Paris Blues:
Hmmm…interesting. You know, I’ve never heard of any Catholics yet that try to get Protestants to convert to Catholics!!! But it happens the other way around! That tells me that perhaps Catholics are humble about it maybe?
I had taken a long time to type up a response to this, but I accidentally hit the back button on my browser and lost it all.
I will, for that reason, be brief and omit much.
In nomine Domini.
The Church teaches that no one outside the Church can be saved, and it is horrible that you have never heard of a Catholic trying to convert a protestant, for a protestant has absolutely no chance for salvation outside the Church, which is confirmed by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, as well as the ex Cathedra infallible declarations of Holy Mother Church. It has been infallibly declared: “There is ONE universal Church of the Faithful, outside of which NO ONE AT ALL is saved” in the holy Council of Lateran IV. Moreover, the Council of Florence has said even more clearly: “No one, EVEN IF HE POUR OUT HIS BLOOD FOR THE NAME OF CHRIST, can be saved, unless he has remained within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”
The holy Pontiff of good memory, Blessed Pius IX has proclaimed likewise: “
We must mention and condemn again that most pernicious error which has been imbibed by certain Catholics who are of the opinion
that those people who live in error and have not the true faith and are separated from Catholic unity, may obtain life everlasting. Now this opinion is
most contrary to the Catholic faith, as is evident from the plain words of Our Lord, (Matt 18:17; Mark 16:16; Luke 10:16; John 3:18) as also from the words of Saint Paul ([erred footnote, it may correctly read: Tit. 3: (5-)11 ?]) and of Saint Peter (2 Peter 2:1)
To entertain opinions contrary to this Catholic faith is to be an impious wretch*.*”
The Church is very clear. Blessed Pius IX says very clearly that our Lord said very clearly that there is no salvation outside of His Fold, the Church. The Church is just as clear as the words of our Lord are clear: “Amen, Amen, I say unto thee, unless a man be born again of WATER and the Holy Ghost, he shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Jn. 3.5) And the Church making comment infallibly in the holy Council of Trent, Canons on Baptism: “Can. III. If anyone saith that true and natural water is not necessary for Baptism, and thus wrests into some metaphor the words of Our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost’, let him be anathema.” And in the same Canons, Canon V states, thus, “If anyone saith that Baptism is free, that is, not necessary unto salvation, let him be anathema.” The Council of Trent condemned the pernicious error spoken of 300 years later by the blessed Pontiff Pius IX.
The Church Fathers, too, made clear that there is no salvation outside the Church:
St. Jerome: “As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but your blessedness, that is, with the Chair of Peter. For this, I know, is the rock on which the Church is built. …This is the ark of Noe, and he who is not found in it shall perish when the flood prevails. …And as for heretics, I have never spared them; on the contrary, I have seen to it in every possible way that the Church’s enemies are also my enemies.”
Other holy Pontiffs of happy memory make the same declarations, based on the Fathers of the Church:
“For at the time of the Deluge there existed only one Ark, the figure of the One Church. And we read that all things existing upon earth outside this Ark perished.” Pope Boniface VIII
“
It must be held as a matter of faith that outside the Apostolic Roman Church no one can be saved, that the Church is the only Ark of Salvation, and that whoever does not enter it will perish in the Flood.” Blessed Pope Pius IX
We must never fauler as the so many tepid Catholics do, sending themselves on the road to perdition, along the broad and easy path which leadeth to destruction. Our Lord said very clearly in the Sermon on the Mount: “Narrow is the gate and strait is the way that leadeth to life, and few there are who enter thereat.”
Let us make haste, therefore, to gather with Christ many souls to the Church, remembering always His words: “He who is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth”.
God Bless.
