ABSTRACT
George N. Shuster, who retired as president of Hunter College, was well prepared to discuss the relationship of American Catholics to the secular community. During several years past the following scene had been enacted in a great number of American communities. The phrase "outside the Church there is no salvation" must not be taken to mean that for a Roman theologian every "heretic" or "unbeliever" is doomed to bathe in brimstone. It merely formulates from orthodox premises the relatively common-sense conclusion that the sacramental system is the Divinely ordained means through which human salvation is to be effected. No doubt much of what has just been said appears to be woefully formalistic. One may just as well admit that anyone unwilling to think in terms of the most rigid theological logic will make a poor student of the Catholic position.
