R.Catholics only!: Do you believe non-Christians will end up in heaven?

Question

I want to see what you have to say. & then I will reply.

Answer 1

*Is Catholic*

Let me make some clarifications to the above post.

If the full CCC is read, especially in context with the dogmatic pronouncements which always take precedence,
1. All the people in heaven are members of the Catholic Church.
2. The Church alone is the Ark of salvation, outside which no one at all will be saved.
3. An individual enters the Church through Baptism, which is normally by water, sometimes by blood, and sometimes by desire.
4. An individual is not punished for what they do not know and did not have a reasonable expectation of knowing. This is called inculpable ignorance.
5. If an individual dies without knowing Christ or his Church, but is inculpably ignorant of that knowledge, that individual MAY be saved if they have the implicit desire to know Christ and his Church, and during their lives they have sought to do God's will as they have known it. At the moment of their death, if they are saved, they will receive the baptism of desire.
6. The Church has the obligation and sacred right to preach the Gospel so that all people might accept Christ, be baptized, and enter the Church.

Answer 2

The Church teaches that we have the natural moral law written on our hearts. This directs our instincts on what is morally right or wrong. Some people reject this.

As Catholics, we believe in a God who is merciful as well as just. Therefore, we do not believe that a nonChristian who leads a morally good life but has never had the proper opportunity to be educated about Christianity will be condemned. A merciful God would not do this.

On the other hand- if someone has the resources and opportunity to learn the fullness of truth and chooses instead to consciously reject Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior, that person has little chance of obtaining heaven.

Answer 3

The Catholic Church believes that those who die never hearing of Christ but have sought the truth and does the will of God as they understand it can be saved. See Romans 2:13-16. This is called the Baptism of desire. (1)

If they died before Jesus died for our sins and opened the gates of heaven for us, then they waited in what is called in the Old Testament Abraham's bosom or Sheol.

Catholics believe that after Jesus died on the cross, he descended into Sheol, the place of the dead. While there He freed the holy souls who awaited their savior in Abraham's bosom. (2)

With love in Christ.

Answer 4

brief answer: the RC Church does not teach that they will end up in hell. God alone determines who will go to heaven.

from the catechism:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.

848 "Although 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, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."