do you have to be Catholic to get into Heaven??

[ron77nyc]

Do those Popes say that “unless one is a full-fledged, baptized member of the CC one will be damned”? I didn’t see that in any of their writings.

YES

These are the Vicars of Christ making infallible statements:

Pope Boniface VIII in his Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (A.D. 1302): “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that **it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature **to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

Pope Benedict XV (A.D. 1914 - 1922): “Such is the nature of the Catholic faith that it does not admit of more or less, but must be held as a whole, or as a whole rejected: This is the Catholic faith, which unless a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.” (Encyclical, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum)

Pope Eugene IV and the Council of Florence (A.D. 1438 - 1445): “[The most Holy Roman Church] firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but will depart `into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matt. 25:41), unless before the end of life the same have been added to the flock;…”

How is it possible to be “added to the flock”, “believe faithfully and firmly” and “be subject to the Roman Pontiff” without being a baptized, law abiding member of the Catholic Church or a church in communion with Rome? These statements exclude Jews, Muslims, Orthodox, Protestants and people who seek God without Catholic knowledge.

 

[2nd_Adam]

Does it matter if you tell Christ, “I don’t believe what you said about eating Your flesh and drinking Your blood.”? Does it matter if you tell Christ, “I know you said that if I divorce someone and marry another I commit adultery, but I just don’t agree with you, Lord.”

I wouldn’t dare tell my Lord that face to face.

What do you mean “these are not gospel issues”? Do you mean they are not “essential” doctrines?

If that’s what you mean, then where does Scripture give us a list of what’s an “essential” doctrine?

Do you think that I am lost or apostate because I don’t hold the Catholic view of communion? If you believe sincere Christians who hold to a different view of communion than your view as a necessary requirment for Heaven, then for you it is a gospel issue. The essentials of the Christian Faith are issues that are required to believe to be saved. There is great tension in this area, but we need to seperate the essentials which we recognize each other as Christians. For example, do you recogonize Mormons to be your brother and sisters in Christ? Or, do you recogonize confessional Protestants to be your brother and sisters in Christ?

 

[BobZ]

Conversion and salvation are both the work of the Holy Spirit, not ours. If we claim that only Catholics can go to heaven then we have judged others too harshly. In fact you are condemning them to hell. The Word of God says quite simply that “Do not condemn, lest you be condemned.” I suggest that we stop pretending that WE know the mind of God.

The Catholic Church recognizes that the Holy Spirit is “active” in other ecclesial communities (most of which were formerly called Protestant Churches). In fact the modern Charismatic movement started in a non-Catholic Christian Churches, NOT the Catholic Church until almost 60 years later. Therefore, I submit that God has already made His decision obvious. It’s clear that anyone who follows the promptings of the Holy Spirit can be saved. In fact, if they do that, then I submit that they already have received the “Baptism of Desire”.

I think that John Paul II said in “Crossing the Threshold of Hope” that the “seeds” of Christ are found in other non-Catholic religions. Thus the question of salvation depends on how faithfully a member follows those “seeds”. We believe that the Catholic Church has the “fullness of Truth” about Christ. We have all 7 Sacraments, not 1 or 2 or 3 of them. We have a vision of the True Christ and a completely consistent moral teaching. In other words, we have ALL the seeds. However, even with all these benefits of truth, some (if not many) Catholics will still not be saved unless they faithfully follow those truths.

Consider that those in other non-C spiritual communities may only have SOME of the seeds of full truth. However, they may be following them MORE faithfully then many Catholics do with more of these seeds.

Finally, I believe that God can do anything. He is NOT even bound by the laws of His Church from providing the grace for non-Catholics to follow Him. We who are living only know of a few different kinds of baptism. The “usual” method is Baptism with water in His name. But the Church tells us that there are more ways. Perhaps those who have died know other ways too.

I’d like to think that Jesus gives each one of us a chance to follow Him at the time of death. This is especially fair for those who have never heard of the Good News about Christ. Sister Faustina may have it exactly right that Christ gives everyone 3 chances at the time of death to follow Him if they have not already done so before death.

I prefer to leave this “management decision” to God. I know what I have to do to get to heaven. That’s the only way I know how to get there for me. I’ll invite others to joint me in the best way I know. That is, via our Catholic Faith. However, I’ll leave the FINAL SALVATION DECISION for others to God. It’s His job !!

Yours in Christ, BobZ

 

[ncgolf]

Do you think that I am lost or apostate because I don’t hold the Catholic view of communion?

No, but the grace found in Eucharist cannot be duplicated elsewhere.

If you believe sincere Christians who hold to a different view of communion than your view as a necessary requirment for Heaven, then for you it is a gospel issue.

It is not a gospel issue … it is a Christ issue. It is he who commanded us to do this … when Christ says “My flesh is true food and my blood true drink”, it is only Christ who can make this believable … impossible as it seems.

The essentials of the Christian Faith are issues that are required to believe to be saved.

Quote me chapter and verse on this doctrine.

There is great tension in this area, but we need to seperate the essentials which we recognize each other as Christians.

We do have much in common and I do recognize you as a fellow Christian.

 

[emseguin]

Dear 2nd Adam

**Do you think that I am lost or apostate because I don’t hold the Catholic view of communion? If you believe sincere Christians who hold to a different view of communion than your view as a necessary requirment for Heaven, then for you it is a gospel issue. The essentials of the Christian Faith are issues that are required to believe to be saved. There is great tension in this area, but we need to seperate the essentials which we recognize each other as Christians. For example, do you recogonize Mormons to be your brother and sisters in Christ? Or, do you recogonize confessional Protestants to be your brother and sisters in Christ? **

This does not make sense, as you are saying before this that as long as we all believe in the gospel, the Bible, in the faith of Scriptures. So with that, who’s interpretation are we going to believe? Yours or my next door neighbor who says the body and blood is not Christ’s true body and blood and is not important for salvation, or Christ’s literal meaning, who said it is His body and blood, and thus carried down though St. Peter until Pope Benedict today?

Again, I ask, who is in charge, the leader of the Protestants?
Why did it come
Who guides your 30000+ churches?
What is the foundation built on? I mean truly built on? Faith in Christ? Well why are there 30000? Cant you have one with the faith in it fine?
Why did the reformation being in 1517? Martin Luther had a new idea, and thus began 1 of 30000+

The essentials of the Christian Faith are issues that are required to believe to be saved.

yes 2nd Adam, the essentials, #1 being the Eucharist. We CANNOT and will never seperate this essential, it is The Church, it is Christ.
Please tell me why it would be faith alone in Scripture, in Christ, anyone can do that, it reqiures what exactly, saying I have faith, and praying in my room.

**Mormons are not Christians, please read up on Joseph Smith…:**hypno:
Is this guy for real? coo coo

PR Merger said it very well:

There’s 40,000 different denominations now, all claiming to proclaim the “truth of the Holy Bible”, but teaching contradictory doctrines.

As well, your statement

**My intention is that you read both of my links in the entire context. **

for

**“The wall is no longer necessary… For this reason Luther’s phrase: “faith alone” is true…” Pope Benedict XVI **

I have and we both know why this statement is your signature, for us Catholics, we understand the entirety of this article however

Peace be with you

JMJ

 

[Carlan]

Dear 2nd Adam

This does not make sense, as you are saying before this that as long as we all believe in the gospel, the Bible, in the faith of Scriptures. So with that, who’s interpretation are we going to believe? Yours or my next door neighbor who says the body and blood is not Christ’s true body and blood and is not important for salvation, or Christ’s literal meaning, who said it is His body and blood, and thus carried down though St. Peter until Pope Benedict today?

Again, I ask, who is in charge, the leader of the Protestants?
Why did it come
Who guides your 30000+ churches?
What is the foundation built on? I mean truly built on? Faith in Christ? Well why are there 30000? Cant you have one with the faith in it fine?
Why did the reformation being in 1517? Martin Luther had a new idea, and thus began 1 of 30000+

yes 2nd Adam, the essentials, #1 being the Eucharist. We CANNOT and will never seperate this essential, it is The Church, it is Christ.
Please tell me why it would be faith alone in Scripture, in Christ, anyone can do that, it reqiures what exactly, saying I have faith, and praying in my room.

**Mormons are not Christians, please read up on Joseph Smith…:**hypno:
Is this guy for real? coo coo

PR Merger said it very well:

As well, your statement for
I have and we both know why this statement is your signature, for us Catholics, we understand the entirety of this article however

Peace be with you

JMJ

Emseguin, welcome and thank you.Carlan

 

[PRmerger]

How is it possible to be “added to the flock”, “believe faithfully and firmly” and “be subject to the Roman Pontiff” without being a baptized, law abiding member of the Catholic Church or a church in communion with Rome? These statements exclude Jews, Muslims, Orthodox, Protestants and people who seek God without Catholic knowledge.

By having faith in Christ, by knowing Christ. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

How would a Jew, Muslim, Essene, Stoic, pagan (or indeed, anyone born before Christ) have known Christ? In the same way everyone can: through the “true light that enlightens everyone.” (John 1:9), as the eternal Logos, as the Divine Word or Light or Reason.

Even St. Paul affirms that the pagans knew God, therefore pagans knew Christ!

Thus, if a Jew, Muslim, pagan, Buddhist seeks God, repents of his sins and obscurely believes in and accepts the God he knew partially and obscurely, he could be saved–or damned, if he refuses to seek, repent and believe. The CC is visible enough and provides enough light, enough opportunity, enough knowledge and enough free choice to make everyone responsible before God. He judges according to the knowledge each individual has, not according to a knowledge they do not have (see Jas 3:1)

(above paraphrased from Catholic philospher extraordinare, Peter Kreeft).

 

[ron77nyc]

Thus, if a Jew, Muslim, pagan, Buddhist seeks God, repents of his sins and obscurely believes in and accepts the God he knew partially and obscurely, he could be saved–or damned, if he refuses to seek, repent and believe. The CC is visible enough and provides enough light, enough opportunity, enough knowledge and enough free choice to make everyone responsible before God. He judges according to the knowledge each individual has, not according to a knowledge they do not have (see Jas 3:1)

(above paraphrased from Catholic philospher extraordinare, Peter Kreeft).

I agree 100% but that is not what the 3 popes that I quoted were saying.

Pope Eugene said in a papal encyclical: “none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her.”

They were obviously not teaching what the Church teaches now. Were these popes teaching error? If anyone else has the answer, please jump in.

Here’s another:
Pope Leo XIII (A.D. 1878 - 1903): “This is our last lesson to you; receive it, engrave it in your minds, all of you: by God’s commandment salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church.” (Encyclical, Annum Ingressi Sumus)

 

[2nd_Adam]

I heard something on Catholic Answers Radio years ago concerning this…

I can’t remember who said it but he was a guest on the show and he said that all Christians will be Catholic before they get into Heaven. If the person is a protestant and dies in a state of grace, he will go to Purgatory and then will learn that the Roman Catholic Church was the One Church… founded by Christ and will then have to, in Purgatory… well, to paraphrase his words… he will have to become Catholic…

i totally belive this.

so why are we not working harder to make everyone Catholic??

true, we can’t make anyone Catholic any more than we can make everyone Republican (Too bad, huh??)

but there are many things we can do…

and it seems we aren’t doing them… seems we Catholics don’t want to make too many more Catholics… (genearlly speakign)

What an interesting topic. Where in Scripture does it teach that you need to be Catholic to get into Heaven? When the Philippian jailer cried out what must I do to be saved, what was the Apostle’s answer?

 

[PRmerger]

I agree 100% but that is not what the 3 popes that I quoted were saying.

Pope Eugene said in a papal encyclical: “none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her.”

They were obviously not teaching what the Church teaches now. Were these popes teaching error? If anyone else has the answer, please jump in.

Here’s another:
Pope Leo XIII (A.D. 1878 - 1903): “This is our last lesson to you; receive it, engrave it in your minds, all of you: by God’s commandment **salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church.” **(Encyclical, Annum Ingressi Sumus)

Salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church. There is no salvation outside the CC. Outside the Church there is no salvation. Sounds pretty much the same thing to me!

They all are saying the same consistent never-changing thing. No one is saved outside of Christ. No one is saved outside the Catholic Church. If a pagan or a Jew or an Essene is in heaven, it is because he embraced Christ and he embraced the Catholic Church.

Nothing more!

Nothing less!

 

[2nd_Adam]

Salvation is to be found nowhere but in the Church. There is no salvation outside the CC. Outside the Church there is no salvation. Sounds pretty much the same thing to me!

They all are saying the same consistent never-changing thing. No one is saved outside of Christ. No one is saved outside the Catholic Church. If a pagan or a Jew or an Essene is in heaven, it is because he embraced Christ and he embraced the Catholic Church.

Nothing more!

Nothing less!

As your seperated Protestant brother, could you please show me in the Bible where you came to this conclusion stated in your post above? I have been reading and studying the Bible for at least 20 years, but I have no idea how you can support your statement with either the Catholic cannon or Protestant cannon of Scripture. What must I do to be saved according to the Apostle?

 

[guanophore]

This is how it was in the beginning (the beginning of the Church)

Acts 15:5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.”
Have popes and the magisterium replaced the law of Moses with their own law?

If they have, what “law” do you think it might be? Do you think that the perception of the writers that the One Body of Christ, the Church as necessary is a “law of the magesterium”?

do you think Jesus has more than One Body?

8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.
Can we apply this to non-Catholics?

Is there some way in which you think it is not?

Do you think Apollos had the HS from God?

19 “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood.
These 3 traditions or disciplines or whatever you want to call them are no longer spoken of but new ones are emphasized with mortal sin attached to them if they are neglected.

This is a good point. Indeed, they are disciplines (pastoral directives) that are designed to foster unity in a mixed community of Jews and Gentiles. After the diaspora, there were very few predominently Jewish communities where such pastoral guidelines were necessary.

Mortal sin emanates from disobedience. We are commanded to follow our leaders, our shepherds who will give an account of our souls. If we are obedient, even when such disciplines are not necessary, God will bless our commitment to Him.

 

[ron77nyc]

They all are saying the same consistent never-changing thing.

Some are saying you have to buy a ticket and get on the train and others are saying you can jump on and ride on the top or the side of the train.

Pope Gregory XVI (A.D. 1831 - 1846): “It is not possible to worship God truly except in Her; all who are outside Her will not be saved.” (Encyclical, Summo Jugiter)

 

[guanophore]

absolutely agree.

And He will gladly open His arms to anyone who has a change of heart and sincerly repents their “evil” ways… even if it just happens to be during their last breath they will take on this side of eternity.

I think that is what He meant to convey with the parable of the laborers.

 

[PRmerger]

As your seperated Protestant brother, could you please show me in the Bible where you came to this conclusion stated in your post above?

You are mistaken if you think that all conclusions about salvation, about God, about Christ, about the church, about morality are to be "shown in the Bible’, Adam, for the Bible does not state that, neither explicitly, nor implicitly. That is a man-made tradition that you’ve been taught.

What must I do to be saved according to the Apostle?

We are saved…

By believing in Christ (Jn 3:16; Acts 16:31)

By repentance (Acts 2:38; 2 Pet 3:9)

By baptism (Jn 3:5; 1 Pet 3:21; Titus 3:5)

By the work of the Spirit (Jn 3:5; 2 Cor 3:6)

By declaring with our mouths (Lk 12:8; Rom 10:9)

By coming to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4; Heb 10:26)

By works (Rom 2:6-7; James 2:24)

By grace (Acts 15:11; Eph 2:8)

By his blood (Rom 5:9; Heb 9:22)

By his righteousness (Rom 5:17; 2 Pet 1:1)

By his Cross (Eph 2:16; Col 2:14)?

 

[guanophore]

Iiving together doesn’t seem to be the problem that it used to be. No one gets upset about it and no one ever preaches about it among Catholic or Protestants.

Ron, you really need to listen to some Fr. Corapi.

 

[PRmerger]

Some are saying you have to buy a ticket and get on the train and others are saying you can jump on and ride on the top or the side of the train.

Perhaps. But all are saying that you need the train. Outside of the train you can’t get to Old Smokey.

Pope Gregory XVI (A.D. 1831 - 1846): “It is not possible to worship God truly except in Her; all who are outside Her will not be saved.” (Encyclical, Summo Jugiter)

Amen to that!

 

[ron77nyc]

If they have, what “law” do you think it might be? Do you think that the perception of the writers that the One Body of Christ, the Church as necessary is a “law of the magesterium”?

I’m thinking more like this: making it a mortal sin to miss Mass on a holy day and making it a mortal sin to eat meat during Lent and then excusing those in Irish communities so they can eat corned beef on St. Patrick’s Day. St. Paul wrote about this. He lived under the laws of the Old Covenant.

Colossians 2
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because** they are based on human commands and teachings**. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

 

[guanophore]

If you heard Popes Boniface or Eugene say the following you would not come away from it thinking "Maybe there’s hope for my Protestant, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim friends."

Maybe not, but at the time, there were no Protesant denominations, only apostates, and heretics. When one reads such historical documents, one must understand them in their context.

 

[ron77nyc]

Pope Gregory XVI (A.D. 1831 - 1846): “It is not possible to worship God truly except in Her; all who are outside Her will not be saved.” (Encyclical, Summo Jugiter)

Amen to that!

So after 1315 posts we are still saying both are true. You have to be a Catholic to be saved and you don’t have to be a Catholic to be saved.