=Neil_Anthony;3333890]
I saw the quotes from Cardinal Kasper and** I suspect that they were taken out of context by that ecumenical group**. I suspect that the ecumenical group has gotten carried away and has taken liberties with church teaching. And the proof of that seems to be that there is nothing more official from the church saying that Jews can be saved without Jesus. It goes against anything I’ve ever seen from the Church about salvation. Doesn’t it go against what you’ve heard from the church about salvation?
It was not out of context. Cardinal Kasper has made these remarks before. The Document also refers to *NOSTRA AETATE *from Vatican II. It is easy to see the influence of theologian Karl Rahner in Nostra Aetate via his “Anonymous Christian” theology.
“For if a given individual** rejects **the Christianity brought to him
through the preaching of the Church, even then we are still never in any position to decide whether this rejection as it exists in the concrete signifies a grave fault or an act of faithfulness to his own conscience…Thus we can never say with ultimate certainty whether a non-Christian who has rejected Christianity and who, in spite of a certain encounter with Christianity, does not become a Christian, is still following the provisional path mapped out for his own salvation which is leading him to an encounter with God, or whether he has now entered upon the way of perdition.” Rahner, Theological Investigations Vol 10, p 48.
Rahner, Theological Investigations Vol 10 pp 200-201.
…no man is excluded from salvation simply because of so-called original sin; a man can only lose his salvation through serious personal sin of his own…This possibility must really be given to all. “pp 200-201.
Rahner’s influence is here again.
NOSTRA AETATE
. "Buddhism, in its various forms, realizes the radical insufficiency of this changeable world; it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit,
may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation,
or attain, by their own efforts or through higher help,** supreme illumination**. Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing “ways,” comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites.
The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions.
- The Church regards with** esteem **also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth… Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet."
Lumen Gentium
But
the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind’s
judge on the last day."
Of course the “plan of salvation” is that they accept Jesus Christ, be baptized and before death join the Catholic Church outside of which there is no salvation.