← The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
The Fr. Mike Schmitz Catholic Podcast
"No Salvation Outside the Church” Explained (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)
00:07:46
Will only Catholics go to Heaven? Is there any hope for those outside the Catholic Church? Fr. Mike Schmitz explores the doctrine, "Outside the Church there is no salvation," to help us understand God's plan for redemption and His intention to save all, both Catholic and non-Catholic.
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Someone wrote to me and they said, hey, I heard a Catholic say that if there's someone who is not Catholic, who dies outside the Catholic Church, then no salvation. Don't bother praying for them because they are not Catholic, therefore they wouldn't be saved. Oh wow. That is wrong on a lot of levels. That's wrong on a lot of levels. Here's where it starts. Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension presents. It starts with a truth that gets distorted. Here's the truth. The truth is in the catechism he even quotes this. There's no salvation outside the Catholic Church. Now that's the truth. What does that truth mean? So let's go deeper on this one. There's no salvation outside the Catholic Church is an actual teaching of the Catholic Church. It is important for us to understand that doesn't mean that every person has to be a card carrying Catholic in order to go to heaven. That's not what it means. What it means is that the church is God's plan for salvation for the world. Right? That the church is what Jesus Christ established as the kingdom of God on earth. Obviously there's one mediator between God and man. The man Jesus Christ. Meaning that there's only one person who could bridge divinity and humanity. That's Jesus. He's both fully God and fully man. And so he's the one mediator. He's the one mediator, Right. But we keep this in mind. He's the one who does that. Mediation. But there's other mediations. There's the mediation of someone teaching about Jesus. There's someone bringing the gospels. There's, there's someone preaching the gospel. Those all people are mediating. Some someone who prays for you, that person is mediating. So realize there's one mediator. Jesus is the only one who could bridge the gap between God and humanity. And there's other mediators because of what Jesus has done. You can be a mediator for someone else. Like, right, you can read the gospel to them, you can preach, you can help them, you can pray in the name of Jesus for them and you can in that sense mediate on their behalf. The church is what is termed the universal sacrament of salvation. Meaning the church is God's plan of salvation for the whole world. So all grace comes from God's life, death and resurrection in Jesus Christ on earth and ascension to heaven. So all grace we experience comes from the saving work of Jesus. So what Jesus made possible the Holy Spirit comes to us, makes actual how's that communicated to us. That grace is communicated to us. Well, let's pause. Jesus, on the day he rose from the dead, appeared to who? The apostles. When he appeared to the apostles, what did he say? He said, as the Father sent me, so now I send you. Oh, sounds like some more intercession, some mediation. And then he breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven them. Those whose sins you hold bound are held bound. Jesus. Not only that, but in Pentecost, he establishes the Church. Yeah, I mean, we know this from the very beginning, that Christ's words in Matthew's Gospel are repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. He came to establish a kingdom. That kingdom is the church, and the Church is the means by which God will save the world. So all grace from Jesus comes through the Church. Remember the apostles, John, chapter 20. As the Father sent me, so I send you. That's the church. So for catechism to say there's no salvation outside the Catholic Church, what that is to say is. Yeah, yeah. All God's grace that comes to the whole world comes from Jesus. Right. Jesus is the one way between God and man. Jesus is the way, the truth and life. Yes. Absolutely. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. And Jesus built the kingdom of God on earth, AKA the Church, as the sacrament of salvation, as the means by which we receive the grace that he won for us on. On Calvary and gave poured out in Pentecost. Right. So there's this recognition of no salvation outside the Catholic Church means that all God's grace comes penultimately through the Catholic Church, ultimately through God Himself. Penultimately, right. Almost ultimately through the Church. What does that mean when it comes to how we apply this? Well, his will is that all men be saved, all humans be saved. That's what God wants. Timothy says that. My guess is that that includes everyone being Catholic, because if Jesus established a church, he established a kingdom on earth, that would mean that what he wants is everyone to have that fullness of faith. Now, is God's grace in other. In Christian denominations? Yeah. I've seen holiness there. I've seen goodness there. I've seen truth there. All those good things. I've seen the Holy Spirit working. But we conclude that since Jesus himself established the Catholic Church as the kingdom on earth, that his will would be that we'd all be Catholic. And that's how it was for the first 10 centuries. We have the Great Schism in 1054 and the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. And so we have this split, but that's not God's original plan. So here's where this comes down to. If someone knew that God's will is that they be Catholic and they said no, then they're in rebellion against God. The Catechism even addresses this. And the documents of Vatican II address this. They say, yeah, there are some of those reformers. If they're like, no, I know I'm supposed to be in the Catholic Church, and I say no to that. Again, I'm saying no to God. But Catechism goes on to say, and the Vatican Council goes on to say that their descendants, they had no idea. They have no idea. They had no idea. They're not actually in rebellion against the Catholic Church. They're. They just were raised Christian in a different denomination. And they may have no idea that Jesus Christ established a church. And so in that case, someone who dies outside the Catholic Church, we hope that they be saved. As Catholics, we can hope, and also this. We can pray. So going back to the first thing, when someone wrote to me and said, I was told I can't pray for someone who dies outside the Catholic Church. Hopefully we've seen how that is erroneous. But let's even go back to Jesus own words. What does Jesus say about judging? He says, judge not lest he be judged. What is he talking about? He's talking about when it comes to judgment, not just assessment of how someone's living. Or like, is that good behavior? Is that bad behavior? He's not talking about that. He's talking about one's ultimate end. Are they saved or are they damned? Jesus says, don't do that, because we have no idea. We look at the surface, we might say, no. I can see. I even told them about the Catholic Church and they said, no. Like, you don't know. We have no idea the inner workings of someone's heart. We don't even know our own hearts, for crying out loud. We're so complex. That's one of the reasons why Jesus said, do not judge lest you be judged. Because we can't. We don't have all of the information. Now, God knows all of the things. God knows all the stuff working in our hearts. He knows all the stuff working on other people's hearts. He can judge because he is just and he is good and he knows everything. We must not judge because let's be honest, we're not always just. We're not all that good and we don't know everything. So if someone dies and they're not Catholic pray for them Someone dies when they are Catholic pray for them Someone dies when they're not Christian pray for them. Why? Because God desires that all human beings be saved and we hold out hope. We hold out hope that there's no one beyond God's reach. And also let's just be honest we have no idea what people are saying yes to or no to Even if we see that I see their actions yeah but you don't see their hearts. You don't know why they chose this thing. We don't even know why we choose these things. We just go back to what? We just go back to God's grace and say God I have no idea. I just trust you and I'm going to pray for everyone. If it doesn't make sense write about it. If you have more questions write about in the comments if you do like it like share subscribe all those things anyways from all this here at Ascension presents Father Mike God bless.