The following is an infallible dogmatic statement given by a Pope…
So, what does all this mean? In my opinion, it means that God has used this priest to make you aware of something you did not suspect (that the Catholic Church is indeed the Church our Lord founded and necessary for salvation), and is now He is calling you, and drawing you, into His one true Church “outside of which there is no salvation”.
Oh my goodness. Where is the *Pax *and *Caritas *here? I am shocked, truly. This is a very misleading post, and unfair to the quester.
I have been a Canadian Convention Baptist all my life, and am now converting to Catholicism. But I would never, ever, say to anyone that no one but a Catholic would enter heaven (define?).
First of all:
In the **Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, paragraph 16, the Vatican II **Council Fathers wrote: "Those who have not yet received the gospel are related to the People of God in various ways.
There is, first, that people to which the covenants and promises were made, and from which Christ was born according to the flesh (cf. Romans 9:4-5): In view of the divine choice, they are a people most dear for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts of God are without repentance (cf. Romans 11:28-29).
"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: These profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s judge on the last day.
"Nor is God remote from those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God, since he gives to all men life and breath and all things (cf. Acts 17:25-28), and since the Saviour wills all men to be saved (cf. 1 Timothy 2:4).
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through dictates of their conscience—those too, may achieve eternal salvation.
“Nor shall divine providence deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those who, without any fault of theirs, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God, and who, not without grace, strive to lead a good life.”
So the Fathers of the Council do not exclude anyone acting in good faith from the possibility of salvation.
Then we come to the issue of those who
know about God, and turn away. Presumably they, unlike Hindus or Buddhists who know nothing of our God, go straight to hell. After all the Dogmatic Constitution (above) suggests that intelligent people like Abbi and me who are told they will go to hell if they are not Catholic, but refuse to believe it and continue not to be Catholic, but rather Baptist or Buddhist, certainly
will go straight to hell.
Remember especially that this is the interpretation of the Catholic Church, and not the interpretation of lots of other people who belong to other Christian denominations and other faiths, who have the same right to their own beliefs as do Catholics by international law and by the word of the scriptures.
What I have learned from thoughtful members on this Forum (I can give you the citations if you wish), from people of Christian and other faiths around the world, and from my own Catholic spiritual directors is that
(1) ours is a God of love
(2) our definition of ‘heaven’ is uncertain, but it is probably not a place in the sky with many houses and thrones - more like the vast universe in the Hubble photos on the internet
(3) there are likely to be very few people in hell (define?), and many in heaven, as children of a loving God
(4) people of many faiths will be with God, in his presence, and not separated from him: they are his children
(5) people who have been moral non-Christians, people who have turned away from a belief in my God or your God or someone else’s God but have led a good life will be with God in heaven
In other words, unless you are evil, unless you consciously create evil, if you believe in God - whether as a Muslim, a Jew, a Hindu etc - and if you ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ and ‘love God with all your heart’, you will go to heaven. You do not have to be a Catholic to do so.
Being Catholic is not a guarantee of anything. How you behave in your relationship to God and Jesus, and how you behave in your relationship to other people is what counts. Sure, the Catholic Church is a jolly good church, with lots of good about it, and there are lots of reasons why many of us are or choose to be Catholic. But to say that non-Catholics go to hell is probably blackmail. It is certainly not true.