Father Gregor HesseEditor’s note: In this final segment of the edited transcript of Father Hesse’s lecture at the Fatima 2000 Conference in Rome, he addresses the question of salvation outside the Catholic Church. This topic is particularly relevant today, given the ongoing controversy surrounding repeated Vatican statements suggesting that salvation can be found outside the Church through various paths. Father Hesse’s insights demonstrate that this issue did not originate with Pope Francis but can be traced back to the Second Vatican Council itself.
Our next point is Lumen Gentium, number 8, where it says: Ecclesia Christi … subsistit in Ecclesia catholica, “the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church.” The word “subsists” means it is something below it. That means a Protestant Church, or a Southern Baptist or anybody, could be the Catholic Church too; could be the Church of Christ, too.
Cardinal Ratzinger was asked why Vatican II had said “subsistere” in Latin and he said, “Oh, you know ‘subsistere’ is a verb much stronger than ‘esse’.” He is saying, therefore, that the Church “subsisting” in the Catholic Church is something much stronger than if he had said that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. This however, is simply not true, and Cardinal Ratzinger was quoting Saint Thomas out of context. Saint Thomas said, “Substentia est nobilissima forma essendi,” “Subsistence is the most noble form of being.” Yes in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Whose divine nature is subsistent to everything that exists. But that is true for Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and nobody else, and certainly not the Church.
The Catholic Church has taught for nineteen hundred years that the Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, as I read to you before, and will read to you again, Pope Boniface VIII in his Bull, Unam Sanctam decreed ex cathedra: “We declare, say, define and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”
I do not think that Southern Baptists or Lutherans, as a matter of fact, are subject to the Roman Pontiff. I think they would state the contrary.
Perfection of the Church
Continuing with the same Lumen Gentium number 8, we next consider the statement: “Nevertheless many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside Its invisible confines. Since these are gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity.” That is twice against the Magisterium of the Church.
First of all, there is absolutely no element whatsoever of sanctification outside of the Catholic Church. The innocent child that is baptized by a Lutheran Pastor is not baptized by the efforts of the Protestant churches, but it is illicitly baptized with the Catholic sacrament of baptism.
Second, “these are gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, they are forces impelling towards Catholic unity,” is saying ipso facto by the same sentence that therefore there is no complete unity within the Church. I am holding here, right in my hand, the encyclical, Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928, of Pope Pius XI,
Sacraments, the Exclusive Property of the Church
Let us next examine Lumen Gentium, number 15. “The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized, who are honored by the name of Christian, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the Successor of Peter. These Christians are indeed in some real way joined to us through the Holy Spirit, for by His gifts and graces, His sanctifying power is also active within them.”
That is contrary to the Council of Trent which defines that there cannot be sanctifying grace outside the Catholic Church, not objectively. We are not talking about the poor man who does not know better, which is the usual objection to this statement (people who make such objections should look up the terms “subjective” and “objective” in the dictionary before they speak).
No Christian not in union with the Roman Pontiff and the Catholic Church is in the state of sanctifying grace; it is heresy and blasphemy to say the contrary. No Christian is ever in union with the Church, if he does not agree with the primacy of the Papacy, and if he does not agree with the dogma of his infallibility (Denzinger Schonmetzer, 3050 ff.) But Lumen Gentium says that “these Christians are indeed in some real way …”
See, this is the thing with Vatican II: they say “in some real way.” That is not true. The Protestants, in some potential way, are joined with the Church. They might become members of the Church through conversion. Not dialogue. Through conversion.
The document continues: “joined to us through the Holy Spirit for by His gifts and graces, His sanctifying power is also active in them.”
In truth, the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit that is active in an innocent little Protestant child is active because that innocent little Protestant child as I have said before, has received in an illicit way the sacrament that is property of the Catholic Church.
The innocent little Russian in Moscow who is baptized in the Russian Orthodox baptism has received a sacrament that the Russian Orthodox, in 1054, stole from us. It is not theirs. It is always the sacrament of Christ belonging to His only Church. And God saves that little child, if for some reason it dies, because it has received the valid sacrament of the Catholic Church. God does not condemn that child, because that child is innocent of the fact that he does not belong visibly to us.
Moslems Not Included in Plan of Salvation
Out of these errors, Vatican II then concludes in Lumen Gentium, 16: “Finally those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways … ” Mind you, “the People of God” is a term throughout Vatican II synonymous with the term “Catholic Church.” And they say: “But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the creator in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems.”
Christ has died for all on the cross in potentia; that means as far as possibilities are concerned. Potentially! He has not died for all as far as realities are concerned, because those who refuse Him and go to hell reject the cross.
And here they add, “the Moslems, [who] profess to hold the faith of Abraham and together with us they adore one merciful God …” The Latin original says, Nobiscum Deum adorant unicum. Not as some other wiseguy has translated, “along with us.” “Nobiscum” does not mean “along with us.” “Nobiscum” means “together with us.” And here Vatican II says that the Moslems pray to one merciful God together with us.
Now I will tell you something about that, and I beg the pardon of everybody present. But I am quoting the Koran, that same Koran of the Moslems who, according to this Council, are praying to the same God with us, the same ‘one merciful God.’ That same Koran says, “The very idea of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is an idea of dung.” This Koran is the “Holy Bible” of the Moslems.
Now you might object and say, “Well, some poor little Korare[1] in the Sahara Desert, who has never heard of Christ, probably prays to the same God with us.” Maybe, but that is not what we are talking about. Subjectively, maybe the child does. But here the Council says, “the Moslems.” As a matter of fact, a capital letter is used in the Latin original, “Musulmani”: “the Moslems”. These, “together with us pray to one merciful God.” That is heresy by leaving out the dogma of the Trinity, and by forgetting about the dogma of Incarnation; and it is blasphemy by putting our Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit of the Most Blessed Trinity, on the same level with that sick invention of “Allah.”
Saint Paul who, I believe, was orthodox all through his life, always spoke the truth. Right? Saint Paul says that the pagans adore demons. That means Allah, God of the Moslems, in Saint Paul’s opinion (I call it “teaching of the Church”) is a demon. Again, we are not talking about the [Korare] in the Sahara Desert. He doesn’t know it. Maybe I should say, “God bless him.” The poor guy has not even heard the truth. Here, however, we are talking objectively about the Moslems.
Animists in the Plan of Salvation?
And the same paragraph says: “Nor is God remote from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God.”
It is getting better all the time. Now we have the Animists somewhere down in Africa – Lake Togo, praying to the same God. Our beloved Holy Father was quite excited about the fact that in 1986, at Lake Togo, in Cameroon, he was able to pray with Animists and perform their rites with them. That is his personal problem, but I will not believe that the Church is able to teach that these people, against what Saint Paul says, are praying to the same God with us.
And the paragraph says that even the Jews “pray to the same God with us.” Actually, Saint Paul explains that because the Jews have rejected Christ, now they cannot even see the truth of the Old Testament. He says literally, “The Jews now see even the truth of the Old Testament through a curtain.” If that is not clear, I do not know what is.
Such is Lumen Gentium, and I am just giving you the most important points because we don’t have enough time to go through everything that is problematic in Vatican II.
Conversion Necessary for Those Who Have Left the Church
Now, in the Decree on Ecumenism, they speak, with every single paragraph, about the “separated churches.” Mortalium Animas does not call them the “separated churches,” but those who have “gotten lost …” those who have left the Church. The Lutherans are not a separated church, the Lutherans are just simply not Catholics, and Pope Pius XI, in his magnificent encyclical Mortalium Animas (against inter-faith activities) says quite clearly that the only way to have non-Catholics join the Catholic Church is by conversion, by full and unreserved acceptance of the entire Church doctrine in its entirety.
I will now move to a few points which contradict Mortalium Animas.
Now the Decree on Ecumenism is something that I recommend to you as negative reading. The document is called Unitatis Redentegratio of November 21, 1964. In this document, number 3, the point to which our present Holy Father refers when, in Catechesi Tradendae, 32, he says, that “Our Lord does not shrink from giving salvation to the efforts of Protestant churches” – in this translation, it says ‘the brethren’ – “divided from us, also carry out many liturgical actions of the Christian religion”. This no doubt refers to the heretical and blasphemous services of the Protestant churches. That is what they are talking about here. They are talking about these ridiculous things that take place in a Southern Baptist Church down in Georgia.
Now listen to this! The document says, “These liturgical actions most certainly can truly engender a life of grace.” This is explicit heresy against the Council of Trent, which says the life of grace cannot be obtained other than through the Catholic sacraments. Now they are talking just objectively again. They are talking objectively about the separate communities. I wonder about the grace of the Blessed Eucharist being given to a Southern Baptist down in Georgia.
“And one must say,” the Council says, “can actually give access to the Communion of Salvation.” Now the “Communion of Salvation” is defined doctrine, and is only the Catholic Church, as I have read to you before; hence, the title of this seminar, “Outside the Church there is no Salvation.”
But here, Vatican II says that these separate Churches with their ridiculous ceremonies, with their aping of the Mass, can give salvation. And then they encourage and recommend dialogue. And of course, “asking competent experts,” as it says, to enhance dialogue between us and them. And they venture to say that the results will be that ”little by little, the obstacles to perfect ecclesiastical communion are overcome and all graces will be gathered in the common celebration of the Eucharist”. That means that the Council seems to believe that if we start dialoguing, all Protestants will convert. Actually no, they do not think that, because they say [the Protestants] have the means of salvation already.
And then they give instructions on how to do the dialogue. They say, “or even the way the Church teaching has been formulated to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself.”
That means that now Vatican II is doing something the Popes have always condemned: It is putting up a hierarchy of truth. Vatican II is postulating that Church teaching can be subject to dialogue, and it says so elsewhere expressedly. I am quoting, by the way, Unitatis Redintegratio, number 6, which states that “This has to be carefully distinguished from the deposit of faith itself.” This has been condemned in the Syllabus.
On Religious Liberty
The next document I want to introduce is Dignitatis Humanae. Pope Saint Pius X said, “The only dignity in human beings is in their being Christians.” That means he who is in the state of grace; he who, therefore, is in the state of sanctifying grace, that very miraculous form of grace that is created every time one receives the sacrament; he has the dignity of man, in the sense that he has, through the mercy of the Lord, had the sacraments and been returned to the state that Adam and Eve were in before the fall.
The new trend among highly placed church leaders is to quote often from the book of Genesis which says that our Lord created man “to His image and likeness.” Yes, He did, Adam and Eve. Never again. The image of God is in every single human being from birth. The likeness of God – and this is very clearly said in the Council of Trent’s decree on justification – the likeness of God cannot be achieved unless one is in the state of sanctifying grace. So it really cannot be said that every human being is created according to the image and likeness of God.
Now, in this Decree on Religious Liberty, is postulated exactly what has been previously condemned by Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, Saint Pius XI, and Pius XII: “Also included in the right to religious freedom is the right of religious groups not to be prevented from freely demonstrating the special value of their teachings for the organization of society and the inspiration of all human activity.”
This is explicitly against the Syllabus. This is explicitly against Pope Pius XI’s proclamation on Christ the King [Quas Primas], where he said that every single human being is subject to Christ the King; which contradicts, of course, the quite audacious theory stating that in religious freedom it is the right of religious groups not to be prevented from freely demonstrating the special value of their teachings for the organization of society and the inspiration of all human activity. This is explicitly against the Syllabus.
I wonder how this paragraph will be accepted once we get some Brazilian or whatever cannibals who, returning to the faith of their Fathers, start to slaughter people in Chicago and New York. It will not make much of a difference in the crime rate, but I wonder how society would react to this free exercise of their own religion. And it would be lovely, just lovely, to see what would happen if we adapted this postulate of Vatican II to the few Aztecs left in Mexico.
Man Exalted Over the Incarnation
And now we come to the last, and in my opinion, the lowest document of Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, about the Church and the Modem World. I have to give you two points of this decree before I read some sentences of the Syllabus to you. Number 22 reads: “In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear.” So, the purpose of the Incarnation was not to reveal God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but to explain the mystery of man? Christ the Lord, Christ the new Adam is the very relation of the mystery of the Father, of His love fully revealing man to himself? Now, I grew up with the concept that the gospel is all about God. I grew up with the concept that the New Testament is all about revealing God fully and finally to us. Here, however, I read it “reveals man to himself.”
But this statement, of course, will not surprise you once you read Gaudium et Spes, number 12, where it says: “Believers and unbelievers agree almost unanimously that all things on earth should be ordained to man as to their center and summit.” So man is the summit of everything? I would be very surprised if there is a single person in this hall now who needs a comment on that statement. Therefore, it is the same Vatican Council, in Gaudium et Spes, number 88, which very naturally concludes that “Christians should willingly and wholeheartedly support the establishment of an international order”. The “Novus Ordo Seculorum,” that appears on the one-dollar note, perhaps!
Prophetic Document Condemns Modern Errors
So, in what I have previously read, Pope Pius IX has been revealed as quite something of a prophet because he condemned in his Syllabus the following statements: “Every human being is free to accept the religion and confess the religion which he thinks is the true one;” and “Man can find salvation in the exercise of each and every religion.”
The same Syllabus has condemned the statement which you find explicitly in Gaudium et Spes: “The Church has to be separate from the state and the state from the Church.”
After Vatican II, the Vatican asked the Government of Colombia to cancel the first paragraph of their constitution, which declared the state religion of Colombia to be the Catholic one. The same was requested for the Canton of Wallace in Switzerland and constitutions of a few other countries.
Pius IX’s Syllabus also condemned the statement: “In our time it is not good anymore to see the Catholic religion as the only religion of the state under exclusion of all other cults.” This statement has been condemned. However, as I read to you, Vatican II’s Document on Religious Liberty teaches the contrary.
For those who wish to consult the documents of Vatican II, I recommend that you use the only trustworthy translation, by Austin Flannery, O.P.: Vatican II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents. (There is another translation with a red label: it is worth nothing.) Read it. Think of what Pope Pius VI said in Auctorem Fide: The purpose of a Council is to clear up things, not to create ambiguities. This, Pope Pius VI did not only say to us, but to his Successors, who are bound to it.
[1] Editors note: We are not sure what exactly Korare means here. I speculate this is an idiosyncratic expression of Father Hesse to refer to people from the Kaouar region.
Fr. Ladis J. Cizik
Anne McGinn Cillis
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano