"Oh Erick! ROFL. Cantate Domino says even Martyrs Can't be Saved if Not United to the Pope!"

Some folks have questions about how what I've said harmonizes with the Papal Bull of Pope Eugene IV (Cantate Domino) which says that not even Christian martyrs who die outside the visible confines of the Roman Catholic Church can be saved, despite their blood-shedding and persevering confession of Christ.

Cantate Domino is a bold claim that only visibly and outwardly baptized members of the Catholic Church headed by the Roman Pontiff can be saved. However, it must be recognized that what these decrees affirm is the necessity of being united to Christ which is normally achieved by the outward bond of the sacrament of baptism into the visible society of Catholic Christians assembled under the valid Roman Pontiff.

However, it was always known, even concurrent to the publication of the bull Cantate Domino (Eugene IV), that there existed diverse means by which a particular soul, in an exceptional circumstance, could achieve salvation without being outwardly and physically united to the Catholic Church. The first 2 examples, finding their roots in Apostolic tradition, are the baptism of desire and baptism of blood. In either case, a person dies before they can achieve that outward and visible bond of baptism to the Church... and yet, if they had the sufficient desire or died as a martyr for the cause of Christ, they were understood to be saved.

If you want to see extensive evidence of this from the holy Fathers, I recommend the Rev. Fr. Jean Marc Rulleau's Baptism of Desire: A Patristic Commentary. It is completely readable and very short (less than 90 pages). In the Roman Martyrology, we have 2 unbaptized Saints, Emerentiana and Victor (Jan 23 + April 12, respectively). Both were understood to achieve membership in the Church via the baptism of blood.

"Oh, but Erick, that has nothing to do with the rather clear statement in Pope Eugene IV's bull Cantate Domino which basically just says that even if you are a martyr (!) and have great acts of service to Christ (!) you still can't be saved unless you become a member of the Roman Church!"

Well, let's be careful here. Let's give this the best contextual reading that can be given. Several sources before Cantate Domino reveal some nuance.

In Pope Innocent III (+1216), we read:

"To your inquiry we respond thus: We assert without hesitation (on the authority of the holy Fathers Augustine and Ambrose) that the priest whom you indicated (in your letter) had died without the water of baptism, because he persevered in the faith of Holy Mother the Church and in the confession of the name of Christ, was freed from original sin and attained the joy of the heavenly fatherland. Read (brother) in the eighth book of Augustine's City of God where among other things it is written, "Baptism is ministered invisibly to one whom not contempt of religion but death excludes." Read again the book also of the blessed Ambrose concerning the death of Valentinian where he says the same thing. Therefore, to questions concerning the dead, you should hold the opinions of the learned Fathers, and in your church you should join in prayers and you should have sacrifices offered to God for the priest mentioned." (Denzinger 388)

Pope St. Pius V (+1572) taught that perfect "charity", by which the soul is saved, can exist in catechumens and penitents (not yet restored to communion). Other statements can be adduced from St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa, Article 1, Part III, Q. 68), St. Robert Bellarmine (Liber II, Caput XXX), Pope Pius IX (Singulari Quadam, 1854 + Quanto Conficiamur Moerore, 1863), Pope Pius XII (De Mystici Corporis).

The Ecumenical Council of Trent was held 1545-63, just a century after Florence (at which Cantate Domino was published). And yet, at the Council of Trent (Canon #4 on the Sacraments), it is said that only without the desire for the sacraments (sine eis aut eorum voto) is one surely damned. In Session 6 of the same Council, the desire for baptism achieves the grace of baptism in cases of necessity (sine lavacro regenerationis aut eius voto).

So what do we see in all of this? We see that there is a binding necessity to join the Catholic Church via baptism... but there is more than 1 single way of achieving this when we consider the interior life of an individual. Their desire and devotion are expressed in a life directed towards God (supremely so in martyrdom), even without utilizing the means of outward baptism into the Catholic Church under the Roman Pontiff (prescribed by Cantate Domino).

"Oh, but Erick, I might be able to see that with regard to catechumens or catechumenical martyrs, but Cantate Domino ACTUCALLY specifies that martyrs who die outside the unity of the Roman Catholic Church can't be saved! ROFL! C'mon bro!"

Well, what Pope Eugene is saying there is an ancient dictum that holds that the "martyrological" blood of a schismatical-martyr cannot atone for his sin of schism and discord. That is quite distinct from saying a person whose interior is not stained by the guilt of schism/discord can be saved by baptism of blood. In the 3rd century, St. Cyprian of Carthage is famous for having made this bold claim that even schismatical martyrs cannot be saved. But keep in mind what he charges them guilty of:

"Even if such men were slain in confession of the Name, that stain is not even washed away by blood: the inexpiable and grave fault of discord is not even purged by suffering. He cannot be a martyr who is not in the Church; he cannot attain unto the kingdom who forsakes that which shall reign there. Christ gave us peace; He bade us be in agreement, and of one mind. He charged the bonds of love and charity to be kept uncorrupted and inviolate; he cannot show himself a martyr who has not maintained brotherly love." (Treatise 1, De Unitate Ecclesiae)

Ok, so we can see here that Cyprian attributes the guilt of schism to this class of "martyrs". That is precisely what Pope Eugene IV is doing in Cantate Domino. So the question is whether all people who lived and died outside of communion with the Catholic Church are guilty of schism. If they are, then they cannot be saved, per the force of Apostolic tradition (of which Cantate Domino is a mere expression).

However, if we can conceive of a person who lived and died outside of communion with the Catholic Church but who, interiorly, has no ill-will or the guilt of brotherly discord against the true Church, then that guilt of schism is not present to forbid the possibility of salvation through the presence of perfect charity in the heart with the mere absence of sufficient knowledge about the Roman Catholic Church. And so, it is true... if someone gives alms, fasts, and ultimately dies for his confession to Christ... but inwardly is guilty of schism... that man cannot be saved regardless of all those works.

What I've given is a way to reconcile the papal bull Cantate Domino with Papal, Patristic, and Theological Commentaries BOTH before and after the publication of Cantate Domino. What is preferable? To read it in harmony with the school of Catholicism or to try and force a contradiction? I choose the former.

"Oh, but Erick, this is just another instance of the mental gymnastics that everyone is so tired of hearing"

Well, I think what we have here is an apparent contradiction or difficulty that can easily be resolved. If you are an Eastern Orthodox, how do you reconcile the Sainthood of all the Filioquists of the 1st millennium? Besides my inability to understand how this can be, wouldn't you have to say that, despite the official anathema of the Eastern Orthodox Church striking any and all who confess the Spirit to proceed from the Father and the Son, those Saints had something interiorly that excludes them from such a penalty? Well, you'd be doing something quite similar to what I'm doing here, i.e., making an exception given details about the will and intellect of someone's interior life that prevents them from the normal conditions. That has to be what is used to explain the veneration of non-Eastern Orthodox Saints in the hagiographical calendar of the Eastern Orthodox Saints, right? Well, there you go. If you are a Protestant and you think that persons could have been saved from (~) A.D. 325 to A.D. 1517, despite the Church falling into a "false gospel" of works-righteousness, then you'd have to be careful with the Galatians 1:8-9 anathema to anyone who does this. And then what? You are now appealing to exceptional circumstances in order to avoid saying everyone was damned in these centuries. There are many more examples from the body of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant that can be pointed to that requires nuance in order to maintain coherence. Why should one accept the nuance of one's own system and prevent from another?