Is there salvation outside the Catholic Church?!

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DictatorCzar said:
I was wondering if Catholics and Protestants can work on other problems instead of fighting each other. Because they both do believe in Jesus Christ.
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I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?

The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swears by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
― C.S. Lewis, [The Last Battle]
 
Wait, not TO Mary but with-asking Mary for intercession?!
 
englands123 said:
The door is open to all who come to server the Lord
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The door is open, one need to enter the door to serve the Lord

Your sentence above shows that the person need come in to The Church, and not remain outside
 
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The necessity of being incorporated into the Church for salvation is straight out of Scripture and has always been the Tradition of the Church.

To be saved, you need to be baptized (John 3:3) into the one Body in the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13), partake of the one bread as one Body (1 Cor. 10:17), profess the One Lord, one faith, one Baptism (Eph 4:4-5). Like Noah’s ark in the flood, outside of which none were saved, Baptism now saves (1 Peter 3:20-21), and since we are baptized into the one Body it has the same significance as the ark.

Furthermore, to have fellowship or communion with Christ, you must have fellowship with those who have fellowship with Him (1 John 1:3). We are forbidden from schisms and must be united in belief (1 Cor. 1:10). Heresy and schism, therefore, also exclude from salvation (Gal 5:20-21; Titus 3:10-11).

It bears pointing out that heresy and schism, like all sins, must be properly deliberate and volitional for their to be guilt (a person in good conscience doing their due diligence to seek the truth about God and his Church would not be guilty of such sins if committed in error). The Church’s Tradition also confirms that the necessary faith and charity can provide the means of baptismal grace, where actual baptism is lacking through no fault of the person.

On top of all that, we acknowledge that God desires all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4) and therefore He offers to all the means of being saved and coming to the knowledge of truth, even if in ways known only to Himself–even if only at the “eleventh hour” (Matt. 20:6-9), that is, at the end of life.

Therefore, we cannot pass any judgment on the final fate of any non-Catholic. Just because a person is a non-Catholic now or we never see them become a formal member of the Church, doesn’t mean that at some point before they go to their judgment they have not been incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church, through faith and charity and persevered to the end in grace.

To sum it up, while outside the Church there is no salvation, God offers all the means of receiving that salvation at some point in their lives. No one is excluded.
 
QwertyGirl said:
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Gorgias:
Christ himself said that many will cry out “Lord, Lord!” but He will respond “I do not know you.”
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How loving.
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That’s one way of looking at it. The way it’s intended, on the other hand, is that it’s possible to think you’re actively in relationship with someone when actually, you’re not. 🤷‍♂️
 
My God knows everyone and would never say that to someone calling out to him. Just sayin’.
 
You know, I do understand your POV. Eternal and universal salvation sounds loving. It takes a lot of worry away; no need to worry about slip ups, sins, etc. God understands and of COURSE when we die, we would never turn away from Him and even if we did, He would somehow ‘make us’ OK with Him. All we need to do is be ‘good enough’ and trust to somebody to accept us "as we are’ because, well, He made us, it’s HIS responsibility if He is ‘really loving’ to love us enough to ‘get us to heaven’.

But I see why Jesus isn’t ‘your God’, because Jesus, despite all His good sayings, like “Suffer the children to come to Me” also has some of these hard sayings. If you listen to HIM, He talks about how some people don’t get to Heaven. (And if He’s God, He oughta know who makes it).

So it’s a conundrum.

Either Jesus is God (and if He is, then what He says must be true, and if there is a problem where we think He’s wrong, the problem must be with our understanding, and we need to bring our thoughts in line with His). . .

Or He isn’t. You think He isn’t. Which is in your case a reason to ignore the hard sayings because “He isn’t MY god”.

Well, if your God is the real one (whatever/whoever He might be), then He or she will understand why Christians are Christians and we’ll get in because universal salvation blah. . .

If our God is the real one, then He will also understand why people reject Him. He is merciful as well as just, so you can always hope; you just can’t ‘presume’.

And since I think you’d say the same to me: One of the hardest things for people to do is to acknowledge when they’re wrong. Though I can count the number of times I’ve been wrong on one hand (LOL), I know how hateful, distasteful, uncomfortable, and SMALL I felt when I was wrong. And quite often, there is the temptation, even when one KNOWS one is wrong, to ‘hold onto’ the wrong rather than admit being wrong, rather than having to undergo shame, ridicule, or the sick feeling that one has wasted one’s life on something wrong, even evil. And it is worse when one knows that the right thing was always there and one made fun of it because, well, the people who espoused it always seemed so weird, and the people one liked made fun of them, and one even was drawn to some of the things but knew that one would lose out. . .maybe one’s boyfriend would dump them, or one would lose out on a job. . .and it was so much work, and there were so many ‘good things’ in one’s own belief after all, and one had always believed. . . Yeah, but in all this ramble the main theme is:
When you die, you will see truth. And if you’ve been opposed to it all your life, don’t try to ‘hold onto your dignity’ or pride yourself that you ‘thought for yourself’ and refuse to admit you were wrong. It will hurt to know how wrong you were but for the love of God, don’t let pride keep you from saying, “Yep, I was 100% wrong when I rejected that God who wasn’t 'MY God” (when He really was), but I’m sorry, I don’t reject you now".
 
You jumped to a lot of conclusions about what I believe.

I was just responding to the person who quoted:

Christ himself said that many will cry out “Lord, Lord!” but He will respond “I do not know you.”

I don’t believe Christ said that. Do you know of any parent who would respond that way to an estranged child they were hoping would come back? I certainly don’t. Because it isn’t loving. It isn’t loving, at all. I see a lot of word pretzels, where people try to turn it into something loving. But it can’t be done, because it isn’t.

I look forward to arriving in heaven and seeing the shocked look on the faces of some of the souls who arrive at the same time I, and others like me, do. 🙂
 
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QwertyGirl said:
Do you know of any parent who would respond that way to an estranged child they were hoping would come back?
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I think you’re misunderstanding the verse and what’s being said in it. The verse has the implication in it that the person(s) that are being denied entry are in fact evil doers. Not evil doers as in like “we’re all sinners”, but people who are not bearing any fruit, or bearing rotten fruit. Other verses go on to clarify the meaning. Even other parables touch on the same point using very similar language, almost verbatim.
Then he will say to you, ‘I do not know where [you] are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers!’
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It’s probably more akin to an estranged child who returns to take advantage of the parents. They’re not returning out of repentance.
 
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When you say “some” how many is some? I have always believed catholics are saved by the grace of God and others by the mercy of God.
 
1Lord1Faith said:
It’s probably more akin to an estranged child who returns to take advantage of the parents. They’re not returning out of repentance.
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I don’t think that is what it says, nor that is what it means. It seems more to me it is people who are not doing the “will of God”. It doesn’t really go into detail why. Maybe they are doing the best they can. A loving parent would welcome them back with open arms and then try to guide them appropriately. A loving parent wouldn’t say “I do not know you”, ever.
 
“Gorgias said:
Close, but not quite. Englands and francisca get it wrong, too, but in the other direction.

No, it’s not the case that “if you believe, you are saved”. Christ himself said that many will cry out “Lord, Lord!” but He will respond “I do not know you.”

Rather, when one is saved, it is through Christ and the Church He founded, by virtue of the graces which He gives us and which flow through the Catholic Church. Therefore, there are those who are not visible members of the Catholic Church, but who are saved. These, too, are.

Thank you all for such great posts. I follow the Catholic faith and do with an open heart. The response from Gorgias above reflects their is salvation for some outside the Catholic Church.

So people should not be saying there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church when clearly there are exceptions to that rule.
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I do not wish to cause any offence to any person.

But I must say,

I find it difficult to believe that ( I ) a great sinner in life in generally.

Have more of a chance of entering in to heaven and being with our Lord. Than a good Christian or person who fears the Lord with all their heart.

Am I saved because I believe in the Catholic Chirch teachings?

I would like to think that it will come down to God’s divine mercy upon my soul and when I come to be Judged by Jesus I pray that he will remember the good things I did in my life and not just the bad.
 
englands123 said:
Thank you all for such great posts. I follow the Catholic faith and do with an open heart. The response from Gorgias above reflects their is salvation for some outside the Catholic Church.
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Thank you!
So people should not be saying there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church when clearly there are exceptions to that rule.
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The problem is that people misinterpret “no salvation outside the Church” as if it meant “no persons outside the Church are saved.”
 
englands123 said:
I find it difficult to believe that ( I ) a great sinner in life in generally.

Have more of a chance of entering in to heaven and being with our Lord. Than a good Christian or person who fears the Lord with all their heart.
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That good Christian is also a sinner. You both have sinned against God. But you have the Sacraments available to you (confession, the Eucharist, etc.), and that Christian does not beyond baptism.
 
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