Ad Gentes – Decree on the Mission Activity

Dec 01, 2024

5. Ad Gentes – Vatican II’s Decree on Missionary Activity

Not surprisingly, we also find heresy in Vatican II’s Decree on Missionary Activity.

Vatican II document, Ad Gentes # 6: “For although the Church possesses totally and fully the means of salvation, it neither always nor at once puts or can put them all into operation, but is subject to beginnings and stages in the activity by which it strives to bring God’s plan into effect. Indeed, at times, after a successful start and advance, it has to grieve at another reverse, or at least it halts in a certain state of semi-fulfillment and insufficiency.”[90]

Vatican II asserts that the Catholic Church is insufficient as a means of salvation. This is a rejection of the dogma Outside the Church There is No Salvation. If there is no salvation outside the Church (a dogma), that necessarily means that the Church is sufficient for man’s salvation!

Pope Innocent III, Eius exemplo, Dec. 18, 1208: “By the heart we believe and by the mouth we confess the one Church, not of heretics, but the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church outside of which we believe that no one is saved.”[91]
Pope Clement VI, Super quibusdam, Sept. 20, 1351: “In the second place, we ask whether you and the Armenians obedient to you believe that no man of the wayfarers outside the faith of this Church, and outside the obedience to the Pope of Rome, can finally be saved.”[92]
Vatican II document, Ad Gentes # 29: “Together with the Secretariat for the promotion of Christian unity, it should search out ways and means for bringing about and organizing cooperation and harmonious relationships with other communities of Christians in their missionary projects, so that as far as possible the scandal of division may be removed.”[93]

Ad Gentes 29 teaches that Catholics should work with Protestant sects in their missionary projects. This means that Vatican II considers a conversion to Protestantism a true conversion.This is heresy. There is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. A conversion to Protestantism is not a true conversion.

Pope Leo X, Fifth Lateran Council, Session 8, Dec. 19, 1513: “And since truth cannot contradict truth, we define that every statement contrary to the enlightened truth of the faith is totally false and we strictly forbid teaching otherwise to be permitted. We decree that all those who cling to erroneous statements of this kind, thus sowing heresies which are wholly condemned, should be avoided in every way and punished as detestable and odious heretics and infidels who are undermining the Catholic faith.”[94]

[90] Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 2, p. 1015.

[91] Denzinger 423.

[92] Denzinger 570b.

[93] Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 2, p. 1035.

[94] Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 1, pp. 605-606.