Daily Reflections - April 26,2013

NO SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CHURCH?

 

When I was a parish priest in Japan, I met many Buddhists who lived impressive holy lives. They never converted to Christianity. The question arose: Would they be saved?

I cannot forget Mrs. Endo, an elderly lady in my parish, who was the only Christian in her family. She agonized over the eternal fate of her deceased husband and her parents. “Where are they? Are they in hell because they were not baptized?” she asked me several times.

This anxiety is based on the fact that the New Testament speaks of Christ as the only mediator, or the only way to God. This is reinforced by what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel, “I am the Way.” Does this mean that all the good non-Christians missed the Way and therefore cannot be saved?

The expression “outside the Church there is no salvation” comes from the writings of St. Cyprian, a bishop of the 3rd century, a time when the Church was struggling to survive in a pagan world. The 4th Lateran Council declared in 1215: “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” And the Council of Florence taught in 1442 that “all those who are outside the Catholic Church... cannot share in eternal life... unless they are joined to the Catholic Church before the end of their lives” and that “nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed his blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”

But in 1968, then Fr. Joseph Ratzinger wrote in one of his books, “Certainly we know, by our faith in divine mercy, that they (non-Christians) can be saved. How this happens, we leave to God.” The Second Vatican Council teaches, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions. She looks with sincere respect upon these ways of conduct of life which… often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men.” Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD

 

REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Are you grateful for being a member of the Church? Do you pray for those who do not know Christ?

 

Lord, thank You for calling me into the Catholic Church. My heart goes out to those who do not know You but try to follow their conscience. Save them, Lord, in Your love and compassion.