heart, and where there is something more: the union of minds, the
accord of souls, the bond of charity, the prayers of the priests.”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. I, Ch. X: The true Church is also to be recognized from her origin,
which can be traced back under the law of grace to the Apostles; for her
doctrine is the truth not recently given, nor now first heard of, but delivered
of old by the Apostles, and disseminated throughout the entire world.
Hence no one can doubt that the impious opinions which heresy invents,
opposed as they are to the doctrines taught by the Church from the days of
the Apostles to the present time, are very different from the faith of the true
Church.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
“Outside the Church there is no salvation”
No. 846:
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated
by the Church Fathers? Reformulated positively, it means that all salvation
comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the
Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one
Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in
his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the
necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time
the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as
through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that
the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through
Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.
No. 847:
This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no
fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of
Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere
heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they
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