[ultima ratio]

No--words have meanings. "Subsistit" requires the preposition "in"--which necessarily implies something is in something else. It suggests two entitities. Even Cardinal Ratzinger admits as much:

"When the Council Fathers replaced the word 'is' with the word 'subsistit,' they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by 'is' (to be) is far broader than that expresed by 'to subsist.' 'To subsist' is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say that THE BEING OF THE CHURCH AS SUCH IS A BROADER ENTITY THAN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject." (L'Osservatore Romano, Oct 8, 2000, p. 4.)

As Ferrara and Woods point out in The Great Facade, the Catholic Church had always identified itself as the Mystical Body of Christ--i.e., the Church of Christ. Pius XII in Humani Generis states this: "The Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing." This was an assertion of Church self-understanding that had always been held until Vatican II.

[Saint Athanasius]

Are you saying that only Catholics can be saved?

I promise this probably the last post... my wife is going to kill me.

[Thorondir]

So is Cardinal Ratzinger saying that VII is in error?

[Bellarmine]

If the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are not the same, what is the meaning of "extra ecclesiam nulla salus"? Does it refer to the Church of Christ or the Roman Catholic Church?