The Communion of the Saved
If we want to consider what role the Church plays in the salvation of human beings, we need first to ask, “What is the Church?”
Let’s give two answers to this question. The first is from the Second Vatican Council, and quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 816:
“The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter’s pastoral care. … This Church, constituted and organized as a society in the present world, [continues to exist] in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him.”
In other words, there is one Church — the one that Christ Himself founded. Jesus established the Church as a real, visible, and structured community — a “city set on a hill.” It has official leaders and authority. It has certain beliefs and practices. And that Church is the Catholic Church.
The second answer to the question, “What is the Church?” is that the Church is the Body of Christ. In the Catechism, one of the headings in the section that explains how the Church is the Body of Christ, says, “The Church is communion with Jesus.”
Think about that for a second. Not “The Church has communion with Jesus” but “The Church is communion with Jesus.” In other words, the Church is the body of the people who have communion with the Incarnate Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Church, then, is made up of those who have been grafted as branches onto the vine of Jesus, into the Love that He shares with the Father. Jesus said, “Abide in me as I abide in you…. I am the vine, you are the branches.… As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.”
This Love that binds us to Jesus and the Father puts us into the communion of the Trinity; and this Love is the Holy Spirit that God has given to us. This is why the Church is also called “the Temple of the Holy Spirit.”
So the Church is gathered around Christ our Head — united with one another and with Him — by His Spirit of Love. In this way, the Church is bound to Christ in one flesh, as a loving Groom is bound in one flesh to his beloved Bride. This is why the Church is also called “the Bride of Christ.”
Here’s the clincher: the Church is saved because it is the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. “The Church is communion with Jesus;” and communion with Jesus is salvation. The Church, then, by definition, is saved. The Church, in a certain sense, is simply ‘the communion of those who are saved.’
Therefore, all that is not of the Church, or is severed from the inner reality of the Church, is not saved.
This is a bold statement. And when we recall our first answer to the question, “What is the Church?” — which was, “the Church is the Catholic Church,” … We have an even bolder statement:
All that is not of the Catholic Church, is not saved.
The Tradition of the Church expresses this in the Latin phrase, “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (Outside the church there is no salvation).
Now it sounds as if we’re saying that absolutely no one can be saved except Catholics. That’s not quite what we’re saying. But we’ll explain all that in a later lesson.
In the meantime, there is something profoundly true here in saying “outside the church there is no salvation.”
Let’s put this together. There is one Church, founded by Jesus Christ. That Church is visible and identifiable. It is governed by the successors of Saint Peter (the Pope) and the other Apostles (the Bishops). And this Church, and her alone — in her inner life — enjoys communion with God through Jesus Christ, and she alone is vivified by the Holy Spirit. … And by that participation in the Divine Life of God, she is saved.
And this actually makes a lot of sense. There is One God and Creator, and that God is Love. God is a communion of Love. So salvation is — and can only be — union with this God of love. Everyone who is saved, then, is in communion with God; and in God, they are in communion with one another. The same Love which unites them with God, also unites them with one another. So if there is one God, there must also be one People of God. As people enter into communion with God and salvation, He draws them together into communion with one another.
There is only One God; and there is only One Church. As Pope St. Paul VI said, the Church “is the visible plan of God’s love for humanity,” because, as the Second Vatican Council put it, God desires “that the whole human race may become one People of God, form one Body of Christ, and be built up into one temple of the Holy Spirit.”
If we profess to be followers of Christ, we must believe these things. Salvation is in the One Church. That Church is the Catholic Church. Outside the Church there is no salvation. We’ll look more at how this works, in the next lesson.