Hi…based on what I have read and pasted below from the CCC…the statement is true…with significant doctrinal qualifications. The bottom line to me is that a person can’t fool Almighty God either about his/her personal life circumstances or the truth of his/her heart, mind, soul and body…conscience.
Also, there is another statement [para 1793] in the CCC re: formation of our conscience and the our culpability for our sins when our conscience is ill formed re: Church’s teachings. It says in effect that there is such a thing as “invincible ignorance”…true…but my own personal experience is that all my lack of belief/disobedience in the Church’s teachings on faith and morals was based primarily on my “invincible pride”…I just wanted to play God…Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me…a sinner.
Pax Christi
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“Outside the Church there is no salvation” * (quote from CCC leading to para 846)***
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846 **How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. 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.
847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
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 the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
[CCC cross ref see paras: 161 & 1257]
1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.60 He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them.61 Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.62 The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are “reborn of water and the Spirit.”
God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.
"Although 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, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338
[CCC cross ref see para: 1260]
1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."63 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have
desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.
