Protestant the Pope has deemed that you are not true churches and therefore do not have the means of salvation

Question

Comments?

WOW Catholics seem so ware of the stuff coming out of their Pope's mouth

Answer 1

So I guess I've been wrong all along -- I thought only God could judge whether a person was saved or not!

Answer 2

The pope has not deemed such a thing, nor is it a teaching of the Catholic Church.

Even protestants are "indirect" members of the Catholic Church because they have been baptized into the body of Christ.

The true teaching is that salvation can extend to those outside the boundaries of Catholicism. It's just that they don't have the whole truth and full knowledge of God that the Catholic Church teaches.

As for the pope's statement, it is nothing new that Christ only started one true Church. He did not tell Peter that he was building his "churches"...He said "church"...as in singular. However, he did not say that salvation isn't available to others. Those are your words.

I'm not sure if you have made an assumption or if you read something on an anti-Catholic website. However, you shouldn't declare things to be fact before you do the study.

Answer 3

Actually, the Pope says that "All Christians are part of the Catholic Church, whether directly or indirectly", meaning that we all believe in the basic tenets of the faith.

While it is true the only the Catholic Church has the "fullness of the teaching of Jesus", every Christian denomination has at least some of the truth in it.

The Church also teaches that all people, not just Christians, have a chance at salvation.

Answer 4

The idea that the maxim "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" means that non-Catholics cannot be saved was laid to rest in the middle of the last century. Official Catholic doctrine has held consistently and clearly that outward membership in the Catholic Church is not necessary for salvation. Some great contemporary Catholic theologians, such as Karl Rahner, applied this explicitly not just to dissenting Christians, but to non-Christians as well.

In short: it's not that non-Catholics can't be saved; it's that if a non-Catholic IS saved, s/he is "anonymously" (in Rahner's terms) connected to the Catholic Church, conceived as the repository of the fullness of the faith. "There is no salvation outside the Church" might be better stated as "There is no Church outside salvation."

Answer 5

Pope? Last I looked in my scripture I see no authority given to a mere man to determine who is saved or not saved. I believe that's the prerogative of God.

I think that the Catholic Church is the great whore and the protestant churches are her harlot daughters. That doesn't mean I believe that all the believers in those churches are lost, and I 'm certainly not going to judge any of them concerning their salvation. God will work with whom he works with and no man even the Pope has the authority to say otherwise.

Answer 6

Here is the full text of the new document that states nothing new: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html

Most Christian denominations believe that each of them is the fullest version of the Church of Christ.

While the Catholic Church also believes that she is "the highest exemplar" of the mystery that is the Church of Christ, she does not claim that non-Catholic Churches are not truly Christian. The Catholic Church teaches:

Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements.

Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church.

All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him.

With love in Christ.

Answer 7

The Pope hasn't "deemed" anything. This isn't a new teaching by a long shot. But the fact that non-Catholics are up in arms about this is further proof that anti-Catholic people don't truly know the Church.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen: "There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing. "

People are up in arms today because the Holy Father has spoken on this topic and reminded people of it. People don't want to hear it. The truth hurts.

Answer 8

When have Protestants ever paid attention to what the Pope says?

He's a good man, but if he did say that...I would remind him not to judge who has the means of salvation and who doesn't.

Where does the Bible say that one has to be a Catholic to be saved?

Answer 9

That's not true.

The Pope has stated that Christians outside the Church can have salvation.

"They cannot be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or remain in it (cf. LG 14)." This means if you understand that the Catholic Church is the true Church, but reject it, you reject salvation. But if you truly do not understand this and believe that you are following the truth and God, then you can be saved.

The Catholic Church is "the single and exclusive channel by which the truth and grace of Christ enter our world of space and time" (Karl Adam, The Spirit of Catholicism, 179).

Those who do not know the Church, even those who fight against it, can receive these gifts if they honestly seek God and his truth. But, Adam says, "though it be not the Catholic Church itself that hands them the bread of truth and grace, yet it is Catholic bread that they eat." And when they eat of it, "without knowing it or willing it" they are "incorporated in the supernatural substance of the Church."

Answer 10

Well I know this, in his state and reference point we do not have the means of salvation. From the reference point of the Word of God we do! Whom shall I believe is speaking the truth, the person who says I do not know God, and can not have salvation unless I go through the pope and accept his theology or do I stand on the Holy Word of God given so that all may find that salvation comes through Christ by His death burial and resurrection provided such a great salvation and that it is by faith in Him alone that my salvation is procurred and not faith in man's understanding, but by God's grace and love? a man or Christ? I will always choose Christ! All judgement falls to the Son so that all may honor the Son of God, as they honor the Father who is in heaven.

Answer 11

If I cared what the Pope said I'd be RC now wouldn't I? I'd like to ask him why he allows people to call him, "Holy father?" This in itself if a sin!

The church was in hiding from severe persecution when Constantine stopped this. He never became a christian as far as we know but his mother was. This was in the year around 300. After this Rome began to decline but the church there became strong. It started out good but then fell to the traditions of man over the bible. IE-mass in other languages that people couldn't understand, laws against owning or reading the bible, money for sins or to get loved ones out of purgatory which in a non biblical place.
shall I go on? There's more....