Next to no salvation for Protestants, etc.

[pkmksk]

Good for you Pere,
I agree with everything you say. We as Catholics do a disservice to others when we take a soft answer to this question. Do I think that people who reject teachings of Catholicism are going to hell? Yep. Christ is the church and the church is Christ. What happens if you reject Christ? Now, because I believ this do I run around telling people what I believe? Nope, I don’t stand on street corners with a sign. I will answer it truthfully when I am asked because it is what I believe. To do anything else is a shame.
The idea is to try and stay away from this question and instead focus on explaining the Church to others in order to get them to convert. Show them what the Church is and then there will come a time when you get to this question. By that time you should have given good enough answers explaining the faith that they will have to think twice about your answer. Most will walk away offended, but at least they will give serious thought to what you said. Not the politically correct thing to do, but it is the right thing to do.
I think the reason most Catholics don’t answer this way is because they are afraid of what others will think of them.

 

[Pere_i_Pau]

From all the replies here, I think I should have posted my answers in the Philosophy section. Sorry for the disturbance.

 

[eaManwe]

Remember the rules for a mortal sin: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” (CCC P# 1856)

So, protestants who commit such sins to not commit them with full knowledge and deliberate consent. Therefore, they are not mortal.

I am surprised no one mentioned this before in this thread. (if so, point it out to me)

 

[Amethyst]

eaManwe:

Remember the rules for a mortal sin: For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” (CCC P# 1856)

So, protestants who commit such sins to not commit them with full knowledge and deliberate consent. Therefore, they are not mortal.

I am surprised no one mentioned this before in this thread. (if so, point it out to me)

I said something like that on another thread. I am now going to be vain enough to copy it here, because it’s more on-topic here:

Here’s the trouble with your statement as I see it, Tim.

Actually according to Catholic moral teaching, such Protestants are in grave sin, not necessarily mortal sin. The difference is significant, since only mortal sin cuts us off absolutely from the grace which saves us.

For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must exist.

1. 
   *]Grave matter
   *]Knowledge that the act committed is gravely sinful
   *]Full consent of the will to the act
   
   Now, let’s look at a hypothetical Protestant woman who takes birth control pills. Is she in mortal sin?
   1. 
      *]Grave matter. I think we must all agree this is serious sin. The pill often actually works as abortifacient, not simply contraceptive.
      *]Knowledge that the act committed is gravely sinful. This, I think, is the point on which she is acquitted of mortal sin. Most Protestants have not been taught the significance of the marital act being fully open to life. It is utterly unknown to them as a great truth.
      *]Full consent of the will to the act. In the specific example given, this may also not be fully present. Many women are unaware they are actually aborting early pregnancies with the pill, not simply preventing them.
      
      Of course, this is not algebra. Only God knows the weight of each factor, and only God can ultimately judge souls…
      
      I think I can hear you already objecting, “Well, then! I guess we shouldn’t teach the truth of the Faith to ANYBODY, because they’re better off ignorant.”
      
      Well, no.
      
      I’m now going to use a (necessarily faulty) analogy.
      
      My brother and I both want to cross the Pacific Ocean. I’ve booked a stateroom on a luxury ocean liner. My brother has selected a 40-foot power boat stocked with gallons of bottled fresh water and a selection of military rations.
      
      Which of us is more likely to arrive safe and whole? Me, right? That’s how I see my spiritual situation as compared to my brother’s. He may well make it to heaven through God’s mercy and grace, which my brother responds to in faith and obedient good works. But the channels of grace he has are far fewer than I have, and it will be much harder for him to reach sanctification. I have a certain obligation to try to get him aboard with me, where he will be safer and “richer.”
      
      On the other hand, I have to watch myself, that I’m not smug, as do all Catholics. “To whom much has been given, much will be required.” How much more could I have been given than the opportunity to receive Christ at least weekly, if not daily?
      
      Whew! That was kind of a large soapbox for a newbie… perhaps I should go back to listening for a while. :twocents:

 

[Matthew]

Ignorance does not supply for a defect. In many cases, ignorance is in fact a punishment in itself for other sins or even Original Sin alone. Merely following the natural law will not save anyone, for if it does lead one to eternal life then Christ died in vain. Protestants do not objectively possess the theological virtue of faith. They may have a sentiment of faith, but they do not possess true and supernatual faith (ask them if they believe Mary is Immaculate or that Christ is substantially present in the Host: you will recieve a negative answer because they do not possess Faith infused by God). Faith does not admit of degrees nor can it be parted out for it is one, simple, and infallible. Without this faith, it is impossible to be saved, whether one is ignorant or not. Of course, God will not punish a person for the sin of negative infidelity, but that does not mean they will be saved. Yet all things work in accord with God’s eternal providence and even the damned serve a purpose in showing forth God’s perfect Justice.

 

[BIC]

THE BIBLE SAY IN JOHN 5:24 "I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, WHOEVER HEARS MY WORD AND BELIEVES HIM WHO SENT ME HAS ETERNAL LIFE AND WILL NOT BE CONDEMNED.

DOES THE CATHOLIC FAITH “FILL IN THE BLANKS” WHEN SCRIPTURE IS NOT TO THEIR LIKING?

THE BIBLE WARNS US ABOUT TRADITION.

WHAT IS A “MORTAL SIN” THE ONLY “MORTAL SIN” IN THE BIBLE IS THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

SOUNDS LIKE PHARISEES AND SADUCCESES ALL OVER AGAIN.

EDUCATE ME IF I AM MISINFORMED.

 

[SPOKENWORD]

What makes one think because they belong to the Catholic Church they will be saved? Belonging to any Christian Church will not save you. What saves you is the blood of Jesus Christ.Only those who follow Him and obey the commandments will be saved.Boy,are there going to be alot of surprises for many. God Bless.

 

[Lisa4Catholics]

SPOKENWORD:

What makes one think because they belong to the Catholic Church they will be saved? Belonging to any Christian Church will not save you. What saves you is the blood of Jesus Christ.Only those who follow Him and obey the commandments will be saved.Boy,are there going to be alot of surprises for many. God Bless.

members of the Church are members of Christs Body with Jesus the head.Jesus saves us,spoken They are having a discussion of what certain things are meant in context.Do not panic.God Bless

 

[SPOKENWORD]

Lisa4Catholics:

members of the Church are members of Christs Body with Jesus the head.Jesus saves us,spoken They are having a discussion of what certain things are meant in context.Do not panic.God Bless

Thanks Lisa for my concern. Im sitting back and taking a GOSPILL. God Bless

 

[Pug]

SPOKENWORD:

What makes one think because they belong to the Catholic Church they will be saved?

This plain strikes me as odd. Typically Catholics are accused of not knowing if they are really “saved”. They are accused of being all guilty and unsure, because they base salvation on their “works”. The accusation of being sure they are saved via membership lists is foreign to me, so I do not know what underlies it.

I do not think salvation is determined by sitting in a particular pew on Sunday. Remember the wheat and the tares. Most Catholics I know of are fully aware that there are tares growing hereabouts.

 

[SPOKENWORD]

Pug:

This plain strikes me as odd. Typically Catholics are accused of not knowing if they are really “saved”. They are accused of being all guilty and unsure, because they base salvation on their “works”. The accusation of being sure they are saved via membership lists is foreign to me, so I do not know what underlies it.

I do not think salvation is determined by sitting in a particular pew on Sunday. Remember the wheat and the tares. Most Catholics I know of are fully aware that there are tares growing hereabouts.

Hi Pug,There are many who think by going to church they have fulfilled their obligation and as soon as they walk out that door they think they can go on living the way they do. Being a Christian is alot more than just belonging to a church. God Bless.

 

[shannin]

Salena:

I was listening to Catholic radio and heard a priest say that God will ask a protestant, who stands before Him in judgement, “Do you want to be Catholic?” If they say yes they go to heaven, if not they go to hell. That sounds a little far fetched to me. Just my opinion.

That priest must have been joking.

As Catholics, we’re held to a higher accountability. For example, I don’t think that it’s necessarily a mortal sin for a Protestant to miss Sunday services but it’s a mortal sin for Catholics to miss Mass on Sunday except in dire circumstances.

I once heard that when we get to Heaven we will be surprised at how few Catholics there are and just how many Protestants, Fundamentalists, and other faiths are there. God loves us all. We are all brothers and sisters.

It’s hard to be a good Catholic, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Blessings,
Shannin

 

[SPOKENWORD]

shannin:

That priest must have been joking.

As Catholics, we’re held to a higher accountability. For example, I don’t think that it’s necessarily a mortal sin for a Protestant to miss Sunday services but it’s a mortal sin for Catholics to miss Mass on Sunday except in dire circumstances.

I once heard that when we get to Heaven we will be surprised at how few Catholics there are and just how many Protestants, Fundamentalists, and other faiths are there. God loves us all. We are all brothers and sisters.

It’s hard to be a good Catholic, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Blessings,
Shannin

Hi Shannin,Maybe you will get extra rewards for just being catholic. Oh well only God knows. God Bless.

 

[shannin]

SPOKENWORD:

Hi Shannin,Maybe you will get extra rewards for just being catholic. Oh well only God knows. God Bless.

Thanks Spokenword, none of us will get any extra rewards simply because we’re Catholic :nope: I’m aiming for Purgatory.
Shannin

 

[Pug]

SPOKENWORD:

Being a Christian is alot more than just belonging to a church. God Bless.

So true! Somehow this is making me think of a scripture Mat:

26 "Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
27 “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell-- and great was its fall.”

As we are dismissed from mass each time: we should go forth to love and serve the Lord. Or like in James about the man looking at himself in the mirror and forgetting what he looks like as soon as he leaves the mirror. We must be doers and not just hearers.

 

[Exporter]

BIC

BIC:

THE BIBLE SAY IN JOHN 5:24 "I TELL YOU THE TRUTH, WHOEVER HEARS MY WORD AND BELIEVES HIM WHO SENT ME HAS ETERNAL LIFE AND WILL NOT BE CONDEMNED.

DOES THE CATHOLIC FAITH “FILL IN THE BLANKS” WHEN SCRIPTURE IS NOT TO THEIR LIKING?

THE BIBLE WARNS US ABOUT TRADITION.

WHAT IS A “MORTAL SIN” THE ONLY “MORTAL SIN” IN THE BIBLE IS THE BLASPHEMY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

SOUNDS LIKE PHARISEES AND SADUCCESES ALL OVER AGAIN.

EDUCATE ME IF I AM MISINFORMED.

---

Seems like you want to say something. Put it in plain language , please

 

[Joannes]

I’m going to stick my neck out and opine that by far most people will end up in heaven someday, even though almost everyone beyond infancy will spend some time in purgatory.

My grounds are (1) the omnipotence of God, the efficacy of Jesus’ sacrifice, and God’s revelation of Himself to every human heart; (2) the scandals caused to many by sinful Christians and other religious people; and (3) the incredible ignorance and the incredible compulsions we poor mortals are afflicted with.

We Catholics know that God works through His visible Church and His sacraments, but maybe we should better realize that He is in no way limited by them. Jesus says “Other sheep I have who are not of this fold.” God is the Master of the vinyard who can pay equal wages to all if he wishes, as all are unprofitable servants.

Jesus’ sacrifice overcame Satan’s kingdom of sin and death in the world. At the Last Judgement we will all finally see how God has brought good even out of our opposition to Him. It seems that this will have to mean that He will somehow save most of us.

And I hope to God that I’m right!

Regards,
Joannes

 

[JKirkLVNV]

I never know what to think about this. I converted at the age of 26. I was raised a Baptist and my greatest role models of faith in Jesus were my grandparents (my grandmother taught Sunday school and my grandfather was a deacon). They committed their lives to Christ and they followed Him, living lives of and in Charity. If it weren’t for them, I would not have been a Christian, as my mother is rather indifferent to these things. My grandparents would tell you, as they told me when I converted, that they don’t believe the teachings of the Catholic Church, but as long as I trusted Jesus as my Savior, it was alright with them. They don’t believe in the Real Presence. They don’t believe in the notion of Papal succession, let ALONE the idea that the Holy Father is in any way infallible. My grandfather told me that Mary didn’t have any choice, but to bear Jesus (thus eliminating any need on OUR part to be grateful to Her, in his mind, anyway). He also told me once,“I think the Catholic Church would be better off without the Pope! Idn’t no pope in the Bible!” This was how they were raised. They grew up in the Depression, they never read anything, but the KJV of the Bible, the newspaper, and Reader’s Digest, they only had high school educations, they were farmers in Texas. Their lives were their families (their parents, their children, and their grandchildren, all of whom they took care of, their parents in their old ages, and us when my mother was forced to divorce my filandering father) and their church. That was it. They knew nothing of the Catholic Church, except what they were told by their Baptist church (can you imagine that any of that info was accurate? I can tell you it wasn’t!) No Catholics came knocking at the door, asking if my grandparents were interested in not going to Hell (lots of JW’s did). My grandmother died in 1997. My grandfather is eighty-seven and he will never become a Catholic. I cannot imagine that my grandmother, who was so faithful, who taught so many children to love Jesus, who sang her favorite hymns while she did her housework (my dearest memory) or who buried her 39 year old son and was thereafter not afraid to die, because she knew she would see him in Heaven with Jesus, is now in the torments of hell and that she will be there for all eternity. Not just a 1000 years, or a million, but for always and always. To imagine that is for me a temptation to despair. I mean that. To imagine her in those agonies could well drive me insane. I prefer to read what the Catechism says about “certain, though, imperfect union,” and “cannot be charged with the sin of seperation,” and “should be rec. with love/respect by the children of the Catholic Church.” I prefer to believe that she and he were united to the Church by their baptism, whether they willed it or not. I don’t know. If she isn’t in Heaven, and he won’t be, then Jesus must do more than wipe away our tears, He must in His Compassion wipe out our very memories…otherwise, I don’t know what I will do.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

ShelB:

Okay, it’s mortal sin let’s say, so what? What are you going to do when the other person does not believe it is? Tell him he’s going to hell? That’ll make him convert to the Church real quick.

The Church has been more than clear- the Catholic faith is the faith that saves.

But the Church would say that, wouldn’t she ? Churches are seldom slow to give themselves a good billing. Unfortunately, the Orthodox also claim there is no salvation outside the Church" - and they do not mean the CC, either ​

We know this but we do not put limits on God’s mercy, this is why the Church damns no one to hell personally not even non-Catholics.

Do you really want the Church to infallibly make a proclamation on the destination of souls outside the Church when they can not even do that with souls in the Church?

I can tell you- there are more Catholics who are more in danger of hell, no one has a guarantee of salvation, what Catholics have is the truth that will lead them there, those outside do have seeds of truth and God will be their judge In the same way He will be ours. . How does saying this mean the Church is not doing it’s job preaching the true faith?

I believe there is salvation in Christ - & that only as a result of His unceasing saving work, can any Church be a saving body at all: including the CC.​

I don’t see what is to stop God saving whom He Wills, where, when, and how He Wills - the Church is just the “ordinary” means by which He does so - which implies there can be other means. As most of the human race have never even heard of Christ - the Aborigines have been in Australia for 40,000 years, apparently, and Christianity has been there for fewer than three hundred of them - perhaps “ordinary” means “ordained by God”; it can’t mean “customary”, or “used by the majority of people in the world”.

IMNTHO, a lot of heart-ache could have been avoided if only the churchmen had had more adequate ideas of the geography & population of the world, before they made sweeping stayements about the impossibility of salvation for vast numbers of people who had no way of even knowing of the existence of Christ, never mind His identity as Saviour of all mankind.
The important thing is that Christ the Saviour died & was raised as much for Aborigines, Maoris, Esquimaux, and [insert name] as much as for His own people or for Catholics - even if Catholic theologians and missionaries did not know of Maoris or of the others.

Why is it so important for us to know of Christ, by name ? He knows us - isn’t this far more important ? As He knows us, and as He knew us before ever we knew Him or could know Him, and as He is a faithful God - isn’t He wholly capable of saving those to whom His Name and Gospel have not been preached, and never will be ? God is a great God, a saving God, a mighty God - He is not limited by our ignorance of Him or of His works ##

 

[deb1]

shannin:

That priest must have been joking.

As Catholics, we’re held to a higher accountability. For example, I don’t think that it’s necessarily a mortal sin for a Protestant to miss Sunday services but it’s a mortal sin for Catholics to miss Mass on Sunday except in dire circumstances.

I once heard that when we get to Heaven we will be surprised at how few Catholics there are and just how many Protestants, Fundamentalists, and other faiths are there. God loves us all. We are all brothers and sisters.

It’s hard to be a good Catholic, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.

Blessings,
Shannin

Here is a scary thought. Catholics believe that there are mortal and venial sins. I have heard Protestants say that all sins are equal. No difference between small sins and say, murdering someone. Therefore, if Protestants are judged by their own beliefs won’t they have a harder time before God?