Topic: Roman Catholic View of the Breadth of the Offer of Salvation

Date originally posted: December 14, 2001

Source of this posting: Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium and Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, Second Vatican Council

Moderator who originally posted this source: P.Leach

Dates emended: January 15, 2002

Moderators who did the emending: P.Leach

Question:  Do Catholics believe that ONLY Catholics go to heaven?

Answer: 

Who goes to heaven and who doesn’t is really known only to God and to God alone.  As Catholics, we believe that the fullness of what God intends and wants for the Church subsists in the Roman Catholic Church.  Yet, the Church has taught that the mystery of salvation is broader than any simplistic formula could try to make.   

The following quotation is from an infallible teaching of the Catholic Church.  Read it over carefully and prayerfully, and see if you can discern a faithful, true answer to the question posed above that is in keeping with the mind of the Church.  

From The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, nn. 2. 16, Second Vatican Council: 

In his wisdom and goodness the eternal Father created the whole world according to his supremely free and mysterious purpose and decreed that men [and women] should be raised up to share in the divine life.  When they fell in Adam, he did not abandon them but always kept providing them with aids to salvation, in consideration of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  Before the ages the Father already knew all the elect and predestined them to be made into the likeness of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brothers.

God resolved to gather into holy Church all who believe in Christ.  The Church, foreshadowed even from the beginning of the world, so marvelously prepared in the history of the people of Israel, established in these last times and revealed by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, will be made perfect in glory at the end of time.  Then, as we read in the Fathers of the Church, all the righteous from Adam onward – from Abel, the righteous, to the last of the elect – will be gathered in the universal Church in the presence of the Father.

Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are in their different ways related to the God’s people.

In the first place, there is that people which was given the covenants and the promises and from which Christ was born by human descent: the people which is by God’s choice most dear on account of the patriarchs.  God never repents of his gifts or his call.

God’s plan of salvation embraces those also who acknowledge the Creator.  Among these are especially the Mohammedans; they profess their faith as the faith of Abraham, and with us they worship the one, merciful God who will judge men [and women] on the last day.

God himself is not far from those others who seek the unknown God in darkness and shadows, for it is he who gives to all men [and women] life and inspiration and all things, and who as Savior desires all men [and women] to be saved.

Eternal salvation is open to those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church but seek God with a sincere heart, and under the inspiration of grace try in their lives to do his will, made known to them by the dictates of their conscience.  Nor does Divine Providence deny the aids necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet reached an explicit belief in God, but strive to lead a good life, under the influence of God’s grace.

Whatever goodness and truth is found among them is seen by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel, and as given by him who shines on all men [and women], so that they may at last have life. 

The following quotation is from another document from the Second Vatican Council although it does not carry the infallible teaching authority which the one quoted above, namely Lumen gentium, does.  Nevertheless, the following quotation gives us further insight, from a profoundly important source of the Catholic Church’s teaching authority, about a faithful and true answer to the question that has been raised. 

From Gaudium et spes, “The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World,” n. 22 

Certainly, the Christian is faced with the necessity, and the duty, of fighting against evil through many trials, and of undergoing death.  But by entering into the paschal mystery and being made like Christ in death, he will look forward, strong in hope, to the resurrection.  

This is true not only of Christians but also of all men of good will in whose heart grace is invisibly at work.  Since Christ died for all men, and the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, that is, a divine vocation, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being united with this paschal mystery in a way known only to God.