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

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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 prefer to use an anecdotal atheist on an island. Let’s name her Maggie

Maggie is born to atheist parents in an atheist society. From a young age she is never told about God. But despite that, she still tries to do good. Even though she can’t explain it, she follows a moral code. Some of the others think it’s silly, but she just feels it’s right. On her deathbed, she is sorry for what she’s done wrong.
On the other side she meets Jesus. He tells her that even though she knew not His name nor any explicit knowledge of Him, she followed Him. And He knows that had she heard of Him, she would have been baptized. And called Him by name. Even though Maggie would never have called herself Christian in life, it was through no fault of her own.
 
Anyone who declares themselves to be a ‘traditional’ Catholic or a ‘ Vatican II’ Catholic is separating themselves from the Catholic Church… this tends to be isolated to the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church. There are 23 Rites (I believe that is correct) in the Catholic Church… none of them is the traditional rite or the VII rite
 
mVitus said:
I prefer to use an anecdotal atheist on an island. Let’s name her Maggie

Maggie is born to atheist parents in an atheist society. From a young age she is never told about God. But despite that, she still tries to do good. Even though she can’t explain it, she follows a moral code. Some of the others think it’s silly, but she just feels it’s right. On her deathbed, she is sorry for what she’s done wrong.
On the other side she meets Jesus. He tells her that even though she knew not His name nor any explicit knowledge of Him, she followed Him. And He knows that had she heard of Him, she would have been baptized. And called Him by name. Even though Maggie would never have called herself Christian in life, it was through no fault of her own.
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That’s actually very well put. I was leaning toward this understanding but you put it better than I did.

It is still in spite of whatever religion is around them, no? It’s not the religion, no matter how good it is that does the saving.
You reconciled a lot of things in my mind. First that we are not putting God into this very closed logic box as the Calvinists do, but at the same time it’s not undoing the fact that ALL salvation is through Christ alone.

And even though this topic is merely speculative , what we objectively know is that there is no salvation outside of Christ. So we cannot just assume that this speculation about salvation is what the Church objectively believes, no? It’s just a possibility?

Am I in the ballpark?
 
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I believe the Traditional take on this is that if she truly followed the moral code written on her heart, then God would send a Catholic missionary to them. Otherwise they’re damned.

I don’t know if I agree with that sentiment, but I HAVE heard Traditional priests state that in You Tube videos.
 
deMontfort said:
I believe the Traditional take on this is that if she truly followed the moral code written on her heart, then God would send a Catholic missionary to them. Otherwise they’re damned.

I don’t know if I agree with that sentiment, but I HAVE heard Traditional priests state that in You Tube videos.
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This would make sense too. With all of the speculation and possibilities, it should still be affirmed that there is no salvation outside of Christ, no?
 
There is no salvation outside Christ and His Church, the Catholic Church.

However, people have different views as to how one can be in communion with Christ and His Church. The current Catechism takes a broad, inclusive view. In the past, many Catholics took a much narrower view that in their minds would result in many more non-Catholics going to the h…l place.
 
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AugustineFanNYC said:
Am I in the ballpark?
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I think so.
AugustineFanNYC said:
So we cannot just assume that this speculation about salvation is what the Church objectively believes, no? It’s just a possibility?
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Well we know one cannot sin if one does not know what they are doing is a sin. So the question to ask yourself would be if people can honestly not know the Catholic Church to be Christ’s Church through no fault if their own.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
There is no salvation outside Christ and His Church, the Catholic Church.

However, people have different views as to how one can be in communion with Christ and His Church. The current Catechism takes a broad, inclusive view. In the past, many Catholics took a much narrower view that in their minds would result in many more non-Catholics going to the h…l place.
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I don’t think of it as broad or inclusive, otherwise what would be the point of being Catholic? I think it’s just saying that we shouldn’t put God in a box. Ultimately the saving is all up to Him. It leaves room for the possibility, but that it might not be likely, and that what we objectively know is that which is written in scripture.

Either way, all the disputes and viewpoints are within the context that it is the God of the Bible, the True Triune God that does the saving. Not any other god of any other religion. It’s still affirming that God only does the saving.

No one will go to heaven because of Islam or Buddhism, but because of God’s grace.
 
deMontfort said:
I believe the Traditional take on this is that if she truly followed the moral code written on her heart, then God would send a Catholic missionary to them. Otherwise they’re damned.

I don’t know if I agree with that sentiment, but I HAVE heard Traditional priests state that in You Tube videos.
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That is what the Church teaches, albeit that God can also use extraordinary ways to bring someone to faith–whether that be an angel, interior inspiration, etc.

As the Catechism says in paragraph 848 “in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him.”

Compare with St. Robert Bellarmine:

De Gratis et Libero Arbitrio, lib. 2, cap. 8
For the pagans to whom the Gospel has not yet been preached, can know from His creatures that God exists; then they can be stimulated by God, through His preventing grace, to believe in God, that He exists and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him: and from such faith, they can be inspired, under the guidance and help of God, to pray and give alms and in this way obtain from God a still greater light of faith, which God will communicate to them, either by Himself or through angels or through men.
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AugustineFanNYC said:
I don’t think of it as broad or inclusive, otherwise what would be the point of being Catholic?
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The point of being Catholic is to love and serve God more fully and to be as close to Him as we can possibly be. The whole point of going to Heaven is to get close to God. It’s not just a matter of avoiding uncomfortable fire.

The “likelihood” of being saved is up to God, and we frankly don’t have any idea how he might decide. Also, he makes decisions based on individual persons’ hearts, not blanket decisions based on whether it’s a group of Catholics or a group of Buddhists. He might decide that 10 Buddhists are worthy of being saved but only 1 Catholic is, for all we know.
 
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Earlier this year the CDF gave an interesting explanation about why salvation is tied to belonging to the Church that kind of flew under the radar.

Scroll down to the section titled “V. Salvation in the Church, Body of Christ” here:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...c_con_cfaith_doc_20180222_placuit-deo_en.html

That is a “positive” explanation. The “negative” is simply that the things which delineate the Church are baptism, profession of faith, and hierarchical communion, and therefore the things opposed to them–not receiving baptismal grace or dying guilty of heresy, apostasy, or schism–exclude from salvation.

None of this is changed. If anything, it is only the presumption of innocence is more liberally applied to those born in other Christian communities. But even this is nothing really new and should be more liberally applied as time passes. In the 18th century, for example, the famous Cardinal Manning said of Anglicans:
Every successive generation was still less culpable, in proportion as they were born into a greater privation, and under the dominion of a tradition of error already grown strong. For three centuries they have been born further and further out of the truth, and their culpability is perpetually diminishing; and as they were passively borne onward in the course of the English separation, the moral responsibility for the past is proportionately less.
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(From the Workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church of England)

We’re even farther removed from the original separation since then.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
The point of being Catholic is to love and serve God more fully and to be as close to Him as we can possibly be. The whole point of going to Heaven is to get close to God. It’s not just a matter of avoiding uncomfortable fire.

The “likelihood” of being saved is up to God, and we frankly don’t have any idea how he might decide. Also, he makes decisions based on individual persons’ hearts, not blanket decisions based on whether it’s a group of Catholics or a group of Buddhists. He might decide that 10 Buddhists are worthy of being saved but only 1 Catholic is, for all we know.
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So then it is reduced to how good a person is? That’s too inclusive, sorry. I think Genesis315 hit it right on the nail.

I totally agree with the first part of your post, but the second is too open for my tastes. We should all be asking those Buddhists what is the true path.
 
AugustineFanNYC said:
So then it is reduced to how good a person is?
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No, it is “reduced” to God’s decision to apply His mercy.

Which we don’t understand and never will fully comprehend. We are not God.

The best we can do is try to love God and others as much as we can, and throw ourselves on his mercy for the rest.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
No, it is “reduced” to God’s decision to apply His mercy.

Which we don’t understand and never will fully comprehend. We are not God.

The best we can do is try to love God and others as much as we can, and throw ourselves on his mercy for the rest.
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I understand this and don’t disagree, but emphasizing His mercy and stretching it out to where it’s arbitrarily how good that person was doesn’t square with what He has told us objectively through His Word.

There are things we do understand. This is one of them. The rest is just speculation and mere possibility. I am open to that possibility, but I assume we still have to affirm what is written down in Scripture.

I don’t stretch that mercy out just to be inclusive in order appear more loving to non-Christians. Don’t some things have to remain sound? People might get the wrong idea and assume, well I guess I just have to be a good person and be moral.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
How is “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” not “sound”?
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Is it not love to tell them about Jesus, and that their religion is not the true way, that no one comes to the father except through Him?

I get what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t stretch out God’s mercy to sound that inclusive. It’s a speculative possibility, not something the Church builds itself upon. I doubt they would tell people to use that as a tool to evangelize. That could get twisted up to mean that all one has to do is be a good person, not seek Christ and His Church.
 
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I think “loving your neighbor” means trying to get as many neighbors to heaven as possible.
We can witness, we can evangelize, and we can and should pray for their souls and ask God to have mercy on them and take them to heaven even before ourselves.

I pray for non-Catholics specifically every time I pass a non-Catholic cemetery.

In the end, God decides, and he doesn’t share all of his reasoning with us.
 
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No disagreement there, and I am not trying to be combative. It’s just that if you were to tell someone exactly what you told me about the 10 Buddhists and the 1 Catholic. Someone might think, oh well then God just chooses people based on how good they are, so I don’t need the Catholic Church, I’ll just be a good person who follows the law. They will thank you and be on their way.
 
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