Most Reverend Raymond J. Boland, DD
Bishop of Kansas City-Saint Joseph
P.O. Box 419037
Kansas City, MO 64141-6037

J. M. J.
September 7, 2001

Your Excellency,

I received your letter of July 18, but quite frankly, I was disappointed that you are unwilling to discuss the new ecclesiology, and in particular the whole question of the doctrine Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. This question is of the greatest importance for the Church, since it concerns its very divine constitution. You seem to indicate that there is nothing to discuss in such a black and white clear-cut question. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Allow me to simply present some of the inherent contradictions contained in the most recent of the references that you give, the Declaration Dominus Jesus on the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church. This document, written to combat relativism and indifferentism that teach that one religion is as good as another (§22), rightly condemns the errors that God can perform a salvific action outside the mediation of Christ (§14), or that the Catholic Church can be considered as but one amongst many ways of salvation (§21). This is all very orthodox and consistent with the doctrine that "Outside the Church there is no salvation."

However, this very same document also teaches the exact theses that it attempts to condemn. For it teaches that false religions are "participated forms of mediation" (§14). How can there be any mediation outside of Christ and His mystical body? It teaches that particularly in schismatic churches, "the church of Christ is present and operative" (§17). How can the church of Christ be present and operative outside the Catholic Church, which is the only true church of Christ? The heretical churches that do not even have the Blessed Sacrament are declared to be in a "certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church" (§17). How can those who do not even profess the Faith in the Blessed Eucharist, and who consequently deny the Catholic Faith, be in any way in communion with Roman Catholics?

These false, heretical sects are even declared to be "means of salvation" in which "the elements of this already-given Church exist" (§17). If there truly is no salvation outside the Church, how can these false sects be means of salvation? The Church is declared to exist everywhere, for the "salvific action of Jesus Christ extends beyond the visible boundaries of the Church to all humanity...and to the entire universe" (§12).

What does the Church mean if every man and the whole universe belong to it and if its visible boundaries do not mean anything? Why belong if you do not need the true Faith, if you do not need to receive the sacraments of the Catholic Church, in order to be under the salvific action of Christ? Interreligious dialogue, even with non-Christian religions, it is declared, "retains its full force and necessity (§22). Is not this the very indifferentism that the Declaration was written against? How is it possible to maintain that one has the deposit of divinely revealed truth, and that Christ is the only Mediator, and yet to carry on a dialogue on an equal basis with those who reject Christ? Is this not to accept that error has rights to exist?

I think that you can see, Your Excellency, that this document is riddled with internal contradictions. On the one hand it would have us believe that we need to believe in Christ as the only Mediator, and in the necessity of the Church for salvation, but on the other hand it explicitly states that we do not have to believe in Christ or to be members of the Catholic Church to be members of the church of Christ, which is all humanity, and to be saved. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. It must be either one or the other, but not both.

The reason for this internal contradiction comes from another document that you quoted, Lumen gentium, the Vatican II Constitution on the Church. It is led into contradiction by embracing the false, indifferentist and relativist definition of the Church given in L.G., namely that the "church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church," but is not identical to her, but exists partially (though not fully) outside of the Catholic Church, which church is defined in the most indifferentist and broad sense possible as "The sign and instrument of intimate union with God and of unity of the entire human race" (§16, 18).

These are just some of the most obvious contradictions raised by the new ecclesiology. These are the questions that need to be discussed not only here in Kansas City but throughout the entire Church, for much of the crisis in authority, of the rebellion against the hierarchy, and of the refusal of Catholics to believe in the divine constitution and rights of Holy Mother Church come from this very contradiction and from the refusal of churchmen to stand up for what the Church teaches.

I trust that you will reconsider my request to dialogue on these questions, or if not, you will at least continue this discussion in writing.

Please be assured of my prayers during the Canon of the Mass, as well as those of all the other Society priests who celebrate in this diocese.

Yours faithfully in the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary,

Father Peter R. Scott
CC: Mr. George Noonan, Chancellor
            Mr. Stephen Dailey