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Caesar
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Caesar;1911368:
Even in protestantism, it is not the doctrines unique to protestantism that saves, but the Catholic Church. This might help explain this:QUOTE]
Hi,
Im a bit confused by this statement. So do you think that souls are not being saved in protestant churches? If so, how is it that I am having a relationship with Christ that has turned my life around?
“If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God’s will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation”
- Pope St. Pius X
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ALLFORHIM
Guest
ALLFORHIM;1911467:
“If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God’s will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation”- Pope St. Pius XWell, good to know you still think I have a shot.
Thanks for explaining.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Our reason can also be corrupted - in fact, it is corrupted 
Take your reasoning far enough, & it becomes impossible to have any confidence in the reliability of anything we think. One would end in total scepticism - just as Edwin pointed out on another (?) thread. To think only of our own activity, intellectual or emotional or other, implicitly ignores God; it is only God Who saves us from being imprisoned in our own selves. Nothing in creation can touch us, if God does not allow it.That our whole nature is need of redemption (cf. St Gregory of Nazianzus [IIRC]), implies our whole nature is damaged - not just our emotions. All we do is tainted by sin - our “best” works are imperfect. If we were totally sanctified, our prayers & works & so on would not be tainted - we are not, so they are.
How does one know that anything we do makes sense or is true; such as this post ? One doesn’t - one has to have faith that one’s tainted nature is able to function more or less well - & this it does by the Providence of God; but neither Providence nor Grace nor the other gifts of God alter the fact that we are badly damaged; to believe we are corrupted in all our faculties, is not the same as believing that those faculties are corrupted in their entirety. IOW, even our “natural” activities are in some sense known by faith; that’s why JP2’s words about how Christ “reveals man to himself” are so significant. ##
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
ALLFORHIM;1911467:
The Church saves nothing & nobody; it is a creature, not God the Saviour. No creature can save - but God saves, & God alone. Through the Church, no doubt - that does not make the Church the Saviour, nor does it confine God to the Church. If we deify the Church, we un-God God. And that is to make the Church an idol
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Caesar
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Then I direct you to the relevant passages in the 1984 Catechism- vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P26.HTMCaesar;1911507 said:## The Church saves nothing & nobody; it is a creature, not God the Saviour. No creature can save - but God saves, & God alone. Through the Church, no doubt - that does not make the Church the Saviour, nor does it confine God to the Church. If we deify the Church, we un-God God. And that is to make the Church an idol
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Epsilon_Omega
Guest
Satan wasn’t in control. Human’s free will was in control. James 4:7 “Be subject therefore unto God; but resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
We can’t control God’s will. No matter how hard we pray, if it is not God’s will, then it will not happen. Therefore, “either previously the prayer were not powerful enough or Satan was just too powerful to be melt down by all those prayers!!!” is untrue, the prayers could be powerful enough, and satan is weak against God, but it all comes down to being the will of God.
Gottle of Geer:
Of course the church doesn’t save anyone, but it does lead people to be saved. If we defy the Church that was originally set up by Jesus, then it would be considered going against God’s will. The Church is no more an idol than the Bible itself is an idol. We don’t worship and bow down to the Church, we pray and glorify God’s name in it. We worship God and follow like he has instructed us.
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ALLFORHIM
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Hi Gottle of Geer,Caesar;1911507 said:## The Church saves nothing & nobody; it is a creature, not God the Saviour. No creature can save - but God saves, & God alone. Through the Church, no doubt - that does not make the Church the Saviour, nor does it confine God to the Church. If we deify the Church, we un-God God. And that is to make the Church an idol
I actually didnt post that. My name somehow got attached to that comment. I believe in what you said.Caeser wrote it. SOmething is screwy with the quote system.
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MrS
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ALLFORHIM;1911565Well:
Thanks for that… starting my day with a smile… your inquires, you responses, your civility, your attitude, and your love of the Lord are so refreshing…
you have much more than just a shot.
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mozart-250
Guest
I find it amazing that some here do not respect your Holy Father(s) enough to follow their examples.
Pope JP is quoted of saying to Billy Graham when he visited the Vatican “We are Brothers”. Here we saw a thread “Is Billy Graham” saved.
If your Holy Father accepts me as a brother in Christ, who are (some of) you that I should care about what you say?
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rr1213
Guest
You know the old cliche–“more Catholic than the Pope”. There are a good many of those folks here, as well as a good many who don’t fall into that trap.
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mikew262
Guest
Caesar;1911368:
It sounds like you are ok to me!QUOTE]
Hi,
Im a bit confused by this statement. So do you think that souls are not being saved in protestant churches? If so, how is it that I am having a relationship with Christ that has turned my life around?
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ALLFORHIM
Guest
ALLFORHIM;1911467:
Thanks Mike.It sounds like you are ok to me!
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BradyQ
Guest
yes many protestant churches have errors in their doctrine and are wrong in some places, but i dont see how someone who follows the Bible and the Bible alone can be wrong just because they aren’t Catholic. isn’t the Bible completely true? the Bible doesn’t say anywhere “Hey Brady, you should be Catholic or you cant follow Me proberly.” it says to follow God and gather with others who follow God and the Bible. yes the Catholic church can be helpful in your walk as a Christian but God hasn’t told me it is necessary to be Catholic to live a godly life. Didn’t God say where people are gathered in His name (not specifically the name of the Church) He would be there? (actually where is that i cant remember?
).but completely going around the point in the BIG PICTURE TYPE of thing, i cant understand why there is the big fight between protestants and catholics. aren’t we all children of God? doesn’t God use both protestants and catholics to do His will? sure the Catholic church killed lots of people back in the day but so did alot of protestants. shouldn’t we be working spread the Gospel and quit all this fighting over the meaning of words and pointless stuff that does no good. What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Dont they come from the evil desires at war within you? James 4:1. protestants and catholics have got to a point in this fight that they have quit trying to find out truth and are just trying to defend their “church”. We all need to examine our ways and see if they are in agreement with the only thing we know is true, the Bible.
and with that i will say goodbye!
1 Corinthians 1:10
Lamentations 3:40
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Gottle_of_Geer
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I don’t see any contradiction 
- if anything, it seems that I’m not denying that section at all.
No creature is anything without God, nor can it be - the Church is a creature. We adore, & sacrifice to, God - we do neither for the Church, nor for any othe created thing. In fact, there is a sense in which God is alone real, living, true - as (IIRC) is said in more than one liturgy.If we can say “Tu Solus Sanctus”, “Thou Alone art Holy”, is that a denial that holiness is a mark of the “sancta ecclesia catholica”, the “holy catholic church” ? No - both are holy; but not in the same way; for God is Holy & is Holiness in Person, whereas the Church is holy by the grace of God. And the same applies to the Church’s part in our salvation - it is absolutely all the work of God Alone, for it is so great a work that no creature can be its Author; creatures can no more save than create. So the Church is a minister of God’s salvation: even to be that is totally from God. The Church is a secondary cause - never the First, Unique, Cause. There are many causes - but only one Cause.
Do you think that the Church is the “Creator of all things, visible and invisible” ? Of course not. But God is. If we make no distinction between the Eternal & All-Gracious God, & that which it has pleased Him to create, we are committing idolatry. So if there is any good at all in any creature, it comes as a sheer gift from God to the creature - and that definitely includes the creature we know as the Church.
Or are we to think that the Church is holy, not by receiving holiness from God as a gift, but by having created her holiness ? I would rather be an atheist than believe that. Of course the Church is holy - but only because Christ the Holy One graces His Church unceasingly with His own Holiness; she is not holy, she is not anything at all, without Him. Without Him, she has no:
- election
- existence
- predestination
- vocation
- purpose
- unity
- holiness
- catholicity
- apostolicity
- knowledge
- wisdom
- insight
- obedience
- faith
- hope
- love
- endurance
- or anything at all.
This is a motive for devotion to the Sacred Heart - for the SH manifests Christ to us; & so, all that is in Christ; & all that is in Him declares to us the “whole counsel of God”.
BTW: AFAICS none of this is unorthodox. To emphasise the absolute need of the Church for God may be unfamiliar - that does not make it remotely unorthodox. ##
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Not of itself - of itself it “can do nothing”, nothing at all. It has no self-starter, any more than any other creature. That’s the difference between God & the Church - His Life is from Himselves (or rather, it is so much from Himself, that it is Who God are. The Church, by contrast, has all that it has from God, as a gift from God; it could not possibly exist, or have any being whatever, if God had not called into being, for His Glory.
This doesn’t mean that the Church is unimportant - it does mean that it is not its own Creator, & can do nothing that God is not doing by means of it; for the work it does to advance His Kingdom, is wholly His work, & in part its work. “Unless the LORD build the house = temple ?], they labour in vain that build it”. The gloves a man wears do what he does with his hands - if he takes them off, he acts still - they do not. Unless he puts them on, they can do nothing. The union of the Church with Christ is far less external, & far more intimate, than that - but unless He graciously acts through her, she can do nothing. St.Paul even says:- Rom 13:14…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
He is our Clothing, our Life, Food, Righteousness, Peace, Strength - there is no want of His Church that He does not more than satisfy. Which is why the Church is nothing without Him. That’s why the Mass is His sacrifice & not ours - it is wholly His work, just as all the sacraments are.
True - the Church is not an idol, but it can be treated as one, can be thought of as one; any creature at all can become an idol. Anything that is not God is capable of being idolised. You may know the saying “Corruptio optimi pessima”, “The worst corruption, is the corruption of what is best”. This corruption begins in the heart of man - bodily gestures are manifestations of this corruption of the heart; which is why “it is what comes out of a man that defiles a man…”. If the Church or the Bible or any other thing is set above Christ, that thing has become an idol. If one prefers anything, in the slightest degree, to Jesus Christ, to that degree one is an idolater. Nothing, nothing at all, in any respect, is to be preferred to Him or denied to Him: He demands “not less than everything”. The “first commandment” named by Jesus -
- Deut 6:5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
- Mat 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind
- demands total love for God; & Jesus showed this total Love. This total love is the only thing that can burn up all the roots of idolatry in the heart; that’s why the Church is always in need of Christ: “because we are sinners, we trust in Your Mercy and Love”. The Veni Sancte Spiritus teaches the same total dependence on God:
shine within these hearts of thine,
and our inmost being fill!
Where thou art not, man hath naught,
nothing good in deed or thought,
nothing free from taint of ill.
oremus.org/hymnal/c/c305.html
Or, if you prefer
-O lux beatissima,
reple cordis intima
tuorum fidelium.
Sine tuo numine,
nihil est in homine,
nihil est innoxium.
preces-latinae.org/thesaurus/Hymni/VSS-2.html
If we believe the Holy Spirit “fills the whole earth”, can it be denied that He works through Protestants ? They need Him as truly as we do - & where He works, works like those of Christ can be expected. ##
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Contarini
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But there is no such person. Everyone follows some particular interpretation of the Bible. Those who claim that they don’t are naive to the point of dishonesty (i.e., no human being has the right to be that naive).
Edwin
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water
Guest
When I know what I am doing is according to the teaching of the Church who follows the Scripture as well as the Tradition.
Thanks!
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saint24
Guest
OK listen,
i don’t believe that any of the saints should speak out against any form of the church. especially just for the sake of speaking out. i don’t believe in denominationalism because i think it just causes seperation. why don’t we all just focus on the task at hand which is walking in righteousness and preaching the good news of the gospel to those who are of the world. God bless
i don’t believe that any of the saints should speak out against any form of the church. especially just for the sake of speaking out. i don’t believe in denominationalism because i think it just causes seperation. why don’t we all just focus on the task at hand which is walking in righteousness and preaching the good news of the gospel to those who are of the world. God bless
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