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Didn't Vatican II Change All That?

This Rock Volume 16, Number 10   December 2005     Frontispiece By Karl Keating   Letters   The Unfinished Business of Vatican II By Marcellino D'Ambrosio   Wrong Turn By Ronald J. Rychlak and Kyle Duncan   No Salvation Outside the Church By Fr. Ray Ryland   Didn't Vatican II Change All That?   Do Not Stop Us from Dying with You By Anthony E. Clark   Prayer to the Chinese Martyrs   Mary, Evolution, and Michelangelo's Chisel By Mark P. Shea   Step by Step Was Mary a Perpetual Virgin? By Kenneth J. Howell   Fathers Know Best The Trinity   Brass Tacks The Accuracy of Scripture By Jimmy Akin   Damascus Road Lightning Never Struck By Joan Summers   Reviews   Quick Questions    Subscribe    Permissions

It is sometimes said that "no salvation outside the Church" is a relic of the past, a teaching that has no place in our modern ecumenical age. Some even argue that the Second Vatican Council made the teaching obsolete. On the contrary, this dogma was emphasized repeatedly in the documents of Vatican II. Here’s a sampling:

• "[Christ] asserted the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church, which men enter through baptism as through a door" (Lumen Gentium 14).
• The Church is "a sign and instrument . . . of communion with God and unity among all men" (LG 1).
• The Church is "a visible organization through which [Christ] communicates truth and grace to all men" (LG 8).
• The Church is Jesus Christ’s "instrument for the salvation of all" (LG 9).
• "Rising from the dead, [Christ] . . . set up his body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation" (LG 48).
• "The Catholic Church was founded by Christ our Lord to bring salvation to all men" (Inter Mirifica 3).