In his encyclical Humani generis Pope Pius XII referred to a statement by his great predecessor, Pope Pius IX, to the effect that the noblest function of sacred theology is that showing how the doctrine defined by the Church is found in the sources of revelation -that is, in Sacred Scripture and the divine apostolic tradition- in the very sense in which the Church has proposed it. This book is the result of a laborious and humble effort to do this with reference to what the ecclesiastical teaching authority has taught and defined about the necessity of the Church for the attainment of eternal salvation.
Few dogmas of the Catholic faith have been commented upon and interpreted in the twentieth-century theological and religious literature as frequently and extensively as that which teaches us that there is no salvation outside the true Church of Jesus Christ. Hence any new book on this subject ought at least to try to offer some theological advantage on this subject not already available in currently accessible Catholic literature. The author of this present work sincerely believes that its publication is justified for these three reasons:
(1) The book quotes, and quotes at length, pertinent statements and definitions by the Holy See and by the Church's Oecumenical Councils on the necessity of the Church for the attainment of eternal salvation. It analyzes these pronouncements and brings out explicitly the Catholic teaching referred to and implied in them. Then it examines the dogma, as it has been stated and explained by the Church's magisterium, in light of what the sources of revelation have to say about the nature of the Church and about the processes of salvation and sanctification. Thus it is able to show that what the Church itself has always taught and defined on this subject is precisely what the divine message, contained in Scripture and tradition, has to say about salvation and about God's supernatural kingdom.
Any person who is at all familiar with what the great mass of religious and theological writings of our times have had to say about this dogma is quote well aware of the fact that, in an overwhelming majority of cases, these writings have been mainly, almost exclusively, concerned with the proving and explaining how this dogma does not mean that only members of the Catholic Church can be saved. This, of course, is perfectly true. The ecclesiastical magisterium, in teaching and gaurding this dogma, insists that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church and at the same time likewise insists that people who die without ever becoming members of the Catholic Church can obtain the Beatific Vision.
But if we, for all practical purposes, limit our explanation of the dogma to an assurance that it does not mean that every man who dies a non-member of the Catholic Church is not necessarily lost forever -as so many modern writings on this subject seem to do- we tend to lose sight of the central mystery of God's merciful dispensation in the supernatural order. For, let us not forget, the revealed truths about the necessity of the Catholic Church for the attainment of eternal salvation belong to the order of great supernatural mysteries. They belong with God's revealed doctrine about grace, about the process of salvation, the work of the Redemption, and the Blessed Trinity. In showing how the teachings of the ecclesiastical magisterium are contained in the sources of revelation in the very sense in which they have been stated and defined by the Church itself, we can see this dogma of the Church precisely as the accurate and authoritative expression of revealed mystery.
(2) During the pontificate of the present Holy Father three authoritative documents issued by the Holy See have instructed the members of the Church about the meaning of the dogma that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church. Two of these are encyclical letters, the Mystici Corporis Christi, issued June 29, 1943, and the Humani generis, dated August 12, 1950. The third is the Holy Office letter Suprema haec sacra, addressed by order of the Holy Father on August 8, 1949, to the Most Reverend Archbishop of Boston. The doctrinal section of this last document is devoted exclusively to an explanation of this dogma. It is the most completely detailed statement of this teaching ever set forth in an authoritative document of the Church's magisterium.
There would obviously seem to be, not only room for, but actual need of, a book that would present and analyze the teaching on this subject brought out in these three recent documents from the Holy See. And, in the lack of any other work in English devoted exclusively to the explanation of this portion of Catholic doctrine and written since the appearance of these three documents, the present book is humbly offered in the hope that it may satisfy that need.
(3) In the Humani generis the present Holy Father sternly rebuked some contemporary Catholic writiers because, as he said, "they reduce to an empty formula the necessity of belonging to the true Church in order to attain to eternal salvation." Actually this particular part of Catholic doctrine is unique in that an inaccurate interpretation or presentation of it by a Catholic writer does actually constitute, in most cases, the reduction of this teaching to an empty formula.
Furthermore the vagaries of some writers, particularly in the field of popular religious literature, on the subject, are in some way explicable in terms of the peculiar history of the tractus de ecclesia within the body of scholastic theology. A sketch of this history is available in the present volume, since I believe that the man who knows something about the basis of some of the more colorful misinterpretations of the dogma will be in a better position to appreciate and to defend the genuine teaching of the Church in this field.
This introduction would not be complete without an expression of sincere gratitude to the Very Reverend Dr. Francis J. Connell, C.SS.R., for these last fourteen years my brilliant and faithful associate in the work of The American Ecclesiastical Review. He has been kind enough to read and to correct the manuscript of this book with the same charitable care he has given to the readings and the correction of all I have written for the publication since out association began.
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