All heathens to Hell?

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According to Romans II they will be judged according to their conscience. Since they are not baptized they are outside the law and there it says:
11For there is no favoritism with God. 12For whoever had sinned without the law, will perish without the law. And whoever had sinned in the law, will be judged by the law. 13For it is not the hearers of the law who are just before God, but rather it is the doers of the law who shall be justified. 14For when the Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature those things which are of the law, such persons, not having the law, are a law unto themselves. 15For they reveal the work of the law written in their hearts, while their conscience renders testimony about them, and their thoughts within themselves also accuse or even defend them, 16unto the day when God shall judge the hidden things of men, through Jesus Christ, according to my Gospel.
 
What are the ways in which a person can become a member of the Church, even at the point of death for the run-of-the-mill heathen?

Dan
 
Umm… yes. It does.

If it didn’t, then it wouldn’t be baptism and it wouldn’t be valid. If one is baptized, and through that baptism, becomes a child of God and sibling of Jesus… then sanctifying grace has been imparted.

@(name removed by moderator), I’m very disappointed. In this thread, you’ve made the case that we can safely ignore magisterial teachings because they’re not as authoritative as teachings of the extraordinary magisterium. And now, as proof, you’re offering statements that aren’t even from the magisterium? C’mon…

No. Canonization is not proof that everything a saint said or wrote is true. St Augustine asserted the ‘massa damnata’; St Thomas Aquinas believed that Mary wasn’t Immaculately Conceived; St Peter told Christ that He should not accept death.

Being canonized a saint neither assures that one’s every statement is correct, nor does it raise the saint’s statements to the level of magisterial teaching.
 
If you can provide a magisterial teaching that asserts that every word a saint wrote is free from doctrinal error, as a condition of their canonization, then I’ll concede the point. Otherwise, I’ll continue to gently remind you that you’re asserting something that the Church does not teach. 😉
 
The Church does not teach that every anecdote related by a saint is, per se, doctrinally true and free from any error. That’s what you seem to be asserting here. (If I wanted to discuss the merits of your particular claim here, I’d point out that the good saint seems to be talking about the “wide is the path… narrow is the path” teaching in Scripture, rather than the specific question of how many non-Catholics reach heaven (which is what you’re claiming that this quote proves). I don’t want to get into the merits of your assertion, though, since your basis is flawed.)
The Church does not teach post-Vatican II novelties either.
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We’re pointing out teachings of Second Vatican Council documents, not “post-Vatican II novelties”. It’s pretty important to be able to distinguish between the two…
 
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand “baptism of desire” to apply only to catechumens who die prior to their scheduled date of baptism. It does not apply to any unbaptized person who is invincibly ignorant.
 
You said that the statement of a saint, by virtue of its having been asserted by a saint, implies its doctrinal truth. And therefore, it proves your point.

Not “blowing everything out of proportion”. Just trying to shed light on what you’ve said… and why it doesn’t hold. Sorry if that annoys you. 🤷‍♂️

And you’re disagreeing with the statements of the council, not external ‘novelties’. Which means you’re denying the statements of the ordinary magisterium. Good luck with that. 🤷‍♂️

Do you have a magisterial teaching that says this? I’m asking honestly – my understanding is that, while such folks can be saved, this is not what is meant by “baptism of desire.” Thanks!

Are you really certain you want to go down the rabbit hole of discussing how a Protestant in the 21st-century is a ‘heretic’ in the way that Aquinas meant? 😉
 
I’m cool with the teaching, as it’s presented in Jesus’ teaching found in Scripture. Yet, the claim being made wasn’t “few are saved” – which is true – but rather, it was an attempt to claim that this teaching means that very few non-Catholics will be judged by God as invincibly ignorant.

Won’t it be a real kick in the pants if we get to the pearly gates, and St Peter looks at us and shrugs, saying, “to those to whom much has been given, much is expected” and then turns to those maligned non-Catholics and says, “welcome, good and faithful servants”…? 😱
 
You are placing YOUR interpretation of a council, that occurred centuries ago within a very particular context, over that of St John Paul II who declared the Catechism a “sure norm”.
 
Did I read earlier the suggestion that non-Catholic baptisms weren’t valid?
 
Well of course the question always comes up. What about the pygmies in Africa who have no knowledge of baptism? The answer we were always given in Catholic Education was that everybody has a chance to get to heaven and it is in God’s purview to make that decision, not the purview of the rest of us humans. That is all I am going by.
 
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Irrelevant because I am not speaking explicitly of the contents of the Council in that post, but merely stating that the Council was an act of the Extraordinary Magisterium.
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The Magisterium is a LIVING Magisterium.
Do you know what that means?
 
The role of the living Magisterium is to explicate and reaffirm past dogmatic statements, not put a new spin of them! 😱
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Straw man…
 
QwertyGirl said:
Well of course the question always comes up. What about the pygmies in Africa who have no knowledge of baptism? The answer we were always given in Catholic Education was that everybody has a chance to get to heaven and it is in God’s purview to make that decision, not the purview of the rest of us humans. That is all I am going by.
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Yes. The Catechism tells us:
“Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.”
(CCC, #1260)
 
I suppose going with the teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation, we must say that everyone who is saved is, in some way, baptized prior to judgment. As noted above this can include baptism by desire and by blood (martyrdom).

I’m not sure how exactly baptism of desire and invincible ignorance relate-- I’d imagine it has to do with God’s judgment of how that person lived and whether they would have desired baptism had they been able to know the truth.

Edit-- yeah, Catechism quote above seems to cover it well.
 
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I took issue with your personal interpretation that salvation of non-Catholics is “very rare”.
 
No, and Protestant baptism doesn’t incorporate a person into the Church either.
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The sacramental bond of the unity of Christians

1271 Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: "For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church."81 "Baptism therefore constitutes the sacramental bond of unity existing among all who through it are reborn."82
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Read the Second Vatican Council document Nostra Aetate and you’ll see why all humanity has a chance at heaven. The document further develops and explains the doctrine that there is “no salvation outside the Church.”

Yet, for those in the Church who reject the Second Vatican Council, there is no convincing them God is so good as to love and save the unbaptized. Such a God is too foreign to their view of God and humanity.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...ts/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html
 
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