It’s this part of 846 that bugs me.
“Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.”
This is where my scenerio comes in. Someone who knows and once believed all the Church teaches, still Christian but who had a change in beliefs and doesn’t remain
.
Matt, when the passage says ‘could not’, the passage is not saying, "It is the man-made judgment of the Catholic Church that person X who ‘changed beliefs with a ‘sincere heart’ is going to hell.’
It is saying a person who knew that the Church’s teachings were true and that was the ONE Church of Christ and yet refused to remain in that Church, was by God’s own judgment (unless of course that person repented) on the fast track to rejection of Him.
Take John, a Catholic who ‘knows’ his faith, accepts it as true, then is ‘blindsided’ due to various circumstances and ‘honestly’ comes to believe in the SDA, for example, and leaves the Catholic Church. Now, John ‘rejected’ the Catholic Church because the SDA told him it was wrong. John now does not believe the Catholic Church is the true Church. So-- It is entirely possible that even though John ‘left’ Catholicism for SDA, he may still be saved, because John did not and still does not realize that Catholicism was True. Instead, he thinks SDA is true.
Now take James, a Catholic who ‘knows’ his faith, accepts it as true, and then later after he marries, divorces, and then wants to remarry another, finds himself upset by Catholic teachings on the subject of marriage. So James decides to join the Episcopal church because he likes their teachings on that subject ‘better.’ James does not think the Episcopal Church is the "One True Church.’ James KNOWS that the Catholic Church is the one true Church. On everything, even the marriage’ question, James absolutely agrees with the Catholic Church. But because he personally does not wish to submit to the Church’s authority in the area of sex and marriage, he joins the local Episcopal Church and refuses to ‘stay’ the Catholic Church, so that he can marry after being divorced without going through the ‘fuss and bother’ of seeking a decree of nullity.
Now James is in a much more perilous position because James knows the truth of the Church and accepts it but because he doesn’t want to have to ‘fuss and bother’, decides to go to a church that won’t ‘make’ him fuss.
I think that you are confused by the ‘sincere change of beliefs’ addition you have made. **Notice that the Catechism does not say anything about that. **
You can be sincerely wrong. . .but your culpability is
lessened if you did not truly know the truth to begin with.
If John changed his mind because he was honestly ‘convinced’ (even though the ‘facts’ he was convinced by ultimately turned out to be false), then he doesn’t think that the Catholic Church IS the True Church, right?
And if JAMES never really changed his mind over the truth of the church but didn’t want to abide by one particular area and so left the church for another church that didn’t ‘fuss’. . .James DOES know and even accept the Church as true but refuses to ‘remain’ in the Church.
John (the now SDA who rejects the Church) does not now accept the Church as being ‘true’. Even though he was once Catholic, he is not necessarily ‘doomed.’
But James is a different story. James DOES accept the Church as being true even on the point where he has ‘left’, but James refuses to abide and goes off to a church where he can ‘have what he wants’ even though he doesn’t accept THAT church as being the true Church. That isn’t a ‘sincere change of beliefs’ Matt, that is what the whole thing about ‘knowing the truth and REJECTING IT’ is. . .very different from 'knowing the truth but somehow making a wrong judgment and then thinking that truth wasn’t really the truth after all.
Suppose I think that Comcast is the very best cable provider anywhere. But somebody comes by and tells me that Comcast is a satanic group and so, alarmed, I switch to Verizon. Later I find out that Comcast is not satanic. I was given wrong information and based on that wrong information I rejected having Comcast. If I had not been given that wrong information I would have stayed with Comcast. When I find out the truth, I go back to Comcast.
Suppose my neighbor thinks that Comcast is the very best cable provider anywhere, but he is approached by Verizon because they want to infiltrate the area. My neighbor, fully knowing that Comcast is best, but working for Verizon for the money they offer, goes around telling his neighbors that Comcast is a satanic group, and winds up getting a lot of them to switch to Verizon. He himself at all times knows that he is telling lies about Comcast and he never at any time thinks Verizon is better, but he has Verizon because it offers him a good ‘money’ deal.
The first scenario is your person who ‘sincerely changes’ his mind, Matt. At any point until death this person may find that he has ‘erred’ and since this person genuinely is seeking truth, this person may be saved.
The second scenario is what the CHURCH is talking about in the catechism passage that worries you, Matt. The second person is the one who KNOWINGLY rejects. The first person (and your 'sincere persons) do not necessarily KNOWINGLY reject the Truth. Only the second person who knows the truth yet rejects it for some sort of other ‘gain’ is doomed (unless he repents).
