Sacraments and outreach in the Catholic Church

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SuzyLaidlaw

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I am working on a paper for a masters in religious studies class on evangelization with the Christian religions.

I am wondering if you knowledgeable Catholics would be so kind as tell me if I am “preaching heresy” if I were to say something like this in my paper:

Catholics believe that outreach and evangelization are important to carry out because “there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church”. (I got this from another forum on this web site.)

I would like to go on and interpret this statement - and this is where I really need help. Do you think this is dogma (I would appreciate a good Catholic definition of “dogma” too!) because according to your religion carrying out the sacraments is key. And, if you don’t do the sacraments, you can not be saved? Is this a fair statement of the teaching? It is important to me that I understand what current the current Catholic Church teaches.

I have a lot of background in the history of the Catholic Church and its teachings but little in current Catholic theology.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.

Suzy Laidlaw
 
It would be better to say that “Catholics believe that outreach and evangelization are important to carry out because Jesus Christ commanded it.” “No Salvation outside of the Church” gets into a complicated theological argument–one that you would not likely hear from a missionary–That is, it is hard to imagine a missionary saying they need to convert this person because of extra ecclesia nulla sulla. 🙂
 
Also, although you have an immediate due date on this paper, I recommend full research into the Catholic Church. Call your local priest, ask how to join the Catholic Church, join it, and for the next 60 or 70 years live up to the faith and teachings as best you are able. At the end of that time write about your experiences. Now THAT is some solid research!

Scott
 
SuzyLaidlaw said:
I am working on a paper for a masters in religious studies class on evangelization with the Christian religions.
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That sounds like a very interesting class! 🙂
Catholics believe that outreach and evangelization are important to carry out because “there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church”. (I got this from another forum on this web site.)
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UM - well, as Scott mentioned above, we do evangelism and outreach because Christ commanded it.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is the one who converts people to our religion - our job is to be there when people are interested in finding out more (evangelism), and to help people when they are in trouble (outreach), regardless of whether they intend to become Catholics or not. This means that we need to be well-informed about our faith (so that we can explain it to others), and we need to be generous and non-judgemental (so that we can help those who are in trouble).
I would like to go on and interpret this statement - and this is where I really need help. Do you think this is dogma (I would appreciate a good Catholic definition of “dogma” too!) because according to your religion carrying out the sacraments is key. And, if you don’t do the sacraments, you can not be saved?
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It would be better to say that we don’t know of a different way. God may have a back-up plan that we don’t know about, and we always allow for this possibility when discussing this issue.

But very few people actually participate in all of the Sacraments - some of them are actually mutually exclusive under normal circumstances - such as Holy Orders and Marriage - priests and Bishops normally do not get married, and married people normally do not enter Holy Orders - the exception would be Permanent Deacons, of course.

We also believe that a baby who dies after Baptism goes to Heaven. But, if the child lives, then we expect him to go to Confession and receive First Holy Communion around second or third grade (age 7-9), and we expect young tweens/teens to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation. (This can take place anywhere from age 12 to high school age.)

So, what is expected of us depends a great deal on our circumstances - to whom more is given, from them, more is expected.
 
Scott,

Thanks for the invitation. You obviously have a great love for your religion and that is wonderful. I know that people who feel their religion meets their needs are some of the happiest people in the world. Lucky for me that mine really works for me too, and has for the last 56 years!

Suzy
 
Ambrose,

Very interesting and very informative. My religion certainly also teaches that it is the Lord who does the “converting” not any individual. (We do not separate the different qualities of the Lord the way most Christians do so we would just say the Lord instead of the Hold Spirit.)

But as far as babies who pass to the next life, I thought the Pope recently said they will go to heaven whether they are baptised or not? Did I get that wrong? (My religion teaches that baptism is a good thing but not a necessary step towards heaven.)

Suzy
 
SuzyLaidlaw said:
Scott,

Thanks for the invitation. You obviously have a great love for your religion and that is wonderful. I know that people who feel their religion meets their needs are some of the happiest people in the world. Lucky for me that mine really works for me too, and has for the last 56 years!

Suzy
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Thanks, but you are mistaken that I *feel *my religion meets my needs. It is not about what works, but what is true and given a full examination I think we can demonstrate that Christ founded the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
 
SuzyLaidlaw said:
Ambrose,

Very interesting and very informative. My religion certainly also teaches that it is the Lord who does the “converting” not any individual. (We do not separate the different qualities of the Lord the way most Christians do so we would just say the Lord instead of the Holy Spirit.)
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The Trinity is a great mystery - but yes, of course the Holy Spirit and the Lord would be one and the same. 🙂
But as far as babies who pass to the next life, I thought the Pope recently said they will go to heaven whether they are baptised or not? Did I get that wrong? (My religion teaches that baptism is a good thing but not a necessary step towards heaven.)
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We cannot know what happens to babies who die without baptism.

We know that we are all conceived in Original Sin, which is why our natural, normal destination is Hell, or “Hades” as the ancient Greeks called it.

Through Baptism, we are washed of Original Sin and any other sins (due to Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross on our behalf - Baptism is how we enter into that Sacrifice and become recipients of its graces), and it becomes possible for us to go to Heaven, provided that we do not commit any more sins. (If we do, then we have the Sacrament of Reconciliation, which renews our Baptismal purity, and puts us back on the road to Heaven, again.)

As I said above, God may have an alternate plan that we don’t know anything about, whereby unbaptized babies and non-Catholics in general could find a way to get to Heaven. We just don’t know - nothing about that has ever been revealed to us.

What we know for certain is that Jesus gave us the Church, and that through the Church we have His Sacraments, and that by making use of the Sacraments and trusting in His grace, we can most assuredly get to Heaven.

In my view, it is better to be sure about getting to Heaven, by being a member of the Church founded by Jesus Himself, and following the directions on the box, so to speak, than to take my chances on a “maybe it’ll work” method - especially regarding something this important. 😉
 
jmcrae said:
The Trinity is a great mystery - but yes, of course the Holy Spirit and the Lord would be one and the same. 🙂
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Apparently members of the “New Church/Swedenborgian” (which SuzyLaidlaw identifies herself as) do not believe in the Trinity.
 
Some great thoughts…

Jesus is the Way, the Light and the Truth (His words)

He built His Church on Peter (His words)

His Church will endure the Gates of Hell (His words)

Yesterday, like Today, which will be like Tomorrow His Church will endure!

The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit ARE ONE in union with Their Bride…THE CHURCH! (A HUGE MYSTERY)

To be within THE CHURCH…one must accept the TRUTH that Jesus Christ commissioned it as His Bride.

God Loves us sooo much that He gave His Only Son…
This Love is reciprocated by our gift of Free Will to Choose to be within His Truth or not!

Continue to pray for wisdom and understanding…Christ’s Truth is revealed through His most endurable Bride…THE CHURCH!!

Ingnorace is bliss, but not a good excuse!
 
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church in paragraph numbers:

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.

817 In fact, “in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame.” The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ’s Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism - do not occur without human sin:

Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.

818 “However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers … All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.”
Code: 
819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth"  are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements."  Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him,  and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."
As for babies, they have no personal sin on them only original sin of which is not their fault. They are under the age of reason which is 7 years old according to the Church. So this makes babies heaven bound under the age of seven. As a rule, the Catholic Church in Tradition has always baptized babies since the time of the Apostles. Christ taught men about baptism and to be baptized so in turn they could baptize their babies and bring them into the Church.
This is exactly what the Catholic Church officially teaches about no salvation outside the Church and Baptism. Hope it helps Suzy. God bless you.
 
Eden said:
Apparently members of the “New Church/Swedenborgian” (which SuzyLaidlaw identifies herself as) do not believe in the Trinity.
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Actually that is not true. We do believe in the trinity and say we believe in the trinity. It is true that our concept of the trinity is not the same as the Catholic concept - but I don’t think you would find it terribly offensive. Swedenborg speaks of it often but I found this one quote and put it below:

AE 1107 “That the Lord, from His Divine called the Father, from His Divine Human called the Son, and from His proceeding Divine called the Holy Spirit, is one God and one Lord, since the three Divines called by the names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, are in the Lord one in essence and in person.”

Suzy
 
Erbey said:
As for babies, they have no personal sin on them only original sin of which is not their fault. They are under the age of reason which is 7 years old according to the Church. So this makes babies heaven bound under the age of seven.
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This is inaccurate.

It is Original Sin that causes us to go to Hell in the first place, and why we needed Jesus to die on the Cross for our sins, and why we need His Church to give us His Sacraments, so that we can partake through the Sacraments of the grace that He imparted on the Cross for us.

Hell is the normal destination of all human beings who are not members of the Church that Jesus founded - that’s why we baptize infants - to bring them into membership in His Church, so that they can go to Heaven instead of to Hell, if they die before they are old enough to make a personal decision for themselves.

God gave us the Sacraments, but He Himself is not bound by the Sacraments - He could choose to impart grace to someone in some other way that has not been revealed to us. That’s why we cannot say definitively that all non-Catholics and all unbaptized babies go to Hell - we can’t say that, because God could work a miracle for those people. But the thing about miracles is that they are not the usual thing, so that’s why we make use of the Sacraments and have our babies baptized as soon as we reasonably can.

Adam’s sin (which we are all born with) opened the gates of Hell to human beings, and Christ’s Sacrifice on the Cross opened the gates of Heaven to human beings - and the Sacraments of the Church are how we normally get access to the graces imparted by Christ’s Sacrifice.
 
I find some of these ideas very strange and also very disturbing.

The God I worship loves His children so much that more than anything He wants us to live with Him to eternity. Surely He would not have made it so difficult to do that? I believe that we are virtually all predestined to heaven, in fact, but we can chose NOT to follow His teachings and thus not live with Him to eternity in heaven.

I also believe that it doesn’t matter what religion you are, all people can chose to live in heaven with the Creator. Mind you, they do need to follow their religions and do good according to them. By having this innocence (defined as a willingness to be led by the Lord) we can all enter heaven and be taught the truths that are required in order to live there to eternity. But - as I said, if we love our evils and make them our own, we will chose to live out our eternal lives in hell because we would hate to be in heaven with all those good folks! forums.catholic-questions.org/images/smilies/smile.gif

As for any child - ANY child who dies before they have had the chance to make their evils their own - these little ones who Jesus loved so much, these little ones could never be condemned to hell just because someone didn’t get to them fast enought to baptize them. That just makes no sense what so ever. And surely it would not be a loving God who would allow something like that.

I believe all children who die before they have had the chance to make adult decisions to love evil are taken to heaven and raised by angel parents to love the Lord and learn all about His goodness and truth.

Suzy
 
SuzyLaidlaw said:
As for any child - ANY child who dies before they have had the chance to make their evils their own - these little ones who Jesus loved so much, these little ones could never be condemned to hell just because someone didn’t get to them fast enought to baptize them. That just makes no sense what so ever. And surely it would not be a loving God who would allow something like that.
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It has not actually been revealed to us what happens in that situation - and it’s not up to us to tell God what to allow, or not.

God allows many things that we don’t understand very well, and that don’t seem very good, to us - but we cannot know what the alternatives were. All we can do is trust that God knows what He is doing, and that what He has allowed is, in fact, the best of all the possible outcomes.

There are also many levels of Hell, and not all of them are painful. Hell is just the normal afterlife that was there before Jesus came. Everyone - little kids, good people, and all - went to Hell before Jesus came, after all.
 
What a curious idea - that everyone went to hell before Jesus was born on earth. That doesn’t make any sense.

I realize I say that a lot but one of the claims of my religion is that it is a religion that is rational and does make sense.

I believe that the Lord the Creator would not have created any people who had no opportunity to go to heaven to live with Him. Yes, Jesus was born on earth and did save us from certain damnation at that time. I do believe that. But I also believe that prior to that point in time people were still in freedom to chose good over evil and thus could have chosen heaven over hell.

I realize that this teaching is very different from the current Catholic teachings but my religion must make sense to me and a loving God would not have created people who had no chance to go to heaven. I believe the purpose of creation is a heaven from the human race. The Lord, my heavenly Father, wants me to be in heaven with Him to eternity, just as He has wanted all of His children to be with Him in heaven, since the beginning of human life.

Suzy
 
SuzyLaidlaw said:
What a curious idea - that everyone went to hell before Jesus was born on earth. That doesn’t make any sense.
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In your religion, what reason is given - why did Jesus need to come and be incarnated on the earth, teach the Disciples His ways, establish the Church for us, die for our sins, and then be resurrected from the dead to ascend bodily into Glory - if not to open the gates of Heaven for the human race?

If everyone could just go to Heaven anyway, then why should He have bothered with all of that?
 
jmcrae

“God gave us the Sacraments, but He Himself is not bound by the Sacraments - He could choose to impart grace to someone in some other way that has not been revealed to us. That’s why we cannot say definitively that all non-Catholics and all unbaptized babies go to Hell - we can’t say that, because God could work a miracle for those people. But the thing about miracles is that they are not the usual thing, so that’s why we make use of the Sacraments and have our babies baptized as soon as we reasonably can.”

The Catechism says in paragraph number:

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

Don’t hinder the children jmcrae. You are close, but still off brother. Don’t confuse Suzy. This is str8 out of the Catechism.
 
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