no salvation outside the church/ meaning

http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/vandrunen-on-catholic-inclusivity-and-change/  This is a good explanation of "In fact, over the centuries the Church carefully has developed a nuanced doctrine of salvation for those not materially united to her"

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/what-no-salvation-outside-the-church-means

also from a comment from Christopher Lake found in comment 42 here: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2012/10/reformation-day-2012-remembrance-and-reconciliation/#comment-39309   is the below long quote

"The official position of the Catholic Church, in her Catechism, in regard to Protestants and all other non-Catholics, is thus (and, in the interest of charity and a productive discussion, I ask you, respectfully, to please read all of it, carefully, before jumping to any certain conclusions):

“Outside the Church there is no salvation”

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

(Source: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM)

How many people refuse to enter into, or remain in, the Catholic Church, *while knowing* the Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ? God knows. I certainly don’t. For those people though, the Church teaches that unless they repent of their schism, they cannot be saved.

For those people who have questions about the claims of the Catholic Church about herself and her teachings in Scripture and Tradition, the very seriousness *of those claims* would imply that said people should devote serious time and energy, to the extent that they are able, to answering those questions. If one is truly, invincibly ignorant, concerning the claims of the Church and the evidence for them, then one is much less culpable for rejecting the Church.

In much of the world today though, the evidence for the claims of the Catholic Church is readily available. Many factors may contribute to a person not seeking out, and not seriously examining, that evidence. Again, God knows hearts, and I don’t. If one has access to the internet though, including multiple translations of Scripture, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and many faithful Catholic websites though, including this one, with its many, many thoughtful articles and arguments, it is more difficult for one to claim to be in a position of invincible ignorance about the Catholic Church– certainly more difficult, say, than for certain earlier generations of Protestants who, due to geography alone, may have had little to no contact with Catholicism and Catholics at all.

One last thought for this comment– you might find this short article to be interesting, in terms of an early Catholic view of non-Catholic Christians. It shows that that even in the earlier years, the Church’s approach was not always *only* polemical:http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2010/07/st-augustine-on-non-catholic-christians-as-brothers/"

and from the same CL from comment 43

I typed the above reply (#4o) to you very early in the morning. There were a few typos, but I hope that I conveyed that the Church has *not* changed her *official teaching* on Protestantism. Within the Church, over the centuries since the Reformation, there has been a development in understanding, in terms of degrees of *individual culpability*, from one person to another, for leaving or remaining outside of the Catholic Church, but the official teaching of the Church on Protestantism, itself, has not changed.

also from comment 559 http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2013/03/jason-stellman-tells-his-conversion-story/

 Those are points you seem disposed to agree with. Let’s examine them.

The first is this:

For Leo, it was fundamental that “those who refuse to enter the perfect society or leave it are separated forever from life eternal.” In the Decree on Ecumenism (1964), on the other hand, heretics and schismatics have become “separated brethren.”

The quotations are accurate, but the giveaway is Lacey’s little phrase ‘on the other hand’. He’s implying that Leo’s doctrine, as expressed in his quoted statement, is incompatible with that of Unitatis Redintegratio. But it is not. (Lacey may have explicitly argued elsewhere in his book that they are mutually incompatible, but as I’ve haven’t read the book, I can’t speak to that.)

Consider this statement from Lumen Gentium §14:

“Whosoever, therefore, knowing (Latin: non ignorantes); literally: ‘not ignorant’) that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.”

Now the main difference between Leo’s statement and LG’s is the latter’s addition of the phrase ‘knowing that (or, more precisely: ‘not ignorant that’, which is a canonical term of art) the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ’. But that was no mere innovation of Vatican II. Leo’s predecessor, Pius IX, had said something logically equivalent to what UR later said when he asserted:

Outside of the Church, nobody can hope for life or salvation unless he is excused through ignorance beyond his control. (Singulari Quidem §7 [1856]).

Given the bracketing magisterial context, then, Leo’s language should be understood with the implicit qualification that his predecessor had made explicit and the later Vatican council would also made explicit. Nor can it be argued that Pius IX himself was a mere innovator. As Tom Brown showed in the article Bryan references in #556:

In fact, over the centuries the Church carefully has developed a nuanced doctrine of salvation for those not materially united to her. This process has been so cautious because of the weighty concern of calling all sinners to the ordinary means of grace through formal union with the Church, on the one hand, and the similarly weighty concern of avoiding the appearance of delimiting God’s ability to extend grace and salvation through extraordinary means, on the other. It is this process which has led the Church to its reflection on salvation for those who are invincibly ignorant…

There is no logical contradiction, therefore, between Leo’s ecclesiology and Vatican II’s. The Council did, to be sure, drop the old language describing the Church as a “perfect society.” There was a very good reason for that. Although there’s a technical sense in which the phrase conveys a truth–namely, that the divine constitution or “order” of the Church is exactly as God wills it to be, in terms of her hierarchy and sacraments–the phrase itself had taken on unfortunate connotations: the idea that there’s nothing in the Church that could possibly need reforming, which is absurd. So the Council dropped such language. But it did not repudiate the associated doctrine.

The other interpretive move Lacey makes that I reject is this:

Theologically speaking, while Dulles holds that all grace is mediated through the one, triune God, he does not insist, as Leo felt he had to do, that is it mediated exclusively through the one true church. The post conciliar church reads history and culture differently from the way the Leonine church read them.

While it is true, to some extent, that “the post-conciliar church reads history and culture differently from the way the Leonine church read them,” that does not mean there are two churches with incompatible theologies. Nor did the late Cardinal Dulles–whom Lacey quotes and with whose body of work I’m familiar–think it did mean that. I fully agree with what Lacey quotes Dulles as saying, which comes from an article that he published in First Things, and that I read when it was published. But it does not follow from what Dulles wrote that grace is not “mediated exclusively through the one true church.” That’s because it does not logically follow, from the affirmation that grace is exclusively mediated through the Church, that all grace is offered to and received by people exclusively through their formal membership in the Church. All that follows is that whatever grace is offered and received without formal membership in the Church is so offered and received by virtue of “His Body, which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation” (LG §48).

I see this discussion circling back to our original theme: the clash of the hermeneutic of discontinuity (HoD) with the hermeneutic of continuity (HoC). Like the dissident Catholic traditionalists, progressives such as Lacey subscribe to HoD. The difference between them is that the trads prefer the old Church from which the new Church is taken to be a radical break, whereas the progs prefer the new Church, precisely as such a radical break. Thus the “discontinuants”–to borrow a term from Fr. Richard John Neuhaus–are all about division: they pit the new Church against the old, and then divide against each other about which of the two churches is best. Yet from the standpoint of the HoC–of which most of this comment is an example–the only significant shift of theological outlook between the pre- and post-conciliar Church is that the latter dropped the presumption, characteristic of Catholic thought for centuries, that those who know about Catholicism but choose not to become Catholic are culpable for that choice. That is a significant change, to be sure. But it is not an instance of doctrinal discontinuity. It’s an organic development of doctrine driven by a shift in pastoral outlook.

Thus, in the wake of that shift and the accompanying ecumenism, the HoC fosters unity both within and outside the Catholic Church. That’s the kind of hermeneutic the previous two popes urged on Catholic thinkers. That’s why I’m confident that, when I present the CIP and use it to defend the coherence of Catholic ecclesiology before and after Vatican II, I am only doing what the Magisterium urges people like me to do–which is unlike what people such as Lacey do.
end

ANd a good article here with  explanation: http://www.mark-shea.com/unam.html

also another article which is not as good answers here this way http://www.ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage_print.asp?number=335477&language=en

Answer by Dr. William Carroll on 11-04-2001:

This was a widespread misunderstanding of the Church's teaching, but the Church did not specifically teach this. The truth has now been clarified in "Dominus Jesus." Long before Vatican II, the Church taught that souls could be saved who had not been practicing members of it because of "invincible ignorance." I well remember the great Catholic apologist Msgr. Ronald Knox teaching this in some of his books written in the early 20th century. The oft-quoted and poorly drafted bull UNAM SANCTAM did not consider the question of people outside Europe who had never heard of Christ, or those in the state of invincible ignorance, which almost no one was in during the time of this bull in Europe. No one knows, or ever knew whether persons who had publicly rejected the Church, such as Jews or heretics, might have privately repented of their error at the last moment. - Dr. Carroll

This article and comments explain more especially concerning the council of Florence teachings: http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2011/10/vandrunen-on-catholic-inclusivity-and-change/

from comment 14
JJS you said:
and the later position is, “Some people can gain eternal life even if not joined to the Catholic Church”. The Catholic Church has NEVER taught that there can be salvation outside of the Church. That would be like saying that there can be salvation outside of Christ. She has clarified her position in that a person can be saved without necessarily being physically bound to the Church. Although they must be spiritually bound to Jesus at the very least and if they are then they are members of His body the Church. If anyone knowingly refuses to be bound to the Church after determining that they must join the Catholic Church they refuse the salvation of Christ. It has always been that way and it still is.

from comment 21

In order rightly to understand the statement in the Council of Florence, it is essential to see clearly what it is not intending to do. It is not intending to deny the possibility of salvation for those who die as Catechumens, or those who die as martyrs for Christ prior to receiving baptism. To read the Council of Florence that way would be to make the Council itself a dissenting Council. So, that entails that the statement by the Council of Florence regarding who “cannot become participants in eternal life” is necessarily implicitly qualified. Those who don’t recognize that implicit qualification, and treat it as intending to exclude absolutely from heaven any who die not in full communion with the Church are misreading the document. They are trying to interpret it in a vacuum, rather than as informed by all that came before it in the teaching and practice of the Church. (See the ad in #14 for an illustration of what it looks like to [mis]interpret something without knowing the history behind it.)

The Council of Florence is not teaching that anyone who dies not in full communion with the Church is damned. Rather, it is teaching that what has been revealed to the Church by Christ through the Apostles to be preached to all men is the necessity to enter and “live within” the Church for salvation, just as the Church teaches that what has been revealed by Christ through the Apostles is that baptism is necessary for all men for salvation. That revelation is neither identical to nor entails the claim that anyone who dies prior to receiving baptism is damned. Likewise, the necessity of entering into and remaining in full communion with the Church for salvation is neither identical to nor entails that all who die apart from full communion with the Church are damned. And this shows that the teaching by the Council of Florence is referring to persons who hear of this truth concerning Christ and baptism and His Church, and who reject it. It is not making any statement about the possibility of salvation for those who hear it and accept it, but die before receiving baptism and thus die before being received into full communion. And for that reason, it is likewise not making any statement about the possibility of salvation for those who die in invincible ignorance. But the possibility of salvation for Protestants (as separated brethren) only extends to those who remain in invincible ignorance concerning the identity of the Catholic Church as the Church Christ founded, and of the necessity of entering into and remaining in full communion with Christ’s Church for salvation. The statement in the Catechism “Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it” (CCC 846) is exactly the essence of what the Council of Florence taught. In 1567, the Church condemned the following error of Baius: “Purely negative infidelity in those among whom Christ has not been preached, is a sin.” (Denz. 1068)

from comment 36:

That is exactly right, and it would be a huge mistake to listen to the erroneous opinions of Fr. Feeney to understand what the Magisterium of the Catholic Church teaches about the doctrine “there is no salvation outside the Church” (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus or EENS for short).

In 1949, Fr. Feeney was formally censored for his mistaken opinions about the Church’s doctrine concerning EENS. See the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston: Denzinger 3869-72. This document can be read here:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFFEENY.htm

What error did Fr. Feeney teach in regards to EENS doctrine? Fr. Feeney taught that unless one received formal membership in the Catholic Church through the reception of the Sacrament of Baptism, that there was no possibility that one could be saved. All aborted infants; all infants that died through miscarriage; every toddler that died without receiving the Sacrament of Baptism – no possibility of heaven for them. Those who died that had never heard the Gospel preached to them through no fault of their own – all condemned to eternity in Hell according to Fr. Feeney. This harsh teaching by Fr. Feeney caused, as one can well imagine, a lot of controversy at the time that Fr. Feeey was promulgating these opinions through the periodical From the Housetops.

The controversy caused by Fr. Feeney was serious enough that Pope Pius XII approved the The Letter From the Holy Office that rebuked Fr. Feeney’s misunderstanding of EENS doctrine. I believe that if one wants a clear understanding of what the Magisterium of the Catholic Church actually teaches about EENS, that one should read this letter, since it is dedicated to correcting some common misconceptions that Catholics of that era had about the doctrine of extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.

I think that it is fair to say that there is a development in the EENS doctrine coming to a fruition in the Letter from the Holy Office. That development of doctrine had to do with the deeper understanding of the baptism of desire – that is, that there is both the baptism of explicit desire and the baptism ofimplicit desire.

From the earliest times, the church taught clearly about the baptism of explicit desire, that is, salvation was possible for catechumens that explicitly desired to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, but who died before reception of that Sacrament. Tom Brown’s quote by St. Augustine is one example. Other examples can be found here:

THE BAPTISM OF DESIRE, Some Examples From Church Teaching, Scripture, the Saints and the Magisterium

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/currenterrors/bpdsir.htm

In regards to the baptism of implicit desire, the Letter from the Holy Office specifically takes up that issue with these words:

… In His infinite mercy God has willed that the effects, necessary for one to be saved, of those helps to salvation which are directed toward man’s final end, not by intrinsic necessity, but only by divine institution, can also be obtained in certain circumstances when those helps are used only in desire and longing. This we see clearly stated in the Sacred Council of Trent, both in reference to the sacrament of regeneration and in reference to the sacrament of penance (Denzinger, nn. 797, 807).

The same in its own degree must be asserted of the Church, in as far as she is the general help to salvation. Therefore, that one may obtain eternal salvation, it is not always required that he be incorporated into the Church actually as a member, but it is necessary that at least he be united to her by desire and longing.

However, this desire need not always be explicit, as it is in catechumens; but when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire, so called because it is included in that good disposition of soul whereby a person wishes his will to be conformed to the will of God.

Ref. http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/CDFFEENY.htm

The Letter from the Holy Office references Pope Pius IX’s encyclical letter, Quanto conficiamur moerore, which Tom Brown quotes in the body of his article. Pope Pius IX is the pope of Vatican I – he can hardly be accused of having “modernist” leanings!

From Tom Brown’s article: What VanDrunen dismisses is the possibility that the invincibly ignorant can in some circumstances, and only by God’s grace, beextraordinarily incorporated into the Catholic Church.

When VanDrunen dismisses this possibility, he is making the same mistake as Father Feeney. The Catholic Church teaches what the scriptures teach, namely that God desires that all men be saved. The ordinary means of salvation for men are the means that Christ established and made known to men. Christ has revealed to men that through the church that He founded that men can receive saving grace by partaking worthily of the Sacraments of His church.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation. He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them. Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.” God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.

It is because God is not bound by his own sacraments that the Catholic Church teaches that saving grace can be offered to the invincibly ignorant in an extraordinary manner. How, exactly, God does that is of no real concern to faithful Catholics – we only need to fulfill the mission on earth that God has given to us – the mission to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth and to make available the ordinary means of salvation to all men.

Bryan Cross writes: The statement in the Catechism “Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it” (CCC 846) is exactly the essence of what the Council of Florence taught.

I agree with Bryan, and note that CCC 846 is a direct quote from the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium (See LG 14). The last sentence of Lumen Gentium 14 is:

… Catechumens who, moved by the Holy Spirit, seek with explicit intention to be incorporated into the Church are by that very intention joined with her. With love and solicitude Mother Church already embraces them as her own.

Ref.http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

Not only does the body of Lumen Gentium 14 affirm the pericope from the Council of Florence quoted by VanDrunen, Lumen Gentium 14 also affirms the Catholic Church’s understanding concerning the doctrine of the baptism of explicit desire in the case of catechumens.

The doctrine of the baptism of implicit desire was not addressed at the Council of Florence, but it was addressed at Vatican II. The doctrine of the baptism of implicit desire is affirmed in Lumen Gentium a couple of paragraphs after LG 14 in LG 16:

… Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.(19*) Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life.

… to promote the glory of God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of the Lord, “Preach the Gospel to every creature”, the Church fosters the missions with care and attention.

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES (*)

19) Cfr. Epist. S.S.C.S. Officii ad Archiep. Boston: Denz. 3869-72.

Ref:http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html

I think it is important to note that the Fathers of Vatican II included as a supplementary note to LG 16, footnote (19*), which is a reference to “Cfr. Epist. S.S.C.S. Officii ad Archiep. Boston .: Denz. 3869-72” or the “Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston: Denzinger 3869-72.” This the Letter from the Holy Office that I quoted above that corrected Fr. Leonard Feeney and his mistaken opinions concerning EENS doctrine.

The Fathers of Vatican II were well aware of the controversy between Fr. Feeney and Pope Pius XII surrounding the correct understanding of EENS.

Can the doctrine of the baptism of implicit desire be considered to be a development of doctrine of thebaptism of desire? I think so. It is a legitimate development of doctrine because in does not contradict what the Catholic Church has always taught about the baptism of explicit desire.

… dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church.

“Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston: Denzinger 3869-72.