Pope Francis: Extra ecclesiam nulla Iesu.

r. Z says that this is not going to be pop­u­lar with “dis­senters and lib­er­als.” I would add to the dis­senters and lib­er­als a cer­tain seg­ment of con­ser­v­a­tives who per­sist in a 500-year-old schism. You can almost hear the clack clack clack of smoke ris­ing from their blog­ging key­boards; you can almost see the Fundies in their pul­pits dust­ing off their “Whore of Baby­lon” ref­er­ences.

Pope Fran­cis cel­e­brat­ed Mass today, the Feast of St. George, in the Pauline Chapel of the Apos­tolic Palace, and in his homi­ly said a few words about where it is pos­si­ble, and where it is not, to find Jesus:

Chris­t­ian iden­ti­ty is belong­ing to the Church. … Because it is not pos­si­ble to find Jesus out­side the Church. The great Paul VI said: “Want­i­ng to live with Jesus with­out the Church, fol­low­ing Jesus out­side the Church, lov­ing Jesus with­out the Church is an absurd dichoto­my.” And the Moth­er Church that gives us Jesus gives us our iden­ti­ty that is not only a seal, it is a belong­ing. Iden­ti­ty means belong­ing.

It is not pos­si­ble to find Jesus out­side the Church. Well, shaz­a­am. Extra Eccle­si­am nul­la Iesu.

A lot of Protes­tants do, in fact, try—in the words of Paul VI—to cre­ate the “absurd dichoto­my” of Christ or the Church. I have heard the Protes­tant who has said of Catholics, “They wor­ship a Church, and not Christ,” as though Christ can be divorced from his Bride. Or who has assumed that Christ can be found in any one of the myr­i­ad of denom­i­na­tions, as though He were a ser­i­al adul­ter­er. But no. Christ has one Bride.

For all the talk about ecu­menism, it is impor­tant to empha­size what that means and what it does not. True ecu­menism is not pos­si­ble apart from the truth. And the Truth sub­sists ful­ly and sub­stan­tial­ly with­in the Catholic Church. That is how God intend­ed it to be, and you can­not for­go God’s pur­pos­es in favor of your own pref­er­ences or pet the­olo­gies.

What Pope Fran­cis is say­ing is some­thing along these lines: You may talk a great deal about Jesus; you may admire Jesus; you may love and adore Jesus. But out­side the Church, you haven’t found Jesus. This might sound like a sub­tle dis­tinc­tion, but it is impor­tant and it mat­ters. Christ is present in His Church; Christ is present in the sacra­ments; Christ is present in the Eucharist. That is where all the action of grace is, and there alone is the soul at rest.

To speak per­son­al­ly for a moment: I know this, and feel it strong­ly today, because today hap­pens to be the two-year anniver­sary of my recep­tion into the Catholic Church. And I remem­ber. I remem­ber my first con­fes­sion and my first Eucharist and when I stood to say, “I believe and pro­fess all that the Catholic Church claims to be revealed by God.” It changes every­thing for­ev­er. You can­not put Hump­ty Dump­ty togeth­er again once the Protes­tant egg has cracked. You have tru­ly found, and you know it. And that is not pos­si­ble unless Jesus is there and nowhere else you may ever look to find Him.

Many will be sore­ly angry at the truth the pope spoke today, but they will be angry only because they know that what he says is so, even if they won’t admit it. They know.

Grant­ed there is some nuance here, because the Church does­n’t say that non-Catholics nec­es­sar­i­ly won’t be saved. And that is absolute­ly true—though the key word here is “nec­es­sar­i­ly.” Com­pla­cen­cy about this mat­ter is very dan­ger­ous. If the Church talks about “invin­ci­ble igno­rance,” “invin­ci­ble” is a pret­ty strict stan­dard. And if the Church talks about “sep­a­rat­ed brethren,” “sep­a­rat­ed” is a pret­ty stark con­di­tion to be in.

But all that nuance aside, the key thing for those out­side the Church to under­stand is this: You are liv­ing a life that is less than what Christ intend­ed. Christ intend­ed for grace to be poured out through the sacra­ments; you don’t have them. Christ intend­ed for us to encounter Him—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the Eucharist; you haven’t received it. Christ intend­ed for us to be led into “all truth”—those were his words: all truth—with­in the Church. But you are being led, and you admit it, by fal­li­ble teach­ers. You may talk about Christ until you are blue in the face, but you do not know Him; you have not encoun­tered Him; and your life is less than what He meant for it to be.

But there is a way to come home, and it is more than you could pos­si­bly die for joy to receive.

Extra Eccle­si­am nul­la Iesu.

God bless Pope Fran­cis.

Update: As I sus­pect­ed, it has­n’t tak­en long for the Protes­tant hand-wring­ing over the pope’s words to begin.