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He said there was One True Church (with a capital "C") and that is the Church that Christ founded, i.e. the Catholic church. No where was it said that people of other denominations are not Christian.

In point of fact, the Response emphasizes:

"It follows that these separated churches and Communities, though we believe they suffer from defects, are deprived neither of significance nor importance in the mystery of salvation. In fact the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as instruments of salvation, whose value derives from that fullness of grace and of truth which has been entrusted to the Catholic Church"[12].

Basically, the thrust of the message is this: Protestants don't have Apostolic Succession nor the Sacraments (particularly the Eucharistic Mystery), so they're not, strictly speaking, "Church." The Responses, like the underlying encyclicals, do not imply that we Protestants aren't Christian - it's just that to a Catholic, Apostolic Succession and the Sacraments are the raison d'etre for the Church.

What I find more interesting is that this suggests a little fuzziness around the edges of extra ecclesium nulla salus - you don't, strictly speaking, need to be a communicant in the Roman or Eastern churches to be a Christian. It appears that Rome does recognzize the ecclesial communities as "quasi-churches" at least on this limited question.

No one should think the Roman Catholics are being unfair or unreasonable in this viewpoint. If Apostolic Succession and Sacrementalism **are** accurate, than the Protestant Churches are not "Churches." It is the inevitable conclusion of their central theology - and has a lot more basis in reality than the inadvertent and entirely unsupported conclusion of too many Protestants and Evangelicals that Catholics can't be Christian. ("She's not Christian, she's Catholic" is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.)

Just my 2 cents worth.

No one should think the Roman Catholics are being unfair or unreasonable in this viewpoint. If Apostolic Succession and Sacrementalism **are** accurate, than the Protestant Churches are not "Churches." It is the inevitable conclusion of their central theology - and has a lot more basis in reality than the inadvertent and entirely unsupported conclusion of too many Protestants and Evangelicals that Catholics can't be Christian

THANK YOU for that eminently sensible viewpoint. :)

Well my Roman Catholic brother -in-law told someone, in my earshot, that “ oh no she is not Catholic, she is a Christian”. So, tell it to your non-separated brethren!

As usual, your analysis is "on the money".

What I find more interesting is that this suggests a little fuzziness around the edges of extra ecclesium nulla salus - you don't, strictly speaking, need to be a communicant in the Roman or Eastern churches to be a Christian.

Correct. Anyone who is validly baptized (and the vast majority of Protestant baptisms would count as valid) would be considered to be a Christian.

As far as EENS is concerned, everyone who is saved will be saved by being incorporated into Christ's one church. There's no Baptist heaven or Methodist heaven or Lutheran heaven, there's only Catholic (or catholic or universal) heaven.

(Disunity is always either sin or the consequence of sin, and heaven means being cleansed from all sin and all of its consequences, hence, there is no disunity in heaven.)

How, exactly, that works out in an individual case is something we'll have to leave up to God.

As usual, your measured responses are much appreciated. The subject is a difficult one and can be very easily taken out of context for those who are not familiar with Vatican 2 and what was said by the Church.

Vatican 2 speaks of ecclesiastical community. It goes to great measures (and Popes have stressed this latter) to say that other members of Christian communities are certainly Christian, although not totally unified. "Church" can mean many different things.

Regards

Thanks, Jude for your two cents. You did an excellent job (I’m not expert enough to say “flawless”, but it was quite good) of presenting the Catholic Church’s position. I wish the AP or Reuters would hire *you* as a religious correspondent. (Then they could also get excellent coverage of Calvinist news, too!)