This formula bears a singular resemblance to one contained in the profession of faith prescribed by Pope Innocent III in 1209 for the Waldensians who wished to return to the Catholic Church: "We believe in our hearts and we profess orally that there is one Church, not that of the heretics, but the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic [Church], outside of which we believe that no one will be saved."2
Each of these documents represent three distinct statements as truths actually revealed by God, and consequently as doctrines which men are obligated to accept with the assent of divine faith itself. By immediate and necessary implication, they condemn as heretical the teaching contradictory to these three dogmas of the Catholic faith. They assert that:
(1) It is divinely revealed that there is only one true ecclesia or Church of God.
(2) It is a divinely revealed truth that this one true ecclesia is the Roman Catholic Church, the social unit properly termed "the universal Church of the faithful".
(3) No one at all, according to God's own revelation, can be saved if, at the moment of his death, he is "outside" this society.
As a result, according to the teaching of these documents, it would be heretical to imagine that there is more than one social unity in this world that can be designated as God's true ecclesia, that the Roman Catholic Church is not this true ecclesia, or that any person could attain to salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church.
In a study like ours, the special value of these two documents is to be found in the fact that they place the dogma of the Church's necessity for the attainment of salvation against its proper background, and that they. particularly the statement of the Lateran Council, bring out clearly the real and complete necessity of the Church according to the actual designs of God's providence.
These two declarations of the teaching Church during the pontificates of Pope Innocent III set the dogmas of the Church's necessity for the attainment of eternal salvation in their proper perspective precisely because they state this teaching against the background of the divinely revealed truths that there is only one true supernatural kingdom of God (or ecclesia) in the world, and that this ecclesia is the Roman Catholic Church. This true supernatural kingdom of God on earth, God's ecclesia, is something definable and understandable in terms of its necessity for the attainment of the Beatific Vision. If we are to understand the terminology of the teaching set forth by the Fourth Council of the Lateran, we must realize that the men who drew up this profession of faith and all the men of the thirteenth century, both Catholics and heretics, were well aware of the fact that "the social unit outside of which no one at all is saved" and "the true Church or kingdom of God" are objectively identical. The heretics denied that the social unit over which the Bishop of Rome presides as visible head is actually the true ecclesia of God described in the Scriptures. But they certainly would not and did not question the fact that, wherever it was to be found, this true ecclesia is the company outside of which no one at all may attain the possession of the Beatific Vision.
For all these men, Catholics and heretics alike, the genuine Church of God was the company of His chosen people, the people of His covenant it was the company of those who professed their acceptance of the divine and supernatural law by which God directs men to the attainment of the one ultimate and eternal happiness available to them, the happiness which is to be obtained only in the possession of the Beatific Vision. The true Church was the beneficiary of God's promises. It was the repository of His supernatural revelation. It dwelt in this world as in a place of pilgrimage, awaiting the glory of the fatherland of heaven.
They knew that the Church triumphant in heaven was to be the continuation and the flowering of the Church militant now existing on this earth, and that the people of the Church triumphant were, in point of fact, the people who had passed from this life "within" the Church militant and living the life of sanctifying grace. Thus they saw that the Church militant was actually something understandable in terms of necessity for the attainment of eternal salvation.
The profession of faith of the Fourth Lateran Council and the formula which the returning Waldensians were obliged to accept both insisted upon the unity and the unicity of the Church outside of which no one can be saved. Both asserted that this ecclesia definable and understandable as the social unit outside of which no one can attain eternal salvation, is the religious society over which the Bishop of Rome presides. The profession of faith for the returning Waldensians states that this ecclesia of God is not the Church of heretics, but that it is "the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic" Church. The Firmiter teaches exactly the same thing when it asserts that this one ecclesia outside of which no one at all is saved is the "one universal Church of the faithful."
The term fidelis had and still has a definite teachnical meaning in the language of Christianity. The fidelis, or the faithful, are not merely the individuas who have made an act of divine faith in accepting the teaching of God's public and Christian revelation. They are actually those who have made the baptismal profession of faith, and who have not cut themselves off from the unity of the Church by public apostasy or heresy or schism and have not been cast out of the Church by the process of excommunication. In other words, according to the present terminology of sacred theology, the fidelis is simply the Catholic, the member of the Catholic Church. Thus the Church of the faithful, the universalis ecclesia fidelium, is nothing but the visible Catholic Church itself. And the formula of the Fourth Council of the Lateran tells us that this ecclesia fidelium is the one supernatural kingdom of God on earth, the company outside of which no one at all can attain eternal salvation.
Actually, in the traditional language of the Church, the term christianus itself had a wider application than the word fidelis. A catechumen might be designated as a christianus, but never as a fidelis.3 A man gained the dignity and the position of a fidelis through the reception of the sacrament of baptism. The sacrament is precisely the sacrament of the faith. By the force of the character it imparts, it incorporates the person who receives it into that community which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ. The effect pf that incorporation is broken only by public heresy or apostasy, by schism. or by the full measure of excommunication. The man in whom the incorporating work of baptismal character remains unbroken is the fidelis, the member of the Catholic Church. The social unit composed of these fideles is, according to the teaching of the Fourth Lateran Council, the true Church, outside which no one at all is saved.
Now, the Council teaches that a man must be in some way "within" the Church of the faithful in order to be saved. It does not, however, in anyway teach or even imply that no one other than one of the fideles can actually attain the Beatific Vision. And, for that matter, no other authoritative declaration of the Church issues such a teaching or supports any such implication. It is not, and it has never been, the teaching of the Catholic Church that only actual members of the Church can attain eternal salvation. According to the teaching of the Church's own magisterium, salvation can be attained and, as a matter of fact, has been attained by persons who, at the moment of their death, were not members of this Church. The Church has thus never confused the notion of being "outside the Church" with that of being a non-member of this society.
Thus the Fathers of the Fourth Lateran Council and all other churchmen who have drawn up authoritative statements of the Church's teaching on the necessity of the Church for the attainment of eternal salvation were well aware of what St. Augustine had taught about men who suffered martyrdom for the sake of Christ before having had the opportunity to receive the sacrament of baptism. In his De civitate Dei, St. Augustine taught that "whosoever dies for Christ, not having received the laver of regeneration, has this avail him for the forgiveness of sins as much as if these sins had been forgiven in the sacred fount of baptism."4 Since the forgiveness of mortal or original sin is accomplished only in the infusion of the life of sanctifying grace, the person whose sins are forgiven is in the state of grace. If such a person dies in the state of grace, he will inevitably attain to the Beatific Vision. He will be saved, as having died "within" and not "outside" the true Church.
Furthermore, they knew that there is no such thing as real membership in the Church militant of the New Testament, the true and only ecclesia fidelium, apart from the reception of the sacrament of baptism. Thus, when the Fathers of the Fourth Oecumenical Council of the Lateran, and the other authoritative teachings of the Catholic Church, followed St. Augustine in holding that a men could be saved if he died as a martyr for Our Lord while still unbaptized, they were clearly showing that, in their declarations that no one can be saved outside the Church, they did not mean that only members of the Church may obtain the Beatific Vision. The unbaptized martyr for Our Lord passed from this life "within" the ecclesia fidelium, despite the fact that he died without having attained the status of Fidelis.
Again, the Fathers of the Fourth Oecumenical Council of the Lateran were well aware of the fact that an unbaptized man could be saved even if he did not die a martyr's death. ALl of them accepted as Catholic doctrine the teaching St. Ambrose had set forth in his sermon De oblitu Valentiniani:
But I hear that you are sorrowing because he [the Emperor Valentinian II] did not receive the rites of baptism. Tell me, what else is there in us but will, but petitions? Now, quite recently it was his intention to be baptized before coming into Italy. He let it be known that he wanted to be baptized by me very shortly, and it was for that reason above all others, that he decided to have me sent for. Does he not, then, have the grace he desired? Does he not have what he prayed for? Surely, because he prayed for it, he has received it. Hence it is that "the soul of the just man will be at rest, what ever kind of death may overtake him."5St. Ambrose was speaking of an instance in which a man who had been a catechumen had died before he had an opportunity to receive the sacrament of baptism. He had passed from this life, then, as a non-member of the ecclesia fidelium. At the moment of his death he was not one of the fidelies. Yet, according to St. Ambrose, this man had died a good death. He had prayed for the grace of baptism, and God had given him this answer to his prayer.6 He had passed from this life "within" rather than "outside" the Church of the faithful. He had beenable to attain eternal salvation.
Such was the doctrinal background against which the Fathers of the Lateran Council issued their teaching on the necessity of the Catholic Church for the attainment of the Beatific Vision. They believed that non-members of the Catholic Church could achieve salvation. This, when they taught that no one at all could be saved "outside" the one Church of the faithful, they obviously did not mean to say that being outside of the Church was equivalent to being a non-member of this social unit.
On the other hand, they just as obviously did not mean that being a member of the Church, or even desiring to enter the Church, constituted any absolute guarantee of salvation. It is unfortunately possible to have a man die as a member of the true Church, and die in the state of mortal sin. It is likewise possible to have a man actually desire to enter the Church, and die before he had the opportunity to be baptized, and to have that man lose his soul through some other offense against God. In other words, it is possible for a man to lose his soul if he dies "within" the Church. The Fourth General Council of the Lateran brought out the fact that it is absolutely impossible to attain to eternal salvation if a man passes from this life "outside" the true Church.
Thus, according to the infallibly true teaching of the section of the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council, we may draw the following conclusions:
(1) At the moment of death a man must be in some way "within" the Catholic Church (either as a member or as one who desires and prayers to enter it) if he is to attain to eternal salvation.
(2) There is absolutely no exceptions to this rule. Otherwise the statement that "no one at all (nullus omnino) is saved outside of the one universal Church of the faithful would not be true. And that statement is true. It is an infallible dogmatic pronouncement of an Oecumenical Council of the Catholic Church.
(4) Any attempt to explain the Church's necessity for salvation that it is only the "ordinary" means, or by imagining that it is requisite only for those who are aware of its dignity and position, is completely false and unacceptable.
End.
