Are there elements of sanctification and truth in the separated communities?
27. The affirmation that a number of elements of sanctification and of truth91 are found outside of the Church is equivocal. This proposition implies in effect the sanctifying power of the means of salvation materially present in the separated Communities. But this cannot be affirmed without distinction. Amongst these elements, those which do not require a specific disposition on the part of the subject the baptism of a child for instance are effectively salutary in the sense that they produce grace efficaciously in the soul of the baptized, who thereby belongs to the Catholic Church without need of sanction to such a degree that he has not reached the age of personal choice.92 For the other elements, which require the dispositions on the part of the subject in order to be efficacious, one must say that they are salutary only in the measure in which the subject is already a member of the Church by his implicit desire. This is what the councils have affirmed: She [the Church] professes
