Catholics teach that only they go to Heaven

[Darron Steele]

Darron, I don't see that the Catecchism that you have quoted says that there is any Salvation outside of Catholicism. It merely states that we are talking with groups such as the Anglican Communion and the Eastern Orthodox denominations--"joined in many ways"--but not under the successor of Peter. Nor do I see how you reach your conclusion that the non-Catholic is saved by imperfect communion with Catholicism. ....

Fine. I realize that this is predominantly a thread to vent dislike of Catholicism.

There is no reference to Anglicanism in that quote of the Catechism. Only the Orthodox are referred to -- and only to indicate that the Catholic can admit the Orthodox to their Eucharist. As far as who "is joined in many ways" the text just says "the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian."

"The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter." Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." With the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."

You can find similar wordings in Lumen Gentium as well.

"Properly baptized" means `baptized according to a Trinitarian formula.' Also, "baptized" to them does not always necessarily mean put through some ceremony involving water. Catechism 1259-61 outlines other ways people get considered "baptized."

I know that the Catholic bishop of Rome is an expert on Vatican law and tradition. However, I strongly doubt that many here are experts on Vatican law and tradition -- or on understanding his take on Vatican law and tradition. I certainly claim no expert status, but I study their documents to understand Catholics accurately, rather than just to fuel prejudiced dislike for them.

The Vatican views the Catholic organization as sort of a `vehicle of salvation' that `carries to Heaven.' In pick-up trucks, humans are normally supposed to ride in the cabin, and not in the truck bed; the people in the cabin will get all the perks of riding in the truck the intended way, but everyone will get to the truck's destination. The present teaching of the Vatican is that Trinity-believing Christians get saved because of an "imperfect" attachment to the `vehicle of salvation.'

Despite what the Vatican says, it does change its mind. Hundreds of years ago, the Vatican taught that only Catholics would go to Heaven. They have changed their mind on that. In light of the persecutions present in many countries by Catholic authorities, and the fact that the Vatican does not do more to oppose them, I suspect that they have no true desire to put that teaching into action. Catholicism in Latin America is different than here; where I was in Brazil, it was largely Spiritist. It seems that as far as the Vatican is concerned, as long as Catholic clergy in a region give Rome's bishop primacy, the Vatican will not find much there objectionable. However, the current teaching of the Vatican itself is the current teaching.

 

[church mouse guy]

Rome boasts that they never change.

Rome boasts that they never change.

Two hundred and fifty years after the Eastern Orthodox refused to recognize the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church issued a papal bull saying that there was no Salvation outside of the Catholic Church.

This still stands as official RCC law and the new pope has taken great pains to make that clear this summer.

To state that fact is not Catholic bashing.

The RCC in the United States recognizes that it now has 64,000,000 Catholics in what once was a Protestant land with almost no Catholics as part of the reason people fled Europe was to escape Catholicism. Therefore, the RCC has sought to confuse American Catholics and the American public of what the Vatican believes as dogma about how all non-Catholics go to hell with the Jews and heathen. This is not popular dogma in a nation that thinks nowadays that there is good in everybody--an anti-Christ doctrine that denies total depravity but an American cliche nevertheless. American would be horified at the ugly dogma that only Catholics go to heaven.

Since I have not said this but Pope Benedict XVI himself has said that only Catholics go to heaven, let me re-link the pope's statement:

Here is one link to a news report on what the Pope said:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070711/news_1n11church.html

Here is part of what the Pope said:

"LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the
primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released
yesterday that says other Christian communities are either defective
or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to
salvation."

 

[Darron Steele]

Yes, Church Mouse Guy. I read it. I have read it and others like it for a long time.

The Vatican teaches that it has the `full means of salvation.' However, it does not automatically follow that they believe that they are the only ones who will be saved. You are reading into those statements your prejudices.

The teaching is that "ecclesial communities" are not able to save their own members. It is purported that members of those "ecclesial communities" will be saved by "imperfect union" with the Catholic organization, which they claim `has means of salvation.'

To use the vehicle analogy again, it means that "ecclesial communities" are like wagons. Wagons cannot move themselves; something has to move them. The Vatican claims to be the vehicle that can move itself and things attached to it. The Vatican still claims that "ecclesial communities" are attached to the vehicle, and because of that will get where the vehicle is headed.

I am not disagreeing with you that Bishop Ratzinger of Rome probably believes and hopes that Catholics are the only ones who are going to avoid the eternal barbecue. However, the Vatican does not officially teach that at present.

 

[church mouse guy]

So the Rome that says it never changes does change?

I understand the idea that we are supposed to believe that we are merely in the back of the bus and I know that Pope John XXIII tried to open the windows to let in some fresh air, but I think that legally nothing has ever changed.

How much clearer can Pope Benedict XVI be? Rome never changes. This dogma achieved full legal status 700 years ago. It was never rescinded. The era of good feeling is over. Pope John XXIII is dead. Pope John Paul II was a traditional Pope and so is the new one. My one contact in Latin America tells me that it is true that Catholicism teaches that only Catholics go to Heaven, no questions asked, no back of the bus.

Catholicism may be muted and confusing in the USA but it is clarion clear in Italy where the legal dogma expert Pope Benedict XVI made his statement this summer. I have no prejudice, as I have been charged with, for merely stating what Pope Benedict XVI states. What shouldn't Catholics just admit what their dogma teaches?

Here is one link to a news report on what the Pope said:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070711/news_1n11church.html

Here is part of what the Pope said:

"LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the
primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released
yesterday that says other Christian communities are either defective
or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to
salvation."

 

[BobRyan]

............ah Bob but the poor RCC certainly took a bizarre turn at vatican 2......it is not possible for the RCC to upturn several hundreds of years of teaching because it thinks modernism is KEWL.....mind you I am a very conservative Catholic....who prays daily for the pope because by goodness gracious me he certainly NEEDS every pray to stand up to the current ecumenical modernistic madnessraying:

So there are two sides to this story even within the RCC.

 

[Matt Black]

There was a slight but significant difference in status between the Eastern Orthodox and the 'fringe groups' around in 1302 (I'm thinking here of such heretical and heterodox groups beloved by Eliyahu as the Cathars, Bogomils, etc): the former were considered merely schismatic by the leaders of The Italian Mission, the latter heretical. It is to the latter that Unam Sanctum was primarily addressed.

 

[Eliyahu]

There was a slight but significant difference in status between the Eastern Orthodox and the 'fringe groups' around in 1302 (I'm thinking here of such heretical and heterodox groups beloved by Eliyahu as the Cathars, Bogomils, etc): the former were considered merely schismatic by the leaders of The Italian Mission, the latter heretical. It is to the latter that Unam Sanctum was primarily addressed.

Hope you remember the linkage between Cathari and Albigenes, between Paulicians and Bogomils. They must have known the Montanists, Donatists, Novatian, Nestorians too.
Do you see Jan Huss of Prague as a heretic?

 

[Darron Steele]

Rome boasts that they never change....

I do not give them as much credit about `never change' that you do.

Catholicism decreed officially at the Council of Trent that the Latin Vulgate translation of Scripture was never to be doubted. However, because of a 1943 decree, Catholic translations now abound from the Greek New Testament that disagree with the Latin Vulgate.

This is only one example. The Vatican changes its mind whether it admits it or not.

...Two hundred and fifty years after the Eastern Orthodox refused to recognize the Bishop of Rome as the Vicar of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church issued a papal bull saying that there was no Salvation outside of the Catholic Church....

That papal decree, if I am not mistaken, is from 1302. In prior posts, I showed how Catholicism is now redefining that.

They now view it as `no salvation without the Catholic church.' They presently teach that other Christians will be saved by means of "imperfect union" with them.

Here is one link to a news report on what the Pope said:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070711/news_1n11church.html

Here is part of what the Pope said:

"LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the
primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released
yesterday that says other Christian communities are either defective
or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to
salvation."

Pardon me, but this is a quote of a journalist, not a quote of the pope.

Taking what the journalist says the pope is saying, I can understand how someone who has a grudge against Catholicism and is inclined to believe that Catholicism is heavily exclusivist can see `They think that they are the only ones going to Heaven' in this. However, please notice that this is not explicitly stated in the actual words. The reason: what you see is not meant. The words mean what they mean and nothing more.

This is nothing groundbreaking. What this journalist says the pope is saying is still consistent with current Vatican teaching: the Catholic church is the means by which Christians will be saved. The pope is emphasizing a view that outside denominations do not have their own means of salvation. The Vatican accepts, at present, a view that other Christians will be saved by "imperfect union" with them. You can find that in their official document Catechism of the Catholic Church such as at paragraph 838 that I quoted in prior posts.

I will stick with the current Catechism of the Catholic Church. That is an official document of the Vatican. I quoted a relevant paragraph in a prior post, and indicated that you can find similar statements in another official document Lumen Gentium. I believe we should assume this to be the official stance of the Vatican.

 

[Matt Black]

Hope you remember the linkage between Cathari and Albigenes, between Paulicians and Bogomils. They must have known the Montanists, Donatists, Novatian, Nestorians too.

I'm afraid the linkage is in your mind and in that of Mr Carroll and Mr Broadbent. But we've done this rabbit-trail before....

Do you see Jan Huss of Prague as a heretic?

No, but then again I don't see him as a Cathar/Albigensian, Bogomil, Donatist, Novatian or Nestorian either.

 

[church mouse guy]

Now I am accused of having a grudge against Catholicism.

Now I am accused of having a grudge against Catholicism.

This is what happens when you study theology I suppose. You open yourself up to personal attacks.

Here is what Pope Benedict XVI, who cannot be accused of having a grudge against Catholicism, said in June:


“Christ 'established here on earth' only one church,” said the document, released as the pope vacations at a villa in Lorenzago di Cadore in Italy's Dolomite mountains.
The other communities “cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense” because they do not have apostolic succession – the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles – and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid, it said.

There is only one church here on earth and the priests of other churches are not valid and other churches really aren't churches. That is what the Pope says.

 

[Darron Steele]

Okay Church Mouse Guy, believe whatever you want about those people.

I have never understood this notion many have that because a group teaches error or falsehood, almost `anything goes' in opposing them.

The facts you bring up and the facts you want to ignore have both been clarified. If you want to ignore relevant official documents that clarify the matter and twist words to falsely accuse these people of beliefs that they do not have -- or at least have not stated -- that is your sin.

I suspect that I am done here.

 

[Eliyahu]

No, but then again I don't see him as a Cathar/Albigensian, Bogomil, Donatist, Novatian or Nestorian either.

The question is why did Roman Catholics kill Jan Huss? Was it because RCC was infallible and Huss was guilty of death by burning? Can you trust the history written by such people?

 

[church mouse guy]

From a Univ. of Notre Dame theologian

"It's a clarification of the meaning of the word church," said Lawrence S. Cunningham, who writes a column for the Catholic magazine Commonweal and is a theologian at the University of Notre Dame. "Behind this document is the worry that the language of ecumenism has become too flabby and too imprecise, and too Pollyannish about glossing over real doctrinal positions."

The document said the Catholic Church alone has "the fullness of the means of salvation."

The Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches separated in the schism of 1054, and since then the Orthodox community does not recognize the pope's primacy - a defect, according to the document. Protestant denominations, meanwhile, lack "apostolic succession," the ability to trace their bishops back to the 12 Apostles, it said.

At the same time, the Vatican "would not deny that Lutherans or Methodists or Evangelicals ... have elements of the faith but do not constitute a church in the technical sense," Cunningham said.

This is quoted by The Baltimore Sun newspaper:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/na...1jul11,0,916562.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

 

[Matt Black]

The question is why did Roman Catholics kill Jan Huss? Was it because RCC was infallible and Huss was guilty of death by burning? Can you trust the history written by such people?

Because they regarded him as a heretic. But to claim that he was the same as those other groups you listed is like saying "Because Hindus and Muslims are regarded as heretics by the Catholic Church, therefore they believe the same."

 

[Eliyahu]

Because they regarded him as a heretic. But to claim that he was the same as those other groups you listed is like saying "Because Hindus and Muslims are regarded as heretics by the Catholic Church, therefore they believe the same."

1. One aspect of this matter is that RCC killed the people unjustly despite the faith in Jesus Christ. Jan Huss was not like Hindus.

2. Jan HUss was affected by those Bogomils, I believe (http://home.gci.net/~wltullos/bogomils3.htm)

and therefore his followers became the Moravians and Martin Luther was affected by him as well. The faith was not created without preachers.

 

[Matt Black]

Er...no. Huss was affected by Wycliffe and the Lollards who in turn may have been influenced by the Waldensians; and I'm prepared to accept that all three groups could be regarded as proto-evangelical ("Reformers before the Reformation"), but not the Abigensian-Cathars or the Bogomils, who were essentiallt gnostic dualists and therefore not Christian

 

[Eliyahu]

Er...no. Huss was affected by Wycliffe and the Lollards who in turn may have been influenced by the Waldensians; and I'm prepared to accept that all three groups could be regarded as proto-evangelical ("Reformers before the Reformation"), but not the Abigensian-Cathars or the Bogomils, who were essentiallt gnostic dualists and therefore not Christian

You misunderstand about Albigenes very much. Bogomils which means Friends of God was the extension of Paulicians, and the Paulicians in Armenia communicated even with Albigenes.
Albigenes refused Purgatory.
You are drunken too much with the wine of the RCC.

 

[Matt Black]

For the umpteenth time - I'm not Catholic!

No self-respecting church historian regards the Cathars of Albi and Languedoc as being Christian; just because a group calls itself "The God-lovers" doesn't make it Christian either - there are many cults calling themselves those sort of names today and there were then too.

 

[Eliyahu]

Some of the excerpts from the forementioned article.

1. They take the word of God, as revealed in the Bible, as their only sufficient rule of faith and practice.
2. They regard faith in Jesus Christ as God manifest in the flesh, and as having suffered and died the shameful death of the cross, and risen again for their justification, and ascended to heaven as their Mediator, as the only sufficient assurance of salvation, and that this faith is always connected with repentance and regeneration.
3. They refuse to be bound by any creed or confession of faith or doctrine which is not clothed in the words of the Scriptures.
4. Their only initiatory rite for membership is the immersion of the believer in water on the profession of his faith. This they do not deem a saving ordinance, but a simple act of obedience to the command of Christ.
5. They entirely repudiate infant baptism, both as unscriptural and injurious to its subjects, inasmuch as baptism is only the profession of the act of faith on the part of the believer himself, and no one is able to promise for an infant that it shall believe at a future time. And they regard this baptism of infants as tending to hypocrisy and the introduction of unconverted persons into the church, and of no significance except where it entitles the infant, as it does in some countries, to state privileges.
6. They regard the Lord's Supper as a memorial, not a mystical, service, to be offered only to baptized believers. They repudiate utterly the mystical ideas of the ordinance entertained by some of the Reformed churches, the consubstantiation theory as held by the Lutheran, and still more decidedly by the Greek Church, and the transubstantiation doctrine of the Romish Church and its allies.
7. They abhor the worship of the Virgin Mary in all its forms, and that of the saints, prayers to the saints, prayers or masses for the dead, the worship of pictures, icons, images, crucifixes, and everything of the sort, monachisin and seclusion, and all attempts to acquire merit by superfluous good works.
8. They believe in the necessity of a pure and holy life—not for the attainment of heaven or of any earthly or heavenly good, but from gratitude to Him who hath redeemed them.
9. They have always held to freedom of conscience and worship. They have never, when they have had the power, persecuted any for holding views which differed from theirs, but have always granted to others what they claimed for themselves—the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience.
10. They have always been a plain people—plain in dress, plain in their houses of worship, and plain in their speech. Their churches have not been decorated with cross or crucifix, statue or image, lectern, altar, reredos, or lighted candles. No "storied windows dight" have displayed full-length portraits of the Saviour, the apostles, or saints. No chimes of bells ring out for them the announcement of church holy-days. Even in the midst of the most gorgeous displays of church architecture and decoration they have been content with perfect plainness.
11. They have never acknowledged any hierarchy, archbishops, bishops, deans, archdeacons, and priests, nor have any of the monastic orders ever gained even a momentary foothold in their churches. Their pastors, teachers, or elders are chosen from, and licensed and ordained by, the churches, and these possess no exclusive or ecclesiastical authority; and though held greatly in esteem and love for their works' sake, they have no ruling power or right of absolution beyond other members of the church, except what is derived from their intellectual attainments, their study of God's word, and their earnest devotional spirit.

http://home.gci.net/~wltullos/bogomils3.htm

Do they look heretic to you? If so, wash your eyes.

 

[Matt Black]

Who is the author? What are his credentials? Which contemporary* primary source documents does he independently draw from? Anyone can put something up on the internet...

*ie: 8th to 10th centuries, when the Bogomils were extant