Divinum Officium: Whoever does not embrace the Catholic Christian religion will be damned

Divin Office of the Holy Catholic Church ^ | Traditional Catholic Church

[CynicalBear]

The pompous arrogance of the Catholic Church knows no bounds.

[metmom]

From the Catholic church's own catechism .......

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336

They claim there's an exception for what they refer to as *invincible ignorance* but that disqualifies people who have heard Catholic church claims of being the one true church.

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337

Basically, this leaves the door wide open for anyone to be saved without Christ. Even their pope has recently stated that atheists can be saved if they live right.

Then there's this tidbit about islam and muslims with the pope kissing the Koran.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P29.HTM

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330

If you choose to join the Catholic church, do it with eyes wide open.

I was raised Catholic and after I committed my life to Christ could not stay in the RCC. And for that I have been lambasted. You can see the comments yourself.

Some people choose to stay and that's their decision between them and God.

[metmom]

Some would like to.

[CynicalBear]

>>Those in the category of #2 have the real possibility of salvation even if they never come to an explicit knowledge of Christ and/or his Church.<<

So Christ said to go into all the world and tell them of Him so that those who were already saved had a chance to reject Him and be damned? Seriously?

[Gamecock]

847 This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
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Why, if this is the case, should we go and spread the good news? If “good” atheists are in we will just ruin eternity for them if we share the good news with them. It is better to die a good atheist who has never than a good person who has heard the Gospel and politely declines.

[Campion]

You're just restating your claim, not giving any specifics. You're making an assertion about something that happened; you should be able to point to specific events, acts, decrees, or whatever that prove that this "change" happened.

Certainly the church gained a lot of temporal power and wealth. You would expect that for a group that goes from being hunted down and killed by the state, to a group that enjoys the favor of the emperor. But where's the evidence for some significant change in doctrine or even practice?

[sitetest]

Read what is written. Think about the context.

The year is 743 AD. Some moslems came to this holy man and asked him a question about religion. He said to these moslems, who probably started out as Christian of the East, that anyone who did not embrace Catholicism is damned. He was speaking to folks who had apostasized from faith in Jesus Christ to follow the the child-molesting false prophet, mohammed.

This is in the mid-8th century, after a hundred years of moslem slaughter and conquest of Christian lands and people. He is telling these moslems that in abandoning Christian faith, they have embraced damnation, that they have no excuse for their crimes, that there is no justice in the century of rape and slaughter and slavery in which they have joined.

At this time, the Church is still (mostly) unified (most days). Thus, when the saint talks about the Catholic Church, he is talking about all Christianity, the Christianity of Rome, the Christianity of Constantinople, of Jerusalem, of Alexandria, of Antioch, and, yes, of Damascus. There is no “Eastern Orthodoxy” or “Roman Catholicism” at this point. There is the Catholic Church from which today's Orthodox and Catholics claim descent. At this time, Catholic is as much still an adjective describing the universality of the Church of Christ as it is a noun, a name.

To follow Christ at this time was to belong to the Unified Church.

He was contrasting Christian faith with apostasy, with abandonment of Christ to follow the demonic religion given by Satan to his prophet, mohammed.

After hearing this, the moslems validate all the saint has said to them about their evil religion. For this, the moslems then killed him.

[Iscool]

I think people should run all over the internet? For citations of wht I say is true? Or did I say they should cite the Catechism, the true teachings of the Church, when they state what they say the Church teaches

And then you claimed people should search Google for your catechism and then obviously search your catechism for the truth you claim...

[CynicalBear]

>>Care to comment?<<

Yeah, I'll say what the Catholics tell us all the time. What one guy says is not what the Catholic Church teaches. Read the Catechism.

CCC 841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."

That's the "official" Church teaching right Campion?

[tioga]

Traditional Catholic Church? What’s that? I am Roman Catholic and my church does not teach that. Your link goes nowhere. Were you attempting to provide a news article? You didn’t.

[Campion]

That is actually a cogent objection, GC. You can probably see a parallel to a similar objection to Calvinism.

I would respond:

1. A true atheist doesn't seek God with a sincere heart, so that's not who the passage is addressing
2. We can't guarantee anyone's salvation except for Catholics who die in the state of grace. A hope or possibility isn't a guarantee.
3. The point is moot anyway in view of the great commission. We've been given our orders.

[kosciusko51]

Well said.

[Vaquero]

there are many opinions about what happened 1700 years ago. Suffice it say that Constantine was looking for a nice clean agreeable church to start his Holy Roman Empire. The fact that babies were thrown out with the bath water is, to me, a distinct possibility.

[Campion]

Do you care to address what the “one guy” said?

[MrB]

Well, I’ll be damned!

[Gamecock]

*We’ve been given our orders.*

And yet the RCC discourages those orders.
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**You can probably see a parallel to a similar objection to Calvinism.**

Not at all. Calvinism doesn’t teach universalism. We are commanded to go spread the good news. We don’t know who is elect and who isn’t. We do what we are told, which is GO. God takes care of the rest.

[Lonely Bull]

I admire and indeed am considering conversion to Catholicism, but one of the big roadblocks for me is this exclusivity idea. I cannot buy into it. I am hoping that this is not actual Catholic belief, just a spin off belief held by some.

What differences do you see between what you described and what we may call the exclusive claims historically held within Christianity? With a few changes, "I even recently had one tell me that Billy Graham was going to hell because he is not Catholic!" can become "I even recently had one tell me that Gandhi was going to hell because he is not Christian!" I will not be linking to anything of this sort, but it shouldn't be hard to find a "skeptic" complaining about Christian non-universalism.

I am not trying to merge or equate the two "exclusivities" (although I can see how some people would), but I got reminded of the similarity pretty quickly.

(From Mark 16:16, at least if one does not question it as scriptural: "he that believeth not shall be damned." From John 3:18, which does not have the same questions concerning the ending of Mark: "he that believeth not is condemned already." If the original quotation, and the resulting title of this thread, had been "Whoever does not embrace the Christian religion will be damned"--and I'm not saying that it should've been--this thread would've taken some different directions.)

[Vaquero]

there was no non-catholic students in my parochial school back in the 50s 60s....we were told that if someone learned the ‘truths’ of the church and still rejected them, then they were most likely damned. This leaves quite a big opening one could fit his own personal beliefs in...

in my opinion....for what that is worth.

[edwinland]

THE DEBATE SET OFF BY THIS POST IS UNNECESSARY AND BASED ON A FAULTY TRANSLATION

The poster posted the English translation of this quote, which was made in England in 1879 and is (as I guessed) mangled to make it sound like something relevant to the debate between protestants and Catholics.

Fortunately, the same website they linked has the original Latin:

Damasci sancti Petri Mavimeni, qui, cum diceret Arabibus quibusdam, ad se aegrotum venientibus: “Omnis qui fidem Christianam catholicam non amplectitur, damnatus est, sicut et Mahumet, pseudopropheta vester,” ab illis est necatus.

Note:

1. The quote uses small c catholic (Christianam catholicam), which makes sense because the quote is from before the schism; it’s the same word catholicam we find in the creed;

2. Mavimeni doesn’t say “religion”. He says faith.

So the correct translation is “whoever doesn’t accept the catholic Christian faith” which I’m pretty sure even Martin Luther would agree with.

[Gamecock]

The distinction is this, Rome claims you must be a card carrying member of that particular faith group to be saved.

Jesus states you must believe in him to be saved, not an institution.

If Jesus is who he claimed to be, we as his followers are obligated to follow his teachings.