"No Salvation Outside the Church” Explained (w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz)

0:00Someone 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. How many is Father Mike Schmitz? And this is the sense of presence. It starts with the truth that it's distorted. Here's the truth. The truth is, in the Catholicism, 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 that has to be a card carry in 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

1:00who 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 someone preaching the gospel. Those people are mediating. 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, right? You can read the gospel to them. You can preach it. 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 and Jesus Christ on earth.

2:01And as an ascension to heaven. So all grace we experience comes from the saving work of Jesus. So with 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 breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. Those who send you forgive are forgiven them. Those who send you hold bound are held bound. Jesus, not only that, but in the Pentecost, he establishes the church. Yeah, I mean, we know this from the very beginning that Christ's words Matthew's gospel are repent for the kingdom of heaven as a 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.

3:02As father sent me, so now I send you, that's the church. So for the catacombs to say, there's no salvation outside the Catholic Church. What's that is to say is, 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 in 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 Calvary and gave port out in Pentecost, right? So 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, almost ultimately, through the church. What does that mean when it comes to how we apply this? Well, will 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.

4:03Because 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 Christian denominations? Yeah, I've seen holiness there, I've seen goodness there, I've seen truth there, all those good things. He's in 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 all be Catholic. And that's how it was for the first 10 centuries. We have the right 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 Catholicism even addresses this. And the document's about to can too address this. They say, yeah, there's some of those performers.

5:03If they're like, no, I'm, I know almost it's being the Catholic church and I say no to that. Again, I'm saying no to God, but the Catholicism goes on to say, and the Vatican Council goes on to say that there's their descendants. They have no idea. They have no idea. They have no idea. They're not actually in rebellion against the Catholic church. They just were raised Christian and different denomination and they may have no idea that Jesus Christ established the 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 go 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, let's see, 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?

6:04Jesus 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 in our workings of someone's heart. We don't need our own hearts for crying out loud. We're so complex, that's one of the reasons why Jesus said, do not judge, let's do 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 someone dies and they're not Catholic. Pray for them. Someone dies in the hour Catholic. Pray for them. Someone dies in that Christian. Pray for them. Why? Because God desires that all human beings be saved. And we hold out hope. We hold out hope.

7:04That there's no one beyond God's reach. And also it just 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 gonna pray for everyone. If it doesn't make sense right about it. If you have more questions right about in the, put them in the comments. If you do like it, like, share, subscribe, all those things. Anyways, from all of us here to such a presents. One of his father Mike, God bless.