Can someone explain to me the differences between traditional and Vatican II Catholics?

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AugustineFanNYC

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I am thinking about becoming Catholic and am interested to learn about it’s history.

What are Traditional Catholics? What traditions are you upholding and how do many of you differ from other Catholics?

Do you guys believe there is no salvation outside of Christ, also no salvation outside of the Church?

The reason I ask is there were some things I didn’t understand that have kept me from fully converting. I come from a Protestant background and salvation at least has to be through Christ but there is some stuff I’ve read on Catholic Answers that suggest that non-believers can go to heaven. Is this an example of those disagreements?
 
AugustineFanNYC said:
Do you guys believe there is no salvation outside of Christ, also no salvation outside of the Church?
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There is just a misunderstanding because of the way it’s written. To understand the concept better it may help to think of it as - there is only salvation because of what Christ did.
 
I guess I am just having a hard time with this because all of my favorite Church fathers were Catholic from Aquinas to Augustine.

By no salvation outside of Christ, you guys do mean in a similar vein to the Protestants, that Christ is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him?

So, Islam is not the path to salvation? A Muslim, no matter how faithful to his religion and good, cannot enter heaven through his religion?

I understand that God can save whoever He wants, but salvation is still through Him. I am wondering if Traditional Catholics believe that a person can get to heaven based on his or her being a good person alone.
As in what the Protestants like to say about Catholics, that Catholics believe you just have to be a good person to be saved.
 
AugustineFanNYC said:
By no salvation outside of Christ, you guys do mean in a similar vein to the Protestants, that Christ is the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him?

So, Islam is not the path to salvation? A Muslim, no matter how faithful to his religion and good, cannot enter heaven through his religion?

I understand that God can save whoever He wants, but salvation is still through Him. I am wondering if Traditional Catholics believe that a person can get to heaven based on his or her being a good person alone.
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No, being good alone is not sufficient. Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. However, it could be that this Muslim has never heard of Christ, or that the only things this Muslim person has heard about Christ are outright lies. This Muslim person lives his or her life as well as he or she can in accordance with Islam and dies never knowing Christ. We don’t believe that this Muslim person is necessarily condemned due to his/her ignorance that wasn’t his/her fault.
 
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but let me ask you this, forget outside influences and opinions. what is driving you to convert? what is in your heart?
 
this is what Jesus taught us. God gives us to Jesus. We must accept Jesus to go on the path of salvation. So Jesus strives not to lose a single soul, given Him by God the Father.
We must help Jesus and live a good life, and try to stay in a state of Grace.

and if we fall into mortal sin, go to confession and seek absolution and be truly sorry for offending God.

We can do nothing on our own. So it makes no difference how many good deeds are done. It is God who saves us. We cannot save ourselves.

the only way to the Father is through the Son
 
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AugustineFanNYC said:
So, Islam is not the path to salvation? A Muslim, no matter how faithful to his religion and good, cannot enter heaven through his religion?
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I think you’re not understanding.

Jesus opened heaven up for people to enter. That is what is meant. Anyone, of any religion can enter heaven since Jesus opened it up. Religious affiliation has nothing to do per se with it.

That being said, Jesus initiated a church community which is today called the Catholic Church. Protestant churches are offshoots of the Catholic Church. They have great things to offer, but they are apart, more or less, from the bishops that Christ intended to carry the Church forward through the centuries.
 
Fauken, but are we not all dead in sin and need to be rejuvenated through Christ? How is it a question of being at fault or not? I thought it was a question of grace? I thought that if the person had never heard the Gospel, he would go to hell, because that is the natural state of man. Dead in sin. It is only by God’s grace that the person would find salvation.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
but let me ask you this, forget outside influences and opinions. what is driving you to convert? what is in your heart?
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I’ve been reading Aquinas and have a love for Augustine. I thought they were devout Catholics, so perhaps the Catholic Church is the way. It’s been weighing on my heart to look into it. That’s all. I want to be in the right Church
 
AugustineFanNYC said:
Fauken, but are we not all dead in sin and need to be rejuvenated through Christ?
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Yes we do need Christ. Yes we need His grace. But this corruption is not part of our nature. It’s just that: a corruption. God can use His grace however He likes, and that means He can use it outside His Sacraments. We also know that God is just and merciful. Is it really merciful and fair to be condemned for something you really didn’t know, nor never had the chance to know? Is God confined by His own Gospel? No. We believe He can save them, by His grace, without someone knowing through no fault of their own who He is. Does that make sense?
 
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Fauken said:
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AugustineFanNYC:
Fauken, but are we not all dead in sin and need to be rejuvenated through Christ?
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Yes we do need Christ. Yes we need His grace. But this corruption is not part of our nature. It’s just that: a corruption. God can use His grace however He likes, and that means He can use it outside His Sacraments. We also know that God is just and merciful. Is it really merciful and fair to be condemned for something you really didn’t know, nor never had the chance to know? Is God confined by His own Gospel? No. We believe He can save them, by His grace, without someone knowing through no fault of their own who He is. Does that make sense?
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I can agree with this considering that perhaps God could save anyone that He wants, even someone who hasn’t heard of Him, but I was under the impression that the merciful and fair thing to do was to send His Son down to Earth to die for our sins. Wasn’t that the mercy? That whosoever believes in Him will never die but have everlasting grace?

What do you mean by corruption not being a part of our nature? Are we not by nature the children of wrath? But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—.
 
I absolutely love St Augustine. He is awesome and his works helped define things like good and evil and sin, for the Church. He was a Bishop and a very smart man, who was quite wild in his youth.

A real person!
 
Fauken said:
Yes we do need Christ. Yes we need His grace. But this corruption is not part of our nature. It’s just that: a corruption.
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St Augustine teaches, and this is still held by the Church. We are imperfect, we were created imperfectly.
we can head towards God and attempt to live life in His grace, or we can head towards evil and the corruption of evil. Thats how sin comes about. Our good is corrupted by evil. If we allow it and give in to temptation. Because we are all sinners, we are all imperfect
 
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Roseeurekacross said:
St Augustine teaches, and this is still held by the Church. We are imperfect, we were created imperfectly.
we can head towards God and attempt to live life in His grace, or we can head towards evil and the corruption of evil. Thats how sin comes about. Our good is corrupted by evil.
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I’m not saying we’re perfect. What I’m saying is mostly an attempt to deny the idea of total depravity, which the Church rejects.
 
All Catholics must believe that there is no salvation outside of the Church; it is a dogma of the faith.

Traditionalists basically like the old way of doing things.
 
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