-Part I-
“The Most Holy Virgin has made me understand that we are in the last times of the world.”
—Sister Lucia of Fatima
by Marianna Bartold
“In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.” Those who are knowledgeable about the Fatima, Portugal apparitions recognize that sentence as the opening of the Third Secret, which the Virgin wished to be publicly revealed by 1960 or upon Lucia’s death, whichever came first. Although to this day never have the words of Our Lady been completely released, we know that Lucia and others who knew it (or who thoroughly studied it) collectively gave enough information to put the matter in context.
In my book, Fatima: The Signs and Secrets, I addressed Our Lady’s words regarding the dogma of the faith, writing as follows:
In 1943, when asked about the contents of the Third Secret, Sr. Lucia said, “In a certain way, I have already revealed it.” [1] How so? In her Fourth Memoir, she implicitly disclosed it in a sentence of substantial importance: “In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved, etc.” This sentence, which ends with the intriguing “et cetera,” is the prelude to the Third Secret Message−the part of the secret still hidden.
“The dogma of the Faith” is a telling phrase, one which addresses the Church’s primary dogma, infallibly thrice-defined: “Outside the Church, there is no salvation.” [2] Today, this singular dogma about the Church is either unknown or rejected within the Church, which is another sign of Fatima’s veracity, lending further credence that the Third Secret’s smothered Message centers on “an apocalyptic crisis of the faith in the Church starting from the top” [3]−namely, the revolt which St. Paul said must come first.[4]
Due to the rampant apostasy and the unrelenting crisis within the Church and in the world, Catholics wonder if mankind is living in the time of “the revolt” preceding “the son of perdition,” [5] aka the Antichrist. It is a serious question.
Only this past June, on Pentecost Monday, a small group of bishops and cardinals—including Cardinal Raymond Burke, patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Cardinal Janis Pujats, archbishop emeritus of Riga, Latvia, Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, and Kazakh Archbishops Tomash Peta of Astana and Jan Pawel Lenga, emeritus of Karaganda, Kazakhstan—released a “declaration of truths,” reaffirming key Church teachings at a time they describe as “almost universal doctrinal confusion and disorientation.” [6] (Coincidentally or not, the latter word brought to mind Sister Lucia of Fatima who, almost 50 years ago, wrote of “diabolical disorientation” and a “diabolical wave.” [7])
As the National Catholic Register reported, “The signatories remind each bishop, priest and layperson that they have ‘the moral duty to give witness unambiguously to those truths that in our days are obfuscated, undermined, and denied.’
“They also believe that if such a witness occurs, these truths could ‘initiate a movement of a confession of the truth’ that would act as ‘reparation’ for the ‘widespread sins against the faith’ and the ‘hidden and open apostasy from Catholic Faith’ of a ‘not small number’ of clergy and laypeople.” [8]
That these few, brave cardinals and bishops publicly spoke of apostasy (hidden and open) amongst both laity and the clergy again reminds us of 2 Thess. 2:3 and Our Lady’s words at Fatima about “the dogma of the Faith.”Outside of the Church, There is No Salvation
The dogma of the Faith is, in our time, also the dogma most denied. Known by the acronym of EENS (“Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus,” or “Outside the Church, there is No Salvation”), it is truly the foremost dogma of the Church about herself. As previously stated, three times in our sacred history has the dogma been infallibly defined. A defined dogma is binding on all the faithful. Should we not understand a dogma, then it is our obligation to pray and to study it. To assist in such a worthy endeavor, I will list the following proofs that the Church, entrusted by God with Divine Revelation, has from her infancy taught this doctrine, later defined as a dogma, as follows:
∙ Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III (1215): “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.”
∙ Unam sanctam, the papal bull of Pope Boniface VIII (1302): “Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Canticle of Canticles 6:8] proclaims: ‘One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of her who bore her,’ and she represents one sole mystical body whose Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark, having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e., Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the earth was destroyed.”
∙ Council of Florence, Cantate Domino, papal bull of Eugene IV (1441): “…It [the Church] firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the ‘eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matthew 25:41), unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”
Other Proofs of the Dogma
∙ St. Augustine of Hippo (354 A.D.—430 A.D.): “A man cannot have salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. He can have honor, he can have the sacraments, he can sing alleluia, and he can answer amen, he can possess the Gospel, he can have and preach faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, but never except in the Catholic Church will he be able to find salvation.” (Sermo ad Caesariensis Ecclesia plebe, 418 A.D.)
∙ Pope Pelagius II (birth year unknown—590): “Consider the fact that whoever has not been in the peace and unity of the Church cannot have the Lord…Although given over to flames and fires, they burn, or, thrown to wild beasts, they lay down their lives, there will not be (for them) that crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness…Such a one can be slain, he cannot be crowned. …[If] slain outside the Church, he cannot attain the rewards of the Church.” (Denzinger, #246-247)
∙ Pope Innocent III (1160—1216): “With our hearts we believe and with our lips we confess but one Church, not that of the heretics, but the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside which we believe that no one is saved.” (Denzinger, #423)
∙ Pope Clement VI (1291—1352): “…No man of the wayfarers outside the faith of this Church, and outside the obedience to the Pope of Rome, can finally be saved.” (Super Quibusdam, 1351)
∙ Catechism of the Council of Trent: “Hence there are but three classes of persons excluded from the Church's pale: infidels, heretics and schismatics, and excommunicated persons. Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, and never knew the Church, and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments. Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted. It is not, however, to be denied that they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, inasmuch as they may be called before her tribunals, punished and anathematized. Finally, excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent.
“But with regard to the rest, however wicked and evil they may be, it is certain that they still belong to the Church. Of this the faithful are frequently to be reminded, in order to be convinced that, were even the lives of her ministers debased by crime, they are still within the Church, and therefore lose nothing of their power.” (The Creed, Article IX, 1566)
∙ Pope St. Pius V (1504—1572): “The sovereign jurisdiction of the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation…” (Regnans in Excelsis, papal bull excommunicating the heretic, Queen Elizabeth of England, and all those who obeyed her orders, 1570)
∙ Pope Leo XII (1760—1829): “We profess that there is no salvation outside the Church…For the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. With reference to those words Augustine says: ‘If any man be outside the Church he will be excluded from the number of sons, and will not have God for Father since he has not the Church for mother.’” (Ubi Primum, 1824)
∙ Pope Gregory XVI (1765—1846): “It is not possible to worship God truly except in Her; all who are outside Her will not be saved.” (Summo Iugiter, 1832)
The same pope declared: “Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that ‘there is one God, one faith, one baptism,’ may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that ‘those who are not with Christ are against Him,’ and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore ‘without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate.’” (Mirari Vos, 1832)
∙ Pope Pius IX (1792—1878): “In particular, ensure that the faithful are deeply and thoroughly convinced of the truth of the doctrine that the Catholic faith is necessary for attaining salvation.” (Nostis et Nobiscum, 1849)
He likewise stated: “It must be held by faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church, no one can be saved; that this is the only ark of salvation; that he who shall not have entered therein will perish in the flood.” (Denzinger, #1647)
∙ First Vatican Council: The rule of what we must believe as Catholics was defined by the First Vatican Council, thusly: “Further, all those things are to be believed with divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and which the Church, either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal teaching [magisterium], proposes for belief as having been divinely revealed.” (Dogmatic Constitution, De Fide, chap. 3; 1870)
∙ Pope Leo XIII (1810—1903): “He scatters and gathers not who gathers not with the Church and with Jesus Christ, and all who fight not jointly with Him and with the Church are in very truth contending against God.” (Sapientiae Christianae, 1890)
Pope Leo XIII also taught: “Christ is man’s ‘Way’; the Church also is his ‘Way’…Hence, all who would find salvation apart from the Church are led astray and strive in vain.” (Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, 1900)
Again, he wrote: “This is our last lesson to you; receive it, engrave it in your minds, all of you: by God’s commandment salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church.” (Annum Ingressi Sumus, 1902)
∙ Pope Saint Pius X (1835—1914): “It is our duty to recall to everyone great and small, as the Holy Pontiff Gregory did in ages past, the absolute necessity which is ours, to have recourse to this Church to effect our eternal salvation” (Iucunda Sane, 1904)
∙ Pope Benedict XV (1854—1922): “Such is the nature of the Catholic faith that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole, or as a whole rejected: This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.” (Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, 1914)
∙ Pope Pius XI (1857—1939): “The Catholic Church alone is keeping the true worship. This is the font of truth, this is the house of faith, this is the temple of God; if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation…Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ, no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors.” (Mortalium Animos, 1928)
∙ Pope Pius XII (1876—1958): “By divine mandate the interpreter and guardian of the Scriptures, and the depository of Sacred Tradition living within her, the Church alone is the entrance to salvation: She alone, by herself, and under the protection and guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the source of truth.” (“Allocution to the Gregorian,” October 17, 1953)
∙ Pope John Paul II (1920—2005): “The mystery of salvation is revealed to us and is continued and accomplished in the Church…Like Brother Francis we have to be conscious and absorb this fundamental and revealed truth, consecrated by tradition: ‘There is no salvation outside the Church.’ From her alone there flows surely and fully the life-giving force destined in Christ and in His Spirit, to renew the whole of humanity, and therefore directing every human being to become a part of the Mystical Body of Christ.” (Radio Message, October 3, 1981)
The Credo and the Scriptures
Whether or not they realize it, Catholics regularly declare their belief in the EENS dogma. In the Nicene Creed, prayed within the Church since 325 A.D. and which we pray today at every Mass, we declare our belief in “one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church.” With the Apostles’ Creed, we pray, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic Church…” The Athanasian Creed, although not commonly prayed in the west today, begins with these words: “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly” and ends with this declaration: “This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.”
In addition to Tradition, the Church possesses for the EENS dogma many proofs from the Sacred Scriptures. For our sincere consideration and meditation, following are excerpts from The Sincere Christian, the work of the 19th century Bishop George Hay:
∙ “Our Savior, speaking of His Church under the figure of a flock, of which He Himself is the good shepherd, says: ‘And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring. And they shall hear My voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd’ [John 10: 16]. He is here speaking of those who were not then joined in communion with His Apostles and other disciples, and He calls them at that time ‘His sheep;’ but to show there was no salvation for them in the state in which they then were, and unless they were united to the fold, He says, ‘them also I must bring,’ which shows that, according to the disposition of the Divine decrees, it was absolutely necessary that all who belong to Jesus Christ, all whom He acknowledges for His sheep, should be brought to, and united in communion with, that one fold, which is His Church.”
“In consequence of this, we are assured that, when the Apostles began to publish the Gospel, ‘The Lord increased daily together such as should be saved.’ Or, as the Protestant translation has it, ‘The Lord daily added to the Church such as should be saved’ [Acts 2: 47]; which points out in the strongest manner, by what God actually did, that being added to the Church is a condition absolutely required by Him in order to be saved; and if that were so then, it must be so now, and to the end of the world; for the conditions of salvation, ordained at the beginning and revealed by Jesus Christ, cannot be altered by any other…”
— Continue with Part II of Our Lady of Fatima and the Dogma Most Denied —
Marianna Bartold is the author of Fatima: The Signs and Secrets and Guadalupe: Secrets of the Image. The founding publisher of The Catholic Family’s Magnificat and editor of Sursum Corda (now Latin Mass) magazines, she also digitally publishes traditional Catholic classics on Kindle. Join Marianna on Facebook (Fatima and the Apocalypse) or main page (Keeping It Catholic).
Copyright Marianna Bartold 2019. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. This article was first published in the July 2019 issue of Catholic Family News.
Notes
1) Alonso, Fr. Joaquin. La verdad sobre el Secreto de Fátima, p. 61; see also Frère Michel, The Whole Truth about Fatima, Vol. III, p. 684.
2) Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215; Pope Boniface VIII, the bull Unam Sanctam, 1302; Pope Eugene IV, the bull Cantate Domino, 1442.
3) Miguel, Aura. Totus Tuus: Il Segreto di Fatima nel Pontificato de Giovanni Paolo II [Itaca: Castel Bolognese, 2003]: p. 137.
4) 2 Thess 2:3.
5) Ibid. "Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition…"
6) Pentin, Edward. “New ‘Declaration of Truths’ Affirms Key Church Teachings.” National Catholic Register. June 10, 2019
7) Phrases from Sr. Lucia of Fatima come from A Little Treatise by the Seer on the Nature and Recitation of the Rosary, a collection of excerpts from Sr. Lucia’s letters written between 1969-1971. It was originally published in Uma vida ao service de Fatima with an Imprimatur from the Bishop of Leira, Fatima – Dom Joae Venancio, May 13, 1971.
8) Ibid.
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