NO SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH

If you are asked, "Where is the exact meaning of the maxim, 'No salvation outside the Catholic Church', what are you to say about it? "        

The simplest way to put it, I think, is this - there is no other religious body in the world except the Catholic Church which makes a supernatural contribution to a man's chances of salvation.           

He may receive natural help from some other source.  His conscience may be stirred by the preaching of the Salvation Army, or he may learn a useful habit of mental prayer from the Buddhist, or his sense of worship may be stimulated by the beauty of the ceremonies which he witnesses at the Church of the Cowley Fathers.  But there's only one religious body whose membership, of itself, tends to procure our salvation, and that is the Catholic Church.        

If anybody is saved without visible membership of it, he is saved, not because he's an Anglican, not because he's a Methodist, not because he is a Quaker but for one reason only -- he is Catholic without knowing it.      

Blessed John Cardinal Newman.     

 (10-19-10)