baptism, the seal of Jesus Christ – the Character of Baptism – is imprinted. This effects the incorporation into the Body of Christ, and confers the capacity and right to participate in Christian worship (i.e., the Mass, the Sacraments, the Liturgy, public prayers, etc.) Baptism is, therefore, the real cause of our incorporation into the Church. The Profession of the true Faith and the adherence to the communion of the Church are for adults subjective conditions for the achievement and the unhindered perpetuation of their membership in the Church, which is initiated by Baptism. Those children validly baptized in schismatic or heretical sects are members of the Church unless and until, after reaching the use of reason, they voluntarily separate themselves from the Profession of the Faith or from the communion of the Church.
II. By voluntary defection from the Church, or by the refusal to comply with the conditions necessary for actual membership, the union with the Church ceases. A Christian can never be justified in renouncing communion with the Church; but, as a matter of fact, he can separated himself from the Church’s communion, just a soldier can desert the banner to which he has sworn loyalty.
Those who voluntarily separate themselves from the Church are: (a) heretics, i.e., those who profess a doctrine declared
as heretical by the Church, and infidels, who entirely reject the Church's teaching. For whosoever publicly departs from the unity
of the Faith thereby ceases both inwardly and outwardly to belong to the Church. Therefore St. Paul admonishes the pastors of the Church:
“A man that is a heretic, after the first or second admonition, avoid
(Tit. 3: 10). If such a man still belonged to the fold,
the Apostle would not admonish the pastors to shun him. (b) Schismatics, or those who fall off from their allegiance to legitimate
Church government, especially the Pope – the supreme head of the Church – cease to be members of the Church. For he who is not in union
with the head cannot be considered as belonging to the body, and he who refuses to acknowledge and obey the lawful pastors no longer belong to
the fold. (c) Excommunicated persons are likewise separated from the Church. Like all other societies, the Church has the right to
cut off refractory or incorrigible members, and to deprive them of all the benefits and privileges of membership. Our Lord Himself says:
If he [who has been denounced to the Church] will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican
(Matt. 18: 17).
There are different degrees of excommunication. Some excommunicated persons are vitandi (to be avoided), i.e., all communication with them is forbidden, save what is really necessary. Such are those excommunicated by name. Others are tolerati (tolerated), i.e., not deprived of social communication with their neighbors.
C. Communion with the Church is necessary as on ordinary means of salvation.
As we have said in the article about Baptism (Issue No. 204), the fulfillment of an obligation may be necessary for salvation in two ways: either in consequence of a divine precept or as a means of salvation. Invincible ignorance will excuse a person from the non-fulfillment of a commandment, whereas without a necessary means of salvation, not even the invincibly ignorant can be saved. This means, again, may be either absolutely or only ordinarily necessary. It is absolutely necessary when it cannot be supplied by any other means; thus sanctifying grace is (absolutely) necessary for salvation. When a means is required only in the ordinary course of divine providence, and may be exceptionally substituted by some other means (e.g. the desire of it), it is said to be necessary as an ordinary means. We will here examine the necessity of membership in the Church as an ordinary means of salvation.
It is an article of Faith that outside the Church there is no salvation (Fourth Lateran Council); but to understand this dogma aright we must bear in mind that there are different kinds of union with the Church: union in act or in desire, external or internal union, union with the body or with the soul of the Church – the Holy Ghost. According to Catholic teaching a man cannot be saved without communion with the visible Church in act, or at least in desire if actual union is impossible.
I. Actual, or external, communion with the Church is necessary as an ordinary means of salvation.
(a) That is considered necessary as an ordinary means of salvation which in the ordinary course of divine providence confers the required fitness for salvation. Now, this is true of communion with the Church; for it is only in the Catholic Church that man, according to the plan of divine providence, is fitted for eternal salvation, that is, receives sanctifying grace. The ordinary means of salvation, and of sanctification for all, is the Sacrament of Baptism. But the administration of Baptism has been confided by Christ to His Church, and it is necessarily the entrance into the true Church. Therefore, as Baptism is necessary for salvation, so also the communion with the Church which results from it is necessary.
(b) The Sacrament of Penance is the ordinary means of salvation for those who have fallen into mortal sin after Baptism. But the sects separated from the Church cannot possess the Sacrament of Penance without a true priesthood; nor can they validly administer it; for even if they have a true priesthood, yet being separated from the Church, they have not the necessary jurisdiction. Therefore it is only in the Catholic Church that those means exist which God ordained for the forgiveness of sins and the attainment of salvation.
(c) Although the other Sacraments are not in the same sense necessary for salvation as are Baptism and Penance, yet they are means of grace instituted by Christ for the fulfillment of certain duties in the various states of Christian life; and as our salvation depends upon grace so it depends also upon these Sacraments, which are the channels of grace. But he who is not a member of the Church is either deprived of these Sacraments altogether or receives them without fruit; for, if he is conscious of his separation from the true Church, he receives the Sacraments at the hands of unlawful ministers, and therefore unworthily.
II. Internal communion with the Church, consisting in the desire of being externally united with it, is an indispensable means of salvation.
(a) Baptism of desire is indispensably necessary for those who are unable to receive the Sacrament itself, and perfect contrition for all who have committed grievous sins after Baptism, and cannot receive the Sacrament of Penance; but both these include the desire of doing all that God ordained for salvation, consequently the desire of being a member of the true Church.
The will to do all that God has ordained for salvation is compatible with external, but unconscious, separation from the Church;
therefore one who is in error through invincible ignorance (bona fide) is capable of perfect contrition. The case is different with
him who is knowingly (mala fide) in error, so long as he persists in his error. St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori in his Moral Theology
(b. 2, tr. 1), when commenting on a proposition condemned by Pope Innocent XI, which taught: A non-believer is excused from infidelity
who is led by a less probable opinion, warns that even if he thinks his false religion is sufficiently probable, an infidel can never
think his sect truly probable without culpability. For if he prays, God without doubt will infuse in him His light concerning the true
Religion.
(b) All are bound sometimes to make acts of perfect charity, and that, not merely as a means of obtaining justification. But such an act necessarily includes the will to do all that is required for salvation, consequently also to become, or to remain, a member of the true Church. Therefore, whosever is not externally united to the Church, must have the explicit or implicit desire to belong to the Church, and thus be spiritually united with it, in order to be saved.
The Catholic Church is, therefore, truly the only harbor of safety. This does not imply that all those who are not externally united to the Church will necessarily perish. Salvation is only impossible to those who know the Catholic Church to be the true Church, and yet refuse to join it; or who by their own grievous fault persist in unbelief or error.
(c) That communion with the Church in the manner explained above is necessary as a means of salvation, and that the Church meant is the Catholic Church, is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers and of the Councils of the Church.
The Fathers compare the Church to the ark of Noe, outside of which there was no safety. Thus St. Cyprian (de unit.
eccl. c. 6): He who separates himself from the Church has no share in the promises given to the Church. He is a stranger, an alien,
an enemy; he cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his Mother. If anyone could escape destruction outside the ark of Noe,
(then only) is it possible to escape destruction outside the Church.
Similarly, Tertullian (de bapt. c. 8), Firmilian
(epp. S. Cyp. lxxv n. 15), St. Hilary (in ps. 148, n. 39), St. Augustine (de unit. eccl. c. xix n. 49).
The necessity here described is evidently a necessity of means; and there is manifestly question of the Catholic Church as contrasted with
heretical sects. This same truth is expressed in the Lateran Creed and in the Profession of Faith published by the Council of Florence
(decr. pro Jacob.)
Hence it follows that no one can in any case be justified in separating himself from the Church or in remaining separated,
if for any cause he has been excluded from its communion. All pleas advanced in defense of separation from the Church vanish before
the evidence for its divine institution and for the necessity of communion with it. (See also the article, Necessity of the Precious
Blood
by Fr. Faber, in Issue No. 139, where the author describes the difficulty those who are only
internally united with the Church have in working out their salvation without the abundant helps provided by the Church and the Precious
Blood of Jesus.)
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