“It may also be pointed out that the Catholic church’s official teaching is that anyone not a Catholic will also be going to hell.”
False. Fr. Sweeney taught something close to that in the 1940s and was told to stop teaching it. It is not and has not been the position of the Catholic Church. Ever.
This has to be a debate larger than a single Western priest who wasn’t even a pope.
Catholics who are of the bent “well, if you get saved by Christ it means you get incorporated into our church whether or not you know it at the time” — I can respect that, with the counter statement that it’s Catholic Christians who will find themselves together with us part of a larger congregation that however much presence it had in Rome, never had a central anchor in Rome — because its central anchor was outside this world.
I don't think so: " Extraordinary Magisterium ---EX CATHEDRA “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215.) “With Faith urging us we are forced to believe and to hold the one, holy, Catholic Church and that, apostolic, and we firmly believe and simply confess this Church outside of which there is no salvation nor remission of sin… Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and proclaim to every human creature that they by absolute necessity for salvation are entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, Nov. 18, 1302) “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (Council of Florence--Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.)"
We are united in what we want in our government. Almost everyone here agrees we are all pro-life and anti-big government. The rest is up to the individual and God. __________________