By Wilson Ngema, SD*
This question, no doubt, comes from one who holds the opinion that faith is purely a private matter between an individual and their God. This opinion fails to recognise that faith has many aspects one of which is the community dimension called fellowship (cf. Acts 2:42).
But there is something more here. And interesting too! Let us turn the question around this way: must I use a vehicle to travel from Ekona to Batibo?
Well, common sense tells us that if a person were to travel from Ekona to Batibo she should do so by means of a vehicle or another modern means of transport. But she could insist on doing the journey on foot arguing that before the arrival of the modern means of transport that was the way her ancestors did it. True, she could trek from Ekona to Batibo. But then the journey will be very tedious and risky. She will need many days to do the journey. She will be exposed to the hazards of weather: the scorching sun of the day, the cold winds at night, rainfall, darkness and the likes. Mosquitoes will feast on her; snakes, predators, thieves, rapists, and ritualists may target her.
In fact, there would be a high risk of her not only getting discouraged along the way and giving up the journey all together but of actually losing her life in the course of the journey. But if she would be wise to go by vehicle she would avoid all those risks. Clearly, the person who chooses to go by a vehicle has a higher chance of arriving her destination in good time and in one piece than the one who chooses to go by foot (the risks of motor accidents notwithstanding!).
A similar logic applies in the debate of membership and non-membership in the Church on the pilgrim’s way to heaven. The one who chooses not to belong to the Church may end up making it to heaven. But he will be exposing himself to too much hazards on his way to heaven than the one who wisely become a member of the church.
The Church has a beautiful way of putting it: extra exclesiam nulla salus (outside the Church there is no salvation). Jesus Christ would not have established the church if he did not think that the Church is necessary for salvation.
It is from the Master himself that we know that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body. First Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6). Then he goes on to specify:
He who believes and is baptized will be saved. (Mk 16:16)
Unless you repent you will all likewise perish. (Lk 13:3)
He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (Jn 6:54)
Jesus thus associated salvation with baptism, confession, and the Eucharist, whose minister, especially in the last two cases, is a validly ordained priest. Inasmuch as we need the church to receive these sacraments, which are the ordinary means of salvation, we need the Church, ordinarily, to go to heaven.
Therefore, anyone who knows the truth that Jesus established the Catholic Church as the necessary means of salvation and yet through pride or cowardice, or for pecuniary and other vain reasons refuses either to enter the church or to remain in it, cannot go to heaven.