Why do only Catholics achieve salvation?

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dustdev14

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Hello!
I have heard this statement on a catholic website while reading about the faith, the Idea that any non-catholic person won’t be saved. Frankly, I don’t see how this make sense. Is it due to receiving the Eucharist, which is a sacrament most other Christians don’t engage in?
 
Catholics don’t know that only Catholics obtain salvation.

Judgement is God’s alone.
 
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dustdev14 said:
Hello!
I have heard this statement on a catholic website while reading about the faith, the Idea that any non-catholic person won’t be saved. Frankly, I don’t see how this make sense. Is it due to receiving the Eucharist, which is a sacrament most other Christians don’t engage in?
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It doesn’t make sense because that’s not the Catholic teaching.

The Catholic Church teaches that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. But that doesn’t not mean that God cannot save non-Catholics who are living God’s Truth the best they know how.

It means that everyone who is in Heaven has gotten there because the Catholic Church exists and everyone in Heaven now subscribes to the Catholic Faith. We don’t have multiple religions in Heaven.
 
“Everything that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to Me.” Jesus will embrace anyone who believes in Him… Are we to say someone like Billy Graham will not be saved nor see Heaven?..God will care for those who have brought many to His Son and Jesus through His Merciful Heart will lead them to Heaven…Do not worry, we as Catholics can pray for those who need to find the way, but their souls are in Good Hands God bless
 
midori said:
How about a link and a screenshot?
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Sorry about that, but I can’t find the exact website, however they were referring to the “extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” teaching, which is the name of Wikipedia arcticle. However, it is clear that I didn’t understand what it actually meant, the answer “Phil19034” summed it up and corrected my misunderstanding
phil19034 said:
The Catholic Church teaches that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. But that doesn’t not mean that God cannot save non-Catholics who are living God’s Truth the best they know how.

It means that everyone who is in Heaven has gotten there because the Catholic Church exists and everyone in Heaven now subscribes to the Catholic Faith. We don’t have multiple religions in Heaven.
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Catholics believe that salvation is found in the Church being the body of Christ and neither can be separated so saying salvation in the church is the same as salvation in Christ.
There are a few scriptures that allows for salvation of all souls, even Jesus said all sins will be forgiven accept one and the church would openly say that God has made provision for all humanity.
we believe all Christians can be saved but being Catholic is the best Path.
 
phil19034 said:
It means that everyone who is in Heaven has gotten there because the Catholic Church exists and everyone in Heaven now subscribes to the Catholic Faith
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I would rephrase that…

“Outside the [Catholic] Church there is no salvation” is the negative form.

The positive form which the Catechism now uses is “all salvation comes through the Body of Christ, the Church, and her Head, Jesus.”

So the way I would rephrase your statement of “everyone who is in Heaven has gotten there because the Catholic Church exists and everyone in Heaven now subscribes to the Catholic Faith” would be “everyone who is in Heaven has gotten there because the Body of Christ exists and everyone in Heaven is now under the Lordship of Jesus.”

There’s no such thing as the “Catholic Faith” in heaven. People in heaven have no faith, and neither do they have hope. Their faith and hope is fulfilled and they now see God face to face and know they are eternally in bliss and salvation. The souls in Heaven contemplating God face to face don’t make any distinctions based on what faith or Church they went to when they lived their earthly life.
 
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.
 
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dustdev14 said:
I have heard this statement on a catholic website while reading about the faith, the Idea that any non-catholic person won’t be saved. Frankly, I don’t see how this make sense. Is it due to receiving the Eucharist, which is a sacrament most other Christians don’t engage in?
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Some people may say that, but the RCC does not teach that. It teaches that anyone can achieve salvation.
 
Genesis315 said:
The necessity of being incorporated into the Church for salvation is straight out of Scripture and has always been the Tradition of the Church.
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That is predicated on the fact that one ascribes to the RCC, which most of the world does not. A good portion of the world is not even Christian, i.e., Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. There is NO way I can believe the good and righteous people in those religions won’t be saved, but since this is a RCC forum. I will say no more other than I agree with you: one does not have to be a formal member of the church to achieve salvation.
 
ConstantLearner said:
There is NO way I can believe the good and righteous people in those religions won’t be saved
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I don’t think we disagree on the end result, probably just the path to get there. As Catholics, we can’t deny the necessity of faith (that submission of intellect and will to God, believing what God has revealed on the authority of the revealer–with Jesus Christ Himself being His Word in the most profound sense). As I said earlier, and as our Catechism teaches, “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” (848).

Therefore, the truly “good and righteous” (or contrite and penitent!) are cooperating with grace and being helped by God on the path to that necessary faith. Pope Francis put it nicely:

Lumen Fidei
To the extent that they are sincerely open to love and set out with whatever light they can find, they are already, even without knowing it, on the path leading to faith…Any-one who sets off on the path of doing good to others is already drawing near to God, is already sustained by his help, for it is characteristic of the divine light to brighten our eyes whenever we walk towards the fullness of love.
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It doesn’t seem like nonsense to me. I happen not to believe it based on my own faith, but it is clearly and rationally explained, and predicated on an understanding of the Church’s teaching. Hardly the stuff we might call nonsense.
 
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It’s hardly in accord with Jewish teaching, is it? Even the notion that we are somehow doomed in the first place and need to be saved (by means of a Savior) is antithetical to Judaism. But, as noted in my previous post, it is a logical argument in keeping with Catholic teaching.
 
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meltzerboy2 said:
It’s hardly in accord with Jewish teaching, is it? Even the notion that we are somehow doomed in the first place and need to be saved (by means of a Savior) is antithetical to Judaism. But, as noted in my previous post, it is a logical argument in keeping with Catholic teaching.
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Yes, I think most Jewish scholars today see the tales in Genesis as adaptations of Assyrio-Babylonian creation myths and later, the Catholic church’s way of explaining evil.

However, what I wrote, though it is not my personal belief, and what the other poster wrote are squarely in line with the Catholic faith, whose adherents do belief salvation through Jesus, for them, the messiah, is a necessity for all. They believe in a “baptism of desire” for those who, for reasons not of their own making, cannot be formally baptized by a Catholic priest. To a Catholic, you and I, though, being Jews who know about Jesus and yet do not accept him as the messiah, are doomed. :😦
 
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It is a combination of what God has said, and what the CC has said outside of God’s word.
 
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