Abstract
John Paul II’s repeated calls for a new evangelization are well known. Benedict XVI institutionalized this emphasis on evangelization with his establishment of the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization and his choice of topic for the World Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization which was held in 2012. Pope Francis is asking “What are we waiting for?”
In this chapter, I would like to identify one aspect of the ecclesiology of Vatican II that is central to a well-founded understanding of, not only interfaith dialogue, but also the importance of evangelization. It is an aspect that is often overlooked. Vatican II clearly teaches that there are truly positive elements in the non-Christian religions and that it is possible to be saved without explicit faith in Jesus and incorporation into the church, but at the same time it teaches—although this teaching is much less known—that such salvation is not to be presumed and, indeed, faces considerable obstacles.
But very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, have exchanged the truth of God for a lie and served the world rather than the Creator (cf. Rom. 1:21 and 25). Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair. Hence to procure the glory of God and the salvation of all these, the Church, mindful of the Lord’s command, ‘preach the Gospel to every creature’ (Mk. 16:16) takes zealous care to foster the missions. (LG 16)
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Notes
- 1.
John R. Sachs, “Current Eschatology: Universal Salvation and the Problem of Hell,” Theological Studies 52 (1991): 252–253.
- 2.
Cf. Ben F. Myer, “Many (= All) are Called, but Few (= Not All) Are Chosen,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990): 89–97.
- 3.
“Some Current Questions in Eschatology,” in International Theological Commission, vol. II, Texts and Documents 1986–2007, ed. Michael Sharkey and Thomas Weinandy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 72.
- 4.
John P. Meier, Matthew: A Biblical-Theological Commentary. New Testament Message, 3, ed. Wilfrid Harrington, Donald Senior (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1980), 72–75.
- 5.
Daniel J. Harrington, The Gospel of Matthew. Sacra Pagina Series, 1, ed. Daniel J. Harrington (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1991), 108–111.
- 6.
See also the doctoral dissertation of Caroline Farey, A Metaphysical Investigation of the Anthropological Implications of the Phrase: “Ipse enim, Filius Dei, incarnatione sua cum omni homine quodammodo se univit” (For, by his incarnation, he, the Son of God has in a certain way united himself with each man—Gaudium et spes, 22). PhD diss., Pontificia Universitas Lateranensis, 2008.
- 7.
The following footnote is inserted here as part of the Council text: Cfr. Epist. S.S.C.S. Officii ad Archiep. Boston.: Denz. 3869-72. The reference to the Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston, which offers doctrinal clarifications on the issues raised by Fr. Leonard Feeney in his strict interpretation of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Sallus, provides important insight to the proper understanding of the text as we will see.
- 8.
The following footnote is inserted here by the Council Fathers as backing for this text: “See Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica, I, 1: PG 21, 28 AB.” Joseph Ratzinger, “La mission d’après les autres textes conciliaires,” in Vatican II. L’activité missionnaire de l’Église (Paris: Cerf, 1967), 129, note 11, indicates that this reference to Eusebius does not really support the point being made, but, of course, the point can be supported in other ways. “The reason for this allusion is not very clear, since in this work Eusebius, in treating of the non-Christian religions has another emphasis than our text: Eusebius underlines the aberrations of the pagan myths and the insufficiency of Greek philosophy; he shows that Christians are right in neglecting these in order to turn to the sacred writings of the Hebrews which constitute the true ‘preparation for the gospel.’” (La raison de cette allusion n’est pas très claire, car dans cet ouvrage l’orientation d’Eusèbe, par rapport aux religions non chrétiennes, est tout autre que dans notre texte: Eusèbe signale les égarements des mythes païens et l’insuffisance de la philosophie grecque; il montre que les chrétiens voint juste en les négligeant pour se tourner vers les livres saints des Hébreux qui constituent la véritable ‘préparation évangélique’.) The Sources Chrétiennes translation of this text, La Préparation Évangélique: Livre I, trans. Jean Sirinelli et Édouard des Places (Paris: Cerf, 1974), 97–105, shows that Eusebius, in the chapter cited, only mentions the non-Christian religions and philosophies as being in dire need of conversion. He speaks of them as representing a piety that is “lying and aberrant,” (mensongère et aberrante) and cites the Scripture that speaks of “exterminating all the gods of the nations” and making them “prostrate before Him.”
- 9.
The entire text of the letter in its original Latin along with an English translation was first published in The American Ecclesiastical Review in October 1952. Vol. CXXVII, 307-315. It is also available in Neuner/Dupuis, 854-857, and DS 3866-3872.
- 10.
There are many fine treatments of the history of the interpretation of this axiom, most of which are largely in agreement on how the church’s current understanding of this axiom historically developed. Maurice Eminyan, The Theology of Salvation (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1960); Francis Sullivan, Salvation Outside the Church: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2002); Karl Rahner, “Membership of the Church According to the Teaching of Pius XII’s Encyclical ‘Mystici Corporis Christi’,” in Theological Investigations, vol. 2 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1963): 1–88; Avery Dulles, “The Church as Locus of Salvation,” in ed. John M. McDermott, The Theology of John Paul II: A Collection of Essays and Studies (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana, 1993), 169–187; Jean Guy Pagé, Qui est L’Église ? vol. III, L’Église, Peuple de Dieu (Montréal: Les Editions Bellarmin, 1979); Gerard Philips, L’Église et son mystère au IIe Concile du Vatican : Histoire, texte et commentaire de la Constitution Lumen Gentium, vol. I (Paris : Desclée, 1967); G. Thils, “Ceux qui n’ont pas reçu l’Evangile,” in L’Eglise de Vatican II, ed. Guilherme Barauna (Paris : Cerf, 1966), 669–680; Kevin McNamara, “The People of God,” in ed. Kevin McNamara, Vatican II: The Constitution on the Church: A Theological and Pastoral Commentary (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1968), 142–146; Aloys Grillmeier, “The People of God,” trans. Kevin Smyth, in Vorgrimler, Commentary, vol. I, 169–175; Bernard Sesboué, Hors de l’Église pas de salut: Histoire d’une formule et problèmes d’interprétation (Paris : Desclée, 2004); and the International Theological Commission’s document “Christianity and the World Religions,” in International Theological Commission, vol. II, Texts and Documents 1986–2007, ed. Michael Sharkey and Thomas Weinandy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 168–170. An excellent doctoral dissertation also exists which very thoroughly explores the history of the development of this doctrine: Richard A. Marzheuser, “The Votum Ecclesiae and the Necessity of the Church: An Examination of Lumen gentium of the Second Vatican Council (STD dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1988).
- 11.
See Charles Morerod, The Church, 108–109, for a contemporary description of “implicit desire,” based on the teaching of Aquinas: “Implicit desire is possible—in the line of St. Thomas—because the articles of faith are included in some most basic truths (God’s existence and his providence [ST IIa IIae, q.1, a.7] ), and thus someone may desire implicitly baptism by being firmly attached to the more elementary truths that he already knows [ST IIa IIae, q.2, a.5].”
- 12.
Morerod, The Church, 138, drawing on the teaching of St. Thomas and Cardinal Journet points out that genuine supernatural charity actually brings a certain visibility with it, evidencing some of the fruits of life in Christ and the church, even when these are not explicitly known. “Whoever accepts the divine invitation starts belonging to the Church, and that membership is not totally invisible because the behavior of the person changes: the body of the Church starts being present. This Thomistic ecclesiology makes it possible to understand what is meant by “No salvation outside the Church”: “to be in the Church” and “to be saved” mean the same thing, because to be in the Church means to be under the salvific influence of the Head of the Church, that is, Jesus Christ.”
- 13.
There are many fine studies that analyze in detail the teaching of St. Thomas on church membership and salvation. The collection of essays edited by Anthony D. Lee, Vatican II: The Theological Dimension (Washington D.C.: The Thomist Press, 1963) has several chapters devoted to this topic. The essay by Colman O’Neil, “St Thomas on Membership in the Church,” 88–140, is directly on the topic and the articles by Egan and Sauras are also of interest. A more recent treatment of St. Thomas and this issue is that of Charles Morerod, “John Paul II’s Ecclesiology and St. Thomas Aquinas” in ed. Michael Dauphinais & Matthew Levering, John Paul II & St. Thomas Aquinas (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006), 45–73.
- 14.
Josephine Lombardi, The Universal Salvific Will of God in Official Documents of the Roman Catholic Church (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellon Press, 2007), 79–80, in the book based on her doctoral dissertation, briefly mentions the full text of LG 16 once, but leaves out the critical phrase “very often” and substitutes for it her minimizing paraphrase “some.” She refers repeatedly to the teaching of LG 16b (more than a dozen times) to reinforce her argument for a development of the Council teaching in the direction that she points out Jacques Dupuis and Paul Knitter have taken, but never averts to or comments on the significant “third part,” the LG 16c teaching.
- 15.
See Karl Rahner, “Anonymous Christians,” in Theological Investigations vol. 6 of 23, trans. Karl-H and Boniface Kruger (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1969), 397–398.
- 16.
The Walter Abbott translation that appeared in 1966 translates the Latin phrase as “but rather often.” The commonly used Flannery translation of the Council documents translates the Latin at saepius as “very often.” Other English translations use “but often.” See e.g. the translation of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, the precursor of the National Council of Catholic Bishops; contained in: The Sixteen Documents of Vatican II Introductions by Douglas G. Bushman (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 1999). The Vatican website translation which is available in Appendix I also uses “but often.” The English translation (by Clarence Gallagher) of Lumen Gentium in Norman Tanner’s two volume collection of the Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990) uses “more often, however.” The French translation of the text that Congar collaborated on translates at saepius as “mais trop souvent.” L’Église de Vatican II, Tome I, Texte Latin et Traduction, P.-Th. Camelot (Paris: Cerf, 1966). The Vatican website French translation uses “bien souvent.” The Italian translation on the Vatican website is “ma molto spesso.” The Spanish translation on the Vatican website is “pero con mucha frecuencia.”
- 17.
See 1 Tim 4:1-2; 2 Pet 2:1-22; 2 Pet 3:1-4; 2 Thes 2:3-10.
- 18.
Norman Tanner, The Church and the World: Gaudium et Spes, Inter Mirifica (New York: Paulist Press, 2005), 64–65.
- 19.
See Morerod, The Church, 84: “God’s gift can be received only with God’s help. It is possible to refuse it, and such a choice is the main point of our present life. Anyone who would refuse to be with God would in fact diminish his own humanity by restricting to finite goods the desire of a heart made for the infinite. If such an attitude is persistent, it can lead to hell.” Morerod, The Church, 122–124, also makes the important point that when it is a question of responding to Revelation from God, to accept part but not all of what is being revealed, is to engage in a radical form of disobedience and the construction of one’s own religion. He cites Aquinas (ST IIa IIae, q.5, a.3) as foundation for this view and concludes: “Aquinas says that if we refuse one article of faith on the basis of our own judgment, it means that our own judgment and not divine revelation is also the reason why we accept other articles of faith. It is a way of making up our own religion, a religion human and not revealed. Of course, Thomas adds that divine revelation is received through the teaching of the Church.”
- 20.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 283. Emphasis is mine.
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Martin, R. (2023). Salvation Optimism and Its Limits: A Reading of Lumen Gentium 16. In: De Mey, P., Gruber, J. (eds) Hard Sayings Left Behind by Vatican II. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-45540-7_6
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