Sermons from the Latins/Sermon 27
Second Sunday After Easter.
The Catholic Church and Salvation.
"Other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one Shepherd." — John x. 16.
SYNOPSIS.
Ex.: Doctrines: I. Truth. II. Meaning. III. Consequences.
I. Its truth : i. Truth one. 2. Church one. 3. Figures of Church.
II. Its meaning: 1. Salvation for all. 2. Body and soul of Church. 3. Live members and dead.
III. Catholic's advantage: 1. Apostasy. 2. Repentance. 3. Mysteries.
Per. : 1. Bigotry. 2. Our responsibility. 3. Our attitude toward others.
SERMON.
Brethren, in Catholic theology we find the sentence: " Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation." First, we will assure ourselves that this sentence is strictly true. Second, we will try to understand well its real meaning. Third, we will resolve to practice always that true Catholicity that stands midway between fanatical bigotry and religious indifference.
Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation— that is strictly and literally true. For truth is one and it is only by professing the truth that man can be saved. Now if I profess the Catholic religion, and my brother denies it, one of us must be right and the other wrong, or both must be wrong; but both cannot be right, for truth does not contradict itself. Hence, it follows that if my Church, the Catholic Church, is the one true Church, I, professing her doctrines and living up to them, will be saved, and my brother denying her doctrines in his teaching and practice will be lost. And because truth is one, so must the true Church be one and one only. For, as there is but one God and one Christ, so can there be but one true Church, one true faith, one true Baptism. For the true Church is Christ's living representative on earth, and hence, she is one even as He is one. He called her His Church, He founded her on one rock, He gathered His disciples into her as into one fold, under one Shepherd, and His last prayer for her was that she might ever continue one even as the Father and He are one. Christ clothed her with His own personality, giving to her all power in heaven and on earth even as the Father gave to Him.
Hence, just as the apostolic delegate can say: " I am the Pope," so the true Church can stand up before the world and say: " I am Christ." For, sending her into the world He said: " Go preach the gospel to every creature, and whosoever shall believe and be baptized shall be saved, but whosoever shall not believe shall be condemned. Amen, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrha than for whosoever shall not receive or hear you. Let such an one be to you as a heathen and a publican. For who denies you, denies Me, and who denies Me before men I will deny him before My Father in heaven." Thus, you see, that so close is the connection between the Father and Christ and the true Church, that whosoever lives outside the Catholic Church, denies the true Church, denies Christ, denies the Father; whosoever is an enemy to the Catholic Church, is an enemy to his Redeemer and Creator, and will receive the reward of God's enemies— eternal damnation. That is why the Catholic Church is so essentially intolerant, that her very intolerance is the strongest proof of her divinity. That is why, too, no sect claiming to be the true church ever admitted salvation for its separated brethren; or if perchance it did, its indifferentism soon proved its own refutation and its ruin. But the Catholic Church has ever held that outside of her pale there is no salvation; that she is the house of Rahab, wherein alone the inhabitants of the tottering universe may find shelter; that she is the ark of the New Covenant wherein alone men may ride safely over the deluge of sin and error, on through life to eternity.
Outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation. That is true, but I pray, understand it well. What does it mean? Does it mean that every Catholic, howsoever bad, will be saved? No. That the great and good men who mistook error for truth and were willing, or actually did, lay down their lives for their error, that they are all lost? No. That the negro in darkest Africa, the simple celestial of China, or the poor Indian here before Columbus, who never heard of God or Christ or Christ's Church, that they are all lost? No. But, you say, they were not Catholics. Still, I say, they may have been. Let me explain. God creates all men to be saved, and if they are lost, they are, God permitting, lost through their own fault. Christ died for all without exception. Therefore, I say, there is not a single condition of life in which a man, if he wishes, cannot save his soul, It is possible for the Indian, Chinaman, negro; for the infidel, the heretic, and the Protestant. Therefore, you say, outside the Catholic Church there is salvation. No, for if these poor creatures who know not, or are mistaken about, God and His true Church, so live as to deserve heaven, they are really members of the Catholic Church. Again, let me explain. The Catholic Church is a society, and, hence, is a moral person. Now every person has a visible body and an invisible soul, and so, too, has the Church. Her body is made up of the Pope, her head; the bishops and priests, the tongue and hands with which she preaches and ministers; and the great throng that profess Catholicity, partake of her sacraments and are governed by her ministers, are her other members. Now, these members are of two kinds— either live members or dead members. Strictly speaking, live members are Catholics who practise their religion, and are in a state of grace. They belong to the Church's body, and are vivified by her soul, and if they live and die such, they will be saved. Dead members are bad Catholics, paralyzed by sin, hanging on limply to the body of the Church, but not receiving the vivifying influence of its soul — and if they live so and die so, they will surely be lost. Others there are, who belong only to the invisible soul of the Church — and for that it is only necessary that one be baptized — either by baptism of water, desire or blood — and that he be in a state of grace. It matters not whether he be Protestant or infidel — Indian, Chinaman, or negro — it matters not how ignorant or savage he may be — so long as he lives up to the lights God has given, and desires to do and does all that he knows or considers necessary to secure happiness in the next life — he belongs to the soul of the Catholic Church and as such he will be saved. Hence, the good Protestant who thinks his church the true church and lives as well as he can according to her doctrine; the Pagan, groping eagerly in the darkness of error for the light of God's truth, and willing to follow it, when found, whithersoever it may lead; aye, and the poor Indian, laying him down to die in the woods and lifting up his mind and heart in one last appeal to the Great White Father to have pity on him and bring him into the happy hunting-grounds — each and all of these belong to the soul of the Catholic Church and as such are saved. Comparatively few, therefore, are so outside the Catholic Church as to be without hope of salvation. They are, first, unbaptized infants; second, persons who know the Catholic to be the true Church but neglect or refuse to join her; third, all persons whatsoever, who live and die in mortal sin. To them and them only, applies in full force the saying, that outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.
But, you say, if every good man belongs to the soul of the Catholic Church and, as such, stands a chance of salvation, what advantage is it to me to belong to her body also? This advantage, that God having given you the light to know her for the true Church, you would by abandoning her commit a mortal sin and place your salvation in jeopardy. For he who belongs to her soul alone, should God at any time give him the light to know her as the true Church, is bound from that moment to join the visible body of the Catholic Church under pain of mortal sin. And if God does not give him this light, see what straits he is in. To be saved, one must at least belong to the soul of the Church. You are separated from it by sin, but regain your place in God's Church by the sacraments of reconciliation and love. Our good Protestant sins, and his only means of reuniting himself to the Church's soul is an act of perfect contrition. Now what Protestant can live long without a mortal sin? or easily make an act of contrition? or consequently easily save his soul? That is why I suspect that at the last day the vast majority of the elect will be from among professed Catholics, for the election of men from the world into the soul and body of the Church, is a harbinger of their final election from the Church militant into the Church triumphant. Nor must you imagine it is, therefore, better to leave a Protestant in his error than show him the truth and have him refuse it. Apart from the fact that you know not what he will do until you have instructed him, Christ bids us preach the truth to every creature without exception. Why then, you ask, does God give the light of the truth to some and keep others ever in the darkness of error? Alas! as well might you ask one why God chose you and me out of the myriads of human possibilities — why He creates one man unto election and another unto perdition. For these are mysteries beyond human ken, in the presence of which we can only exclaim with St. Paul: "O the depths of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God; how incomprehensible are His judgments and how unsearchable are His ways! "
This doctrine, my Brethren, is calculated to remove presumptuous bigotry on the one hand, and indifferentism on the other. We accuse Protestants of being bigoted, but in nine cases out of ten, theirs is only a reflection of our own unchristian intolerance. I have, for instance, a young Protestant friend — the soul of honor, and for all I know, virtuous to a degree. Will I cast him off as doomed to perdition? God forbid! For though I belong to the body of the Church I may be dead to its soul by sin, while he, being a member of its soul, stands a better chance of salvation than I. And when I hear of a Protestant being dead, will I say: Alas! another soul gone to hell? God forbid! For never a soul but one left this world for whom I cannot pray; so let me say, rather, Lord have mercy on his soul. Or when I see Protestants flocking into their churches, am I to scoff and hoot? God forbid! For there are many there that worship God with sincere and pure hearts and so work out their salvation. To whom much is given, of him much will be expected. If we, having received the truth, and all its accompanying blessings, profit not by it, our guilt will be all the greater. Hence, I venture to say, that a good Protestant is more acceptable in the sight of God than a bad Catholic, for it were better for a man never to have known the truth than, after he hath known it, to turn away from the holy commandment that was delivered to him. Does it not redound to our shame and the glory of Protestants that we, with all the graces and helps the true Church affords, are still so little better than they? Brethren, the fact that we have been called into Christ's true Church, places on us a fearful responsibility of clinging more closely to her; of using the means of salvation she holds out to us; and of thus working out our salvation which Christ has made so easy. As for those who have not been so called — well, we must have for them a forbearance and a love as broad as the mercy and charity of God Himself. Remember always, that though they belong not to the limited and visible body of the Church, they may belong to her world-wide and invisible soul; remember that of them Christ has said that: " Many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down in the kingdom of God, but many of the children of the kingdom shall be cast out." Finally as for those that are outside both the soul and body of the Church, let us beg the holy Spirit of God to enlighten them to know the truth and to strengthen them to conform their lives thereto, so that there may be but one fold and one Shepherd.