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Contents © 2000
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

NOVEMBER 2000 LETTERS

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It was with not a little interest that I read Mr. Zehnder's article in the October issue of News Notes [See "Sea Change on Death Penalty?"]. The statement of the pro-lifers he interviewed reflected a serious misunderstanding of what the Church's teaching is and always has been on the Death Penalty. The Church has always allowed the Death Penalty in cases of necessity for the protection of the common good. The Holy Father upholds this (because he has to). He just simply says that given the ability of modern penal systems to achieve this end through bloodless means this necessity is "rare if not practically non-existent". (Evangelium Vitæ n. 56) Therefore, it must be noted that the Pope is not introducing a change in Church teaching, but an organic development and practical modern application.

Greg Mockeridge
Chula Vista


TWO OPTIONS FOR MONSIGNOR MIKULANIS

(Editor: the following letter, sent to the Southern Cross, had not appeared there as of mid-October.

Dear Editor:

Msgr. Mikulanis gets a lot of things right in his recent article about Dominus Iesus (in the September 28 issue of The Southern Cross). There's not much new in the document, nor is it the end of ecumenism, as some critics claim. But Msgr. Mikulanis also gets something wrong -- something so important it raises questions about Msgr. Mikulanis' competence as Vicar for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

He is technically correct when he writes, "Nowhere does the document say, as some report, that outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation!" The exact words "outside of the Catholic Church there is no salvation" don't appear in Dominus Iesus, as Mgsr. Mikulanis states. But the idea of extra ecclesia nulla salus, which Msgr. Mikulanis mistakenly insists "The Church is not saying," is there -- properly understood. In fact, the whole document is, in a sense, a positive restatement of the idea that outside the Church there is no salvation (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 846). Nor can it be otherwise, since the doctrine that "outside the Church there is no salvation" is a dogma of the Catholic Church.

The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared, "There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful outside which no one at all is saved." The General Council of Florence (1442) declared, "No one outside the Catholic Church can become partakers of eternal life." In Singular Quadam (1854) Pius IX taught, "It must, of course, be held as a matter of faith that outside the apostolic Roman Church no one can be saved, that the Church is the only ark of salvation, and whoever does not enter it will perish in the flood." The 1949 Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston regarding the famous Fr. Feeney case stated, "The infallible dictum which teaches us that outside the Church there is no salvation, is among the truths that the Church has always taught and will always teach." Lumen Gentium no. 16 states that "the Church is necessary for salvation," as does Paul VI's Credo of the People of God, quoting the Council.

Of course the dogma must be rightly understood, "as the Church itself understands it," asserted the Holy Office's 1949 Letter to the Archbishop of Boston. The teaching doesn't preclude the possibility of salvation for people who aren't formally members or fully incorporated into the Catholic Church, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 846-848, indicates (cf. Lumen Gentium no. 16). Non-Catholics can be saved because they have a real but imperfect communion with the Catholic Church. That communion means that, for the purposes of salvation at least, such people aren't "outside the Church." The Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, referring to the teaching of Pius XII in Mystici Corporis, stated that "the Sovereign Pontiff clearly distinguishes between those who are actually (re) incorporated into the Church as members and those who belong to the Church only in desire (voto tantum modo)." Yet none of that contradicts the necessity of the Church for salvation -- something that Dominus Iesus does spell out (no. 20, quoting John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio no. 9).

By all means, Msgr. Mikulanis should clarify what the Church means by extra ecclesia nulla salus. He should vigorously assert that it doesn't mean only card-carrying Catholics can be saved. But in doing so, he mustn't claim the Church isn't saying something when in fact she IS saying it. He writes, "The Church isn't saying extra ecclesia nulla salus, 'outside the Church there is no salvation.'" Yet the Church DOES say that. To reject it, is to reject something taught de fide by the Church. Surely a vicar for ecumenical and interreligious affairs shouldn't repudiate things proposed de fide; he should clarify and explain them.

Now perhaps that's what Msgr. Mikulanis was trying to do. Perhaps he doesn't realize extra ecclesia nulla salus is de fide and that therefore the Church most certainly does teach it. Or perhaps realizing it, he thought it best to deny the expression rather than explain that it doesn't mean what people may mistake it to mean -- that non-Catholics can't be saved.

Either option, though, raises serious questions about Msgr. Mikulanis qualifications as chief ecumenical officer for his bishop. The first alternative means Msgr. Mikulanis doesn't know Ecclesiology 101, which is intolerable and inexcusable in an ecumenical officer. The second alternative means Msgr. Mikulanis feels free publicly to deny things taught infallibly by the Church teaches, even repudiating its dogmatic language, merely because the teaching can be misunderstood.

If Msgr. Mikulanis doesn't know the doctrine "Outside the Church there is no salvation" is de fide, then he has no business being Vicar for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. On the other hand, if he knows it, but thinks he should deny the Church teaches it as the best way of explaining it, then he has no business being Vicar for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

Wes Leelan
Escondido

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