Why SHOULD or Why Shouldn't everyone be Catholic?

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I’m not trying to say that the Eucharist isn’t important.
But historically, it was believed in many cases that if someone wasn’t baptized via Trinitarian baptism with water, they were just shut out of Heaven forever.

Nowadays we have a broader view of this and believe that God in his mercy would make a way to admit people who didn’t have a chance to get baptized with water and also weren’t able to have baptism of blood or baptism of desire.
However, we have the issue of Protestant baptisms, which are obviously not performed by a Catholic priest, so there is still a reason to make the baptism broad in order to be able to say that all the Protestants who get Trinitarian baptism are in communion with the Catholic Church in that manner and thus can find salvation “through the Church”.

In contrast to baptism, it would be undesirable to let just anybody be consecrating the Eucharist, especially when many Protestants still agree with us on the basic principles of Trinitarian baptism, but have serious theological differences concerning the Eucharist. Throughout much of Church history, the Eucharist was so restricted that many Catholics couldn’t even receive it very often. I see it as kind of a “special gift”. I hope the more widespread distribution of it, including to some Protestants now in Germany, doesn’t cause it to be viewed in a devalued light.
 
friardchips said:
In that case, is it is not so much, that you respect their views, but rather, that you are respectful towards them (and others).
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I get the distinction you’re trying to make, but I think it’s perfectly appropriate to respect ideas that you think, ultimately, don’t work. There are plenty of ideas, both religious and not, that I think are just facially stupid and don’t merit respect, but there are others that are at least decently well thought out and substantive and shouldn’t be hand waved away.
 
St. Augustine of Hippo spoke about how to treat inferior views - while one might hold a truer, greater perspective or knowledge than another, does not mean the other’s view is completely void of truth; there is truth and lesser truth.

However, I still think that this comes down to respecting the person more than the view. If a perspective, while less true, still has some truth in it, then we are to respect the truth within the view, but any falsity present, and that falsity is not to be respected, but condemned.

By condemned, I don’t mean that one has to slam the person down, or condemn the person, either; it is rather, that we slam the untruth, the devil behind the lie, the falsity, the obstruction that is causing said-blockage to that person’s path to greater understanding. This is truly respecting the person.
 
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friardchips said:
St. Augustine of Hippo spoke about how to treat inferior views - while one might hold a truer, greater perspective or knowledge than another, does not mean the other’s view is completely void of truth; there is truth and lesser truth.

However, I still think that this comes down to respecting the person more than the view. If a perspective, while less true, still has some truth in it, then we are to respect the truth within the view, but any falsity present, and that falsity is not to be respected, but condemned.

By condemned, I don’t mean that one has to slam the person down, or condemn the person, either; it is rather, that we slam the untruth, the devil behind the lie, the falsity, the obstruction that is causing said-blockage to that person’s path to greater understanding. This is truly respecting the person
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I’m certainly in favor of respecting the person.

However this idea of a “lesser truth” is fictitious; even impossible

Benedict 16 taught:
THERE CANNOT BE YOUR TRUTH AND MY TRUTH OR THEIR WOULD BE NO TRUTH

Archbishop Sheen taught

Even if no one beliefs the TRUTH; it remains the TRUTH;
and even if everyone beliefs a lie; it remains a lie.

To which I say: AMEN!

Patrick
 
Hi. Pope Emeritus, was talking about the dangers of relativism, which affirms or implies, through our ideas and actions, that there are no absolute truths - this is not what St. Augustine (the ‘Doctor of Grace’) was referring to.

Two people might believe in a notion of who God is: one person believes in all the tenets of the faith; the other, only has an abstract notion of who God is, but holds an opinion, in which, the person who believes all the tenets of the faith, can see that the abstract notion of the other, holds some truth, or an aspect of truth, within their opinion.

God made Creation ‘good’. All of Creation, came to be through The Word, and therefore, all things reflect God, through Creation. Mankind is fallen but through grace finds completion. This grace flows through the Church to all humankind. And so, people will understand truth to varying levels, because not all people are endowed with a full, Catholic faith, and yet, as the Bible (I think) says, rain falls on saint and sinner, alike.

An example: Hinduism. We know their stories only contain allegories rather than actual accounts, and we know they do not explicitly speak of the coming of Christ, and yet, they may on some level denote truthful aspects to do with life, and might also be prophetical, in the sense, that (as Pope Emeritus also wrote), all of creation groaned for the coming of God, known through the different expressions of humankind, before God was Made Man; Buddhism. As a Catholic, I don’t believe in Reincarnation. But there is truth in that we ought to love and respect Creation. Just possibly, not for all of the same reasons that they think we shouldn’t.
 
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