Expert: Griff Ruby - 8/15/2011

Question
Does the Roman Catholic Church teach, either now or in the past, that salvation outside the chuch is not possible? If so could you supply reference(s).

Answer
It is an established Dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church.  Some mistakenly draw the simplistic conclusion that such a Dogma means that only card carrying water baptized Roman Catholics in good standing with the Church at the time of their death can get to Heaven.  That is a seriously flawed error.  The actual meaning of the Dogma is more interesting and valuable.  There are two aspects of the Dogma, as understood and taught by the Church.
One relates to the doctrine of the Communion of the Saints, which is the fact that there are actually three portions to the Church, one being the "Church Militant" which consists of all living Catholics, another being the "Church Suffering" which consists of all souls in Purgatory, and the third being the "Church Triumphant" which consists of all souls in Heaven.  Salvation or damnation can only be fixed ultimately for those who are no longer in this world.  No one in this life can actually be categorized as being "saved," but only "justified."  To be justified means that one's soul is in a state of Grace, such that if they died at that given instant, they would indeed be saved.  But being justified contains no guarantee that one might not subsequently fall into sin and be found therein upon their day of visitation.  In the Church Militant, all souls are either justified or in a state of mortal sin at any given instant, none can presently be considered as being already damned or saved.  In the other two parts of the Church, to be in either one is to be saved, since even the soul suffering in Purgatory has his ultimate salvation and entry into Heaven utterly guaranteed.  He is therefore saved.  And of course all in Heaven are saved.  In effect, it is practically a tautology that all who are saved are in the Church, either suffering in Purgatory or rejoicing in Heaven, and no one else can be described as being as yet saved, even those who are presently justified.  And of course those who enter physical death without entering either Purgatory or Heaven are not saved but indeed damned.  In this life, being justified requires either actual membership in the Church Militant (and no unconfessed/unrepented mortal sins), or the serious choice or commitment to achieve same, gauged to the degree of a person's possession of knowlege or inculpable ignorance.  "To whom much is given much is expected," and conversely to whom little is given correspondingly little is expected, but in all cases something is expected in at least some sense.
There is a second and more dynamic meaning of the Dogma to the effect that in this world, all salvation arrives here by means of the Church, whether directly through Her ministrations to Her flock and those directly in the process of entering, or indirectly through Her influence and spiritual presence and what more limited response God-loving souls can make to it.