And—to pass to a third point of doctrine which illustrates the proposition we are discussing—we are not to regard these sacraments thus administered outside the Church as being objectively valid only, and not also subjectively efficacious. St. Augustine seems to have held such a view regarding the efficacy of these sacraments. He supposed, apparently, that the grace objectively provided in these non-Catholic sacraments was not subjectively effective in the heretics and schismatics who received them, because they were all in bad faith, or, more profoundly, because they were in deliberate and obstinate antagonism to the spirit of unity, and therefore to the Holy Ghost. The Jansenists in the seventeenth century followed St. Augustine and advocated the same erroneous opinion, setting it up as their principle that “outside the Church there is no grace” (extra ecclesiam nulla conceditur gratia). But again it was Rome and a pope that expressly rejected this proposition.[4]

The assertion that the Catholic Church of later centuries has developed the ideas of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, that she has ‘continually sharpened the principle of exclusiveness and so continually narrowed Catholicism”[5] is in contradiction with the plain facts of history. For the truth is that the later Church corrected the original rigorism of the ancient African theologian and maintained that God’s grace worked even outside the Catholic body. Non-Catholic sacraments have the power to sanctify and save, not only objectively, but also subjectively. It is therefore conceivable also, from the Church’s standpoint, that there is a true, devout and Christian life in those non-Catholic communions which believe in Jesus and baptize in His Name. We Catholics regard this Christian life, wherever it appears, with unfeigned respect and with thankful love. We regard with deep esteem our Protestant deaconesses,[6] and such noble figures at Wichern and Bodelschwingh.[7] We admire the loving manifestations of the “Home Mission.”