On The Hope of Salvation for Those Outside the Visible Church

A reader writes:I recently read your article “Just Exactly Where is the Church?”. In it you mentioned that“Rather, the Church teaches that because validly baptized non-Catholics are real members of the Body of Christ, they share in the life of the Blessed Trinity and therefore share with Catholics the hope of salvation”I was wondering how this can be reconciled with the fact that the following statements are condemned in the Syllabus of Errors by Pius IX as17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ. — Encyclical “Quanto conficiamur,” Aug. 10, 1863, etc.18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. — Encyclical “Noscitis,” Dec. 8, 1849.As I explained in the article, it remains the teaching of the Church that “Outside the Church there is no salvation”.  That’s because the Church is, in the final analysis, the company of the saved.  To be saved is to be in the Church, just as to go swimming is to be in the water.  Can’t do one without the other.  So if you are “not at all in the true Church of Christ” then of course you are not saved.But the key point to remember is that we don’t know where “outside the Church” is.  “Outside” is, according to the Church herself, most certainly not equal to and co-terminous with membership in the visible Catholic Church.  And that is a tradition that goes all the way back to Our Lord himself:John answered, “Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he does not follow with us.” 50 But