In my last post, I ended by stating that I believe that the Holy Spirit used the crisis of the 20th century to change the hearts and consciences of many in the hierarchy to focus less and less on the things that divide Christians and instead more and more on the ways that Catholic and non-Catholic Christians are similar, ways in which the truths and gifts of the Catholic Church are shared outside the Church, not in a perfect way, but in ways by which God mercifully extends His grace, using these separated churches and ecclesial communities even as “means of salvation.”

This development was carefully but consistently expressed throughout the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and then further developed in the writings of Popes Paul VI through Benedict XVI, particularly in Blessed John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint, and then clarified by then Cardinal Ratzinger in Dominus Iesus.

Certainly, the long term objective remains visible unity, as the recent popes have all emphasized: that all the elements of truth outside the Catholic Church are of the Church and lead toward this eventual unity. And none of this diminishes the Church’s, as well as every individual Catholic’s, responsibility to evangelize by telling the full truth of the Catholic gospel.

However, it seems that the Holy Spirit has been calling Catholics, as has been expressed in the Church documents since the mid-twentieth century, to no longer think of non-Catholic Christians as “heretics or schismatics” who have, through their weak and stubborn wills, refused the grace of God, but instead as baptized brothers and sisters still-on-the-journey of continual conversion to Christ, and, in fact, members by baptism in the Mystical Body of Christ.

This new understanding is expressed in the following statement by a famous convert whom I consider a patron “saint” of our work, Avery Cardinal Dulles:

Who, then, can be saved? Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments. Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found. …  God’s saving grace, channeled through Christ the one Mediator, leaves no one unassisted. But that same grace brings obligations to all who receive it. They must not receive the grace of God in vain. Much will be demanded of those to whom much is given (from an article entitled “Who Can Be Saved?” published in First Things, Feb 2008).

Many Catholics have interpreted the Church’s more positive attitude toward the salvation of our separated brethren, as thus expressed by Cardinal Dulles, to mean that there is no reason to evangelize them, but in the following quote, Cardinal Dulles, clearly states the contrary (in the one instance where I’ve heard this stated publicly):

The question could be raised whether Catholics should evangelize other Christians. According to the teaching of Vatican II, these others are not fully initiated into the Body of Christ. Baptism is only the first sacrament of initiation and demands to be completed by the Eucharist (UR, 22). Full communion requires acceptance of the Church’s entire system and admission to the Eucharist, the sacrament of full communion (LG, 14). Since the whole creed and the dogmas of the Church, as well as the sacraments and pastoral government, pertain to the gospel, it follows logically that Christians who are not Catholics still require additional evangelization. (From an article entitled “Vatican II and Evangelization” in the book, The New Evangelization: Overcoming the Obstacles, 2007)

I believe the misinterpretation by some of the Church’s more positive view of “no salvation outside the Church” comes from a general uncomfortableness with seeming contradictions, causing us to prefer “either/or” conclusions. It’s this tendency which continues to feed the constant divisions of our non-Catholic Christian brethren. Catholic theology, however, has always been more accepting of the “both/and” of many theological mysteries, while at the same time holding to “black & white”, “either/or” distinctions when appropriate. As GK Chesterton once quipped, “Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.”

For many centuries, the Church seemed to understand extra Ecclesiam nulla salus as an “either/or” issue, though always with some qualifications. Now that the Church has “re-formulated” this dogma more “positively,” it does not mean that the pendulum has swung to an opposite “either/or”, but rather that the Church recognizes, in a way she never did before, how this dogma has always been a mysterious “both/and”, not unlike the two seemingly opposite truths of the fear and love of God. The absolute necessities of fearing God and loving God both have substantial Scriptural mandates, but at times, in the Church’s history, one or the other have been emphasized, even seemingly over-emphasized at the expense of the other truth. One might say the pervasive tone of the 20th century was an overemphasis on the love of God with rare mention of the fear of God—only a very few references to the fear of God can be found in Vatican II documents, or any magisterial or papal document since. But the few references to the fear of God in these documents indicate that this is not a “negative” conviction that has become obsolete and replaced by the more “positive” love of God, even though Scripture does say that perfect love drives out all fear. Rather the Church continues to teach BOTH the necessity of the fear of God AND the love of God. Without an adequate underlying fear of God, one cannot truly love God or understand God’s love; likewise, without an adequate understanding of the love of God, fear of God becomes servile fear, rather than maturing into filial fear.

The same is true with the negative and positive understandings of “no salvation outside the Church.” The re-formulated positive understanding is a corrective to the once more pervasive negative understanding, but together they provide the best and most balanced motivation for evangelization. Catholics are called to stand beside non-Catholic Christians, pointing them, in love, to the fullness of the Church, but not motivated out of fear that they are potentially damned if they refuse to enter, for the Church already recognizes that, through their baptisms, through their faithfulness to Scripture and the Christian faith as they know it, through their sacrifices already given in obedience to the call of God, they are already loved by God, and being drawn by Him to an ongoing conversion to Him.

I realize that not all Catholics struggle with this, but I’ve come to believe that many of us need to accept that, though the long-term goal for all people is unity in the Church, God’s immediate plan for many non-Catholic Christians may be to remain in their non-Catholic communities, using their God-given gifts to help those to whom God has called them to come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, and a growing openness to the Church. By recognizing the “both/and” of this dogma, we can stand side-by-side in prayer and brotherhood, for in the end anyone’s ability to come to “know” the truth of the Church, in such a way that they would give up anything to become Catholic, is a gift of grace.

Or, as the father says at the end of the Parable, “We must entrust their full return to God, but in the mean time, we must stand beside them in the faith, hope, and love that we share, always pointing them to the fullness that we have received with joy.”