As Mary Poppins once said, "I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I never explain anything." I don't try to explain Catholic teaching to Catholics. I merely point out the inconsistencies.
Ergo, those who follow a faith other than the one true faith can not be presumed to have found salvation.
Catholics by their own doctrine admit they do not know if they are saved or will be saved. So how can they presume to have found salvation in a Church that tells them they might not be saved? (See Mary Poppins above.)
The Church recognizes that in many ways she is linked with those who, being baptized, are honored with the name of Christian, though they do not profess the faith in its entirety
That runs completely counter with #21:
If the Church is the ONLY true religion (remember these are negatives) then how can there be other linked to this religion? Protestant criteria for salvation is that you simply believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. That's basically it except for a few addedums.
The quotation from the Catechism, on the other hand, means that God respects man's free will, even when he chooses badly and that civil and ecclesiastical authorities are to do the same.
I left my comment about this on the Nancy Pelosi thread.
Catholics by their own doctrine admit they do not know if they are saved or will be saved. So how can they presume to have found salvation in a Church that tells them they might not be saved? (See Mary Poppins above.)
lol. Perfectly logical depiction of an illogical institution.
Because those that ARE saved--whether they know it are not--are saved by and through the Catholic Church.
Let's remember the way it was in the early centuries. Heretics were never rebaptized when they reconciled with the Church, because their original Baptism was considered valid. If it was valid, it had its intended sacramental effect--which was to join that person to the One Holy Catholic Church.
Protestantism is in the exact same position. When you were baptized, you were baptized into not A church, but THE Church. You *became a Catholic* sacramentally if not organizationally.
This is how you harmonize the language of the Syllabus of Errors with Vatican II. So:
17. We may entertain at least a well-founded hope for the eternal salvation of all those who are in no manner in the true Church of Christ.
*In no manner* is the key language there. If a person really is Catholic in no manner, there really is no hope. If however, they are Catholic in some manner, there is hope--and this concept is what Vatican II sought to explore.