"Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching."Here we see Blessed Pope Pius IX stating very clearly the Catholic dogma of "outside the Church there is no salvation." He says that it is a very grave error, and against Catholic teaching, to believe that one who is living in error and separated from the Catholic Church can be saved. Now, you may ask, "Wait a minute... is he saying that only Catholics are going to heaven?" No, he is not saying that at all, for he goes on and writes:
"There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace."Now, let's look at this a little closer. First, for a non-catholic to attain salvation, they must be invincibly ignorant of the truth of the Catholic Faith. But what is invincible ignorance? In his book titled, "The Sincere Christian," Bishop George Hay, known by many as one of the greatest Catholic teachers of the 19th Century, writes: "Ignorance is invincible only when a person has a sincere desire to know the truth, with a full resolution to embrace it, but either has no possible means of knowing it, or after using his best endeavors, is unable to discover it." In other words, one who desires to know and embrace the truth, but has no way of finding and knowing it, is considered to be invincibly ignorant of the truth.
The second requirement for a non-Catholic to attain salvation is that they must sincerely seek to follow God, and the law that God has inscribed on our hearts, which is what we call our conscience. You see, within each person God has made known what is right and wrong, and when one who is invincibly ignorant of the Catholic Faith seeks to follow what he knows in his heart to be right, then he is saying "yes" to whatever truth that he has been given from God, and thus, cannot be guilty of willfully rejecting God. As Blessed Pope Pius IX goes on to say in his letter:
"Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments."So we see that non-Catholics who are invincibly ignorant of the Catholic Faith can be saved, if they still seek to follow God and what is right, in accordance to God's law written on their hearts. The Second Vatican Council said it like this: "Those also can attain to salvation who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and, moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience" (Lumen Gentium, 16).
But what about those who are not invincibly ignorant of the Catholic Faith, and they reject it? Can they be saved? Well, Blessed Pope Pius IX addresses them next in his letter. He writes:
"Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom 'the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior.'"
Notice here that he is talking about those who OPPOSE the authority and statements of the Church, and who are STUBBORNLY SEPARATED from the Church and the pope. In other words, these are people who know the truth of the Catholic Faith and what it teaches, and they deliberately refuse to embrace it and be united to the Catholic Church. Blessed Pope Pius IX clearly says that it is Catholic teaching that people such as this cannot be saved. The Second Vatican Council taught the same thing when it stated: "Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation... Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved" (Lumen Gentium, 14).
So what can we learn from Blessed Pope Pius IX's encyclical? Well, first we learn that it is Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside of the Catholic Church. (In fact, this is an infallible dogma of the Catholic Church.) Secondly, we learn that those who are invincibly ignorant of the truth of the Catholic Faith, but yet still seek to follow God according to what truth they have been given, can be saved. And thirdly, we learn that those who know the truth of the Catholic Faith and willfully reject it cannot be saved.
Of course, since we cannot see into the hearts of people, we cannot say with any certainty at all if a specific individual falls into one of these categories. That judgment belongs to God alone. But what we can do is simply seek to love others with the love of God, and to share with them the fullness of truth that is found in the Catholic Faith. As Blessed Pope Pius IX encourages in his letter:
"God forbid that the children of the Catholic Church should even in any way be unfriendly to those who are not at all united to us by the same bonds of faith and love. On the contrary, let them be eager always to attend to their needs with all the kind services of Christian charity, whether they are poor or sick or suffering any other kind of visitation. First of all, let them rescue them from the darkness of the errors into which they have unhappily fallen and strive to guide them back to Catholic truth and to their most loving Mother who is ever holding out her maternal arms to receive them lovingly back into her fold. Thus, firmly founded in faith, hope, and charity and fruitful in every good work, they will gain eternal salvation."