Will the gates of hell prevail against the protty chuches?

[Kaesekopf]

Then let it be anathema.

So let it be written; so let it be done.

[Armor of Light]

Good points and good photos.

The original question is a variation of my general confusion regarding EENS. I want to believe it, but it troubles me.

[Lynne]

Good points and good photos.

The original question is a variation of my general confusion regarding EENS. I want to believe it, but it troubles me.

We're lucky to be Catholic. That's not a guarantee that we'll be saved but we have access to everything we need to get to Heaven (graces, sacraments, etc). There's nothing stopping Protestants or anyone else from coming into the Catholic Church. They just have to desire Truth. I don't believe in invincible ignorance.

[INPEFESS]

Good points and good photos.

The original question is a variation of my general confusion regarding EENS. I want to believe it, but it troubles me.

What is your general confusion regarding EENS?

[Armor of Light]

I know this is pretty basic stuff with no questions asked, known by many trads, but here is my confusion in a nutshell:

The church has always taught "No salvation outside the church", but now...there is an asterisk at the end that allows for 'good people' to be saved without seeking the truth of the catholic faith. It troubles me either way. I'd like to believe that all the 'good people' I know can be saved, but it makes no sense to water it down to soothe the protestants (and any other good people) if it's not true.

Is the teaching on EENS consistent with Tradition? Is it just that the "asterisk" is now emphasized more than in the past?

[INPEFESS]

Prior to VII, the Church never taught that good people could be saved without seeking the truth of the catholic faith.

If that is being taught now, then what is teaching that cannot be the true Church, if you believe the Church and its truth to be immutable.

Is your confusion over the teachings of the conciliar church or with the teachings of the Church prior to Vatican II?

[Lynne]

Prior to VII, the Church never taught that good people could be saved without seeking the truth of the catholic faith.

If that is being taught now, then what is teaching that cannot be the true Church, if you believe the Church and its truth to be immutable.

Is your confusion over the teachings of the conciliar church or with the teachings of the Church prior to Vatican II?

Unfortunately, it wasn't that cut-and-dried before Vatican II either. Cardinal Gibbons made sure that the Baltimore Catechism included Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood (which leads to thinking that good people can be saved without seeking the Truth of the Catholic faith). 

[INPEFESS]

Prior to VII, the Church never taught that good people could be saved without seeking the truth of the catholic faith.

If that is being taught now, then what is teaching that cannot be the true Church, if you believe the Church and its truth to be immutable.

Is your confusion over the teachings of the conciliar church or with the teachings of the Church prior to Vatican II?

Unfortunately, it wasn't that cut-and-dried before Vatican II either. Cardinal Gibbons made sure that the Baltimore Catechism included Baptism of Desire and Baptism of Blood (which leads to thinking that good people can be saved without seeking the Truth of the Catholic faith).

Not so. Baptism of desire is a specific theological concept with a definitive theological definition. The Church's approved commissioned theologians (pre-VII) never taught it in a way that would lead people to think that "good people can be saved without seeking the Truth of the Catholic faith." The theologians who taught it have explained that it requires both faith in God and in Christ as well as perfect contrition, which the Church teaches to be an unconditional desire to do all that God commands, including conversion to Catholicism, true contrition for one's sins, and union with the visible Church. Only then is a person baptized by desire, not by some nebulous desire to be a good person, be a good pagan, or contentment with ignorance of the truth while practicing natural virtue. The Church's approved sources have never taught this; rather, the early Modernists hijacked the teaching  of BoD and began to misuse it in a way contrary to what the Church actually taught so as to find a way to achieve universal salvation. The teaching itself, as the Church teaches it, does not lend itself to that interpretation.

[The Harlequin King]

There's nothing stopping Protestants or anyone else from coming into the Catholic Church. They just have to desire Truth. I don't believe in invincible ignorance.

Anyone else? There are millions of poor, illiterate peasants who know next to nothing outside the world constructed for them by their Islamist overlords.

That's not to say I have a position on invincible ignorance. I suppose the millions (billions?) of pre-Columbian native Americans could been born, lived, breeded, died, and gone to hell because they didn't know the gospel. Sure, I guess. But a desire for truth alone wouldn't have teleported them across the Atlantic to a Catholic priest's front door.

[Armor of Light]

Thanks all, for the replies to my admission of confusion.

INPEFESS..I suppose my confusion is with the post conciliar church..at least, based on your previous input. I know next to nothing about the real differences between the pre / post VII teachings on the matter, so I appreciate you taking the time to inform.

Is invincible ignorance a post VII thing as well?

[INPEFESS]

INPEFESS..I suppose my confusion is with the post conciliar church..at least, based on your previous input. I know next to nothing about the real differences between the pre / post VII teachings on the matter, so I appreciate you taking the time to inform.

Is invincible ignorance a post VII thing as well?

No, it is not, but even prior to Vatican II invincible ignorance was not taught by the Church's approved sources to be a ticket into Heaven, a substitute for faith, or a replacement of the sacraments.

Some there are who are ignorant of the divinely revealed religion who are content in their ignorance. Some there are who do not wish to know. Some there are who set up obstacles to this knowledge, such as by defying and disobeying the natural law. These persons, while ignorant of the divinely revealed religion, are not invincibly so, since fault may be imputed to them for not knowing and for preferring those things by which they remain in darkness to those things by which they might enter into the light.

Invincible ignorance, on the other hand, is simply a blameless ignorance of the divinely revealed religion. But since faith is necessary for salvation, an invincibly ignorant person cannot go to heaven until such a time as God infuses them with the divine light of faith and sets them afire with the supernatural light of perfect charity. Their ignorance does not excuse or exempt them; it simply means that no blame can be imputed to them for their ignorance of the divinely revealed religion as a condition of God's infusion of faith. Such persons are not content in their ignorance of the truth, they actively seek it, and they follow God's will as it manifests itself in the natural law to the best that they can. This is simply a step to entering the Church, not an exemption from the necessity of doing so.

Thus, invincible ignorance, presupposing many conditions, is simply a blameless state that precedes knowledge of the divinely revealed religion, faith, perfect charity, and baptism of desire; it is not a condition that is a substitute for one or all of these. It simply means that, at that stage of preparation, they are yet blameless for their ignorance; and since God does not punish those who are blameless, He will reward such a person with an infusion of faith, which, if the soul makes good use of, will proffer perfect charity, perfect contrition, baptism by desire, and, if the soul persists in this unblemished state by which it is united to the Church, salvation.

7. Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace.* Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.

8. Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom "the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior."[4] The words of Christ are clear enough: "If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you a Gentile and a tax collector;"[5] "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me;"[6] "He who does not believe will be condemned;"[7] "He who does not believe is already condemned;"[8] "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."[9] The Apostle Paul says that such persons are "perverted and self-condemned;"[10] the Prince of the Apostles calls them "false teachers . . . who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master. . . bringing upon themselves swift destruction."[11]



[* This refers to the divine light of faith and the grace of perfect charity.]

Emphasis added.

The confusion with regards to this teaching once again results from the Modernists' distortion of the Church's true teaching, whereby they have turned it into a substitute for faith and for the need to be in the Catholic Church in order to be saved.

[Lynne]

There's nothing stopping Protestants or anyone else from coming into the Catholic Church. They just have to desire Truth. I don't believe in invincible ignorance.

Anyone else? There are millions of poor, illiterate peasants who know next to nothing outside the world constructed for them by their Islamist overlords.

That's not to say I have a position on invincible ignorance. I suppose the millions (billions?) of pre-Columbian native Americans could been born, lived, breeded, died, and gone to hell because they didn't know the gospel. Sure, I guess. But a desire for truth alone wouldn't have teleported them across the Atlantic to a Catholic priest's front door.

Supposedly, there's evidence that Christian missionaries were here on the North American continent in the 5th century? 10 million were converted due in part to the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe(sp).

[Heinrich]

There's nothing stopping Protestants or anyone else from coming into the Catholic Church. They just have to desire Truth. I don't believe in invincible ignorance.

Anyone else? There are millions of poor, illiterate peasants who know next to nothing outside the world constructed for them by their Islamist overlords.

That's not to say I have a position on invincible ignorance. I suppose the millions (billions?) of pre-Columbian native Americans could been born, lived, breeded, died, and gone to hell because they didn't know the gospel. Sure, I guess. But a desire for truth alone wouldn't have teleported them across the Atlantic to a Catholic priest's front door.

Why does it take a hackneyed meat head like me to point out this is because of mans fallen nature.

[Basilios]

Good stuff INPEFESS. That's how I came to understood Invincible Ignorance after a lot of research. I was so sick and tired of people telling me that Invincible Ignorance = Heaven that I spent a long time researching and found it to be exactly how you say it is. Put succinctly, I understand that it is only a state where a soul is blameless for lacking faith. That's all it covers - lack of faith.

I think where most modern Catholics get caught out (whether by honest mistake or bad will) is that they think either (a) Invincible Ignorance applies to all areas of morality or (b) Invincible Ignorance doesn't require someone to be seeking truth. Usually a combination of both; added to their misunderstanding of the word 'invincible', which they add so many caveats and sneaky exits to that it turns out that invincible can apply to pretty much every person ever born.

[MilesChristi]

try talking about Superman's invincibility, except that he is suscepitible to bullets