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Have you looked at Dominus Iesus?

I'm afraid that, once again, the classics comix view of Catholic doctrine is driving out the real deal.

In the 13th - 14th century it was acknowledged that 'the Greeks' who were not in Communion with the Holy See had a church with valid sacraments. That simply could not coexist with a teaching that only Catholics (those in communion with the Holy See) could get into heaven.

Again,the conceptual hurdle which it seems some have difficulty jumping is that we really think there is One Church. So when we speak of the Catholic Church, we do not view it as one denomination among many,except that it's the correct one and all those others are in deep doo-doo.

Neither do we think that all those others are "just as good as" the group in communion with the Holy See.

The truncated or eviscerated history which so many of us learn in school and the limited vision of our teachers who think that Plato, Aristotle etc could have no REAL relevance to the way we moderns think really has done the devil's work. Conversation becomes almost impossible because the variety of ways to approach a difference has been unnaturally limited.

Now try this. PLEASE, you may consider that it is wrong or even offensive, but try to hold the emotions back long enough to grasp the concept itself.

What is bread? In one sense it is something you have when you mix wheat flour and water( and yeast) and then bake the resulting paste.

Is it bread if oil and honey are added? Ditto with, say raisins and orange peel? Clearly if too much of those things is added, it is no longer bread, but some do not affect its "breadness" though they compromise or alter it.

Is it bread if sawdust is added? Again, a little sawdust won't make it impossible for the product to nourish. But it will compromise it, while too much sawdust will make it no longer bread in any meaningful sense.

So, you could say that we feelthy papists view those in Communion with the Holy See to be bread of pure wheat and all the rest. But other ecclesial assemblies are like bread in which some edible but non-nutritious substance has been mixed. It' still bread, it will contribute to the maintenance of life. Its breadness has been compromised, you might even say diluted, but you will not die if you eat it, and it will even help you live.

We see an important difference between the 16th century and other times when a BIG part of the motivation of becoming a non-Catholic was the idea that the Catholic Church was in no way a true church, and the motivationforbeing a Protestant these days. Cranmer and Henry VIII were not cradle Anglicans, Luther was not a cradle Lutheran, nor was Calvina cradle Calvinist.

The place where they "learned Christ" was not a building and community associated with a "denomination" in the modern sense. So the moral "object" is schism is not a part of one's being a Baptist or Mennonite or whatever. There is not anything that could be reasonably be construed as a choice to "leave the Church"in 99 44/100ths of such folks.

So we hold them to be eating a kind of bread, and to be nourished. They have not intentionally rejected pure bread for adulterated bread,which is perverse. And, at least by Baptism, if nothing else, they are indeed part of the One, Holy, Catholic,and Apostolic Church. That is why on Easter we did not baptize anyone with good evidence that he had been baptized with water and a Trinitarian formula.

So,IMHO,we cannot fairly be construed as saying that one has to join the Catholic Church in the modern sense of joining the "denomination".

I pinged some Catholics not to have them jump on you, but to have them jump on ME if my account is wrong.