In yesterday's Gospel, Jesus was asked a very challenging question: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” Jesus' surprising answer is that many will strive to enter the kingdom of God, but will not be strong enough.

In our secular era, when religion and traditional morality have been set aside by many of our family and friends, it's easy for us, too, to wonder how many will be welcomed into the halls of heaven and how many will not. Although we can't really guess how many people will be saved, we would do well to ask ourselves a closely related question: “Are Jesus and the Catholic Church necessary for salvation, or not?”

The Catholic Church, basing herself on Scripture and Tradition, has wrestled with this question extensively over the past century, especially in the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In the 1960s, Pope St. John XXIII convened a gathering of bishops - the Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II - to help make sense of the Church's mission in our modern, pluralistic world. Among the many topics that the bishops debated and taught about was the role of Jesus and the Catholic Church for our eternal salvation. Authoritative teachings on the topic can be found in Lumen Gentium (The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Dominus Iesus (a declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). Here are some of the highlights of what the Church teaches:

1. Faith in Jesus is the only way to salvation

One of the central teachings of Sacred Scripture is that we cannot enter heaven by our own strength. Because of our fallen human nature, wounded by sin, we have an absolute need for God's mercy and grace in order to be forgiven of our sins, restored to friendship with God, and strengthened in holiness. Salvation is not a Do-It-Yourself project, but an ongoing acceptance of the help that God gives us through his Son, Jesus.

Scripture is equally clear that faith in Jesus is the means by which God gives us salvation: “There is no salvation through anyone else, nor is there any other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved” (Acts 4:12). “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). “Jesus said to him, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'” (John 14:6).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, quoting Scripture, makes the same point:

161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. “Since 'without faith it is impossible to please [God]' [Hebrews 11:6] and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life 'But he who endures to the end. [Matthew 10:22]'”

2. The Catholic Church is the necessary means of grace

The early Christians understood that we are saved not as isolated individuals, but by being gathered into the body of Christ, the Church that Jesus established. They compared the Church to Noah's Ark, calling it the “Barque of Peter,” the vessel that we must enter if we want to reach heaven's shores. It is through the Church that Jesus gives us the grace of the sacraments, the authoritative teaching of Tradition, and the guidance of ordained leaders. The early Christians even had a challenging saying, extra ecclesiam nulla salus, which means, “Outside the Church there is no salvation.”

The Catechism of the Catholic, quoting the Second Vatican Council, comments on this hard saying:

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated 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. [Lumen Gentium 14]

In an era when most believe that your religion simply doesn't matter, we would do well to really think about this dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church!

3. God is at work outside the Catholic Church

So the Church teaches that God wants everyone to believe in Jesus and to be part of the Catholic Church that he established, but what about the billions of people who don't know this? Does the Church simply think they're lost? This is a question that the Second Vatican Council was especially interested in explaining. The Catechism, quoting Vatican II, says:

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 know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation. [Lumen Gentium 16]

The Second Vatican Council explained that there are “elements of truth and grace” outside the visible bounds of the Church, which act as a “secret presence of God” (CCC 856, quoting Ad Gentes 9). Even those outside the visible boundaries of the Church, then, are often united to the Church in an imperfect way. This is especially true of other non-Catholic Christian communities, but also of those other world religions that strive to answer the deepest questions of human life.

4. The Church has a mission to evangelize

Even though there is hope that those outside the visible boundaries of the Church may be saved, we have an urgent obligation to evangelize, to spread the Gospel. The Catechism, again quoting Vatican II, says:

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”

The entire world is mortally wounded by sin, and Jesus Christ is the only physician who can heal us. The Church is the field hospital that Jesus has established to provide for our care. If we know that the disease of sin is deadly, shouldn't we share the cure with everyone? Yes, the teachings of the Church assure that God, in his mercy, may secretly bring the grace of salvation to some outside the visible bounds of the Church, but we should not presume on God's mercy! Instead, let's follow the words of Jesus himself: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 18:19-20).