Saralaughs wrote:
Then how do you interpret the CCC Pax? -
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/819.htm819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth" are found
outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements." Christ's Spirit uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."
I posted the link, and the paragraph. Are you saying this was just thrown in at the last minute to help the Church seem "politically correct?"
Saralaughs
The concern seems to be that you stress the wrong parts of the things you quote. "Having elements of" and "using as a means of salvation" means that they have
some of the things that are needed to attain salvation --- they broke off from the Church and retained some of the Church's teachings while denying others --- and that people may be
led to the Church
through those ecclesial communities. It doesn't mean that just being in those communities gives you a free pass to heaven.
I'm concerned that you seem to be telling non-Catholics that it's okay for them to just be devoted to their own ecclesial community and they'll get to heaven. Whether you mean it or not, that is how you are coming across, at least to some of us.
Being a member of any ecclesial community should, if that person is open to the truth, lead that person to the Catholic Church.
You still don't seem to understand that anyone who rejects the Church and prefers to stay in their ecclesial community is putting their soul in peril. Something you said elsewhere, that "people can't reject what is not placed in their heart", seems to me that you are saying that a person can reject the Church and still attain heaven if they weren't called to the Church in the first place. That isn't true. Everyone who is baptized in the Trinitarian formula is called to the Holy Catholic Church. They are baptized into her and failing to follow that call places them outside the Church.