Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
The Catholic Church does not teach that Protestants are doomed to hell. As a matter of fact, an American Catholic priest, Father Leonard Feeney, began in 1949 to preach that such was the Catholic teaching. He was warned both by Archbishop Cushing of Boston, and then by the Holy See itself, that he was preaching wrong doctrine and misrepresenting Cathlolic teaching. Told repeatedly by the highest ecclesiastical authorities to cease propagating such ideas, he refused to obey and on Feb. 13, 1953, was declared excommunicated by Rome and expelled from the Catholic Church. If Protestants are trying to live as good Christians, they have the will to do God's will. If they knew the Catholic Church to be the one true Church, knowing it to be God's will that they should join it, they would certainly do so. If therefore they do not join it, it can only be because through no fault of their own, they do not realize that they should do so. Overlooking their unconscious mistake, God takes their will for the deed; and they will be saved because of their sincere efforts living a good Christian life and because they would have joined the Catholic Church had they realized that they should.
Surely because he has not seen any reason why he should inflict such drastic treatment upon me!
That is not the teaching of the Catholic Church. Since the Catholic Church claims to be the one true Church, she must of course insist that it is necessary for people who become aware of the fact to become Catholics. But she must also insist, where the moral responsibility of individuals is concerned, that no one can be lost except through his own fault. She therefore says quite logically that no one outside the Catholic Church through his own fault can be saved; whilst those outside the Catholic Church through no fault of their own will not be held responsible by God for their refusal to join the Church.
You seem to want it to be the teaching of the Catholic Church that you are condemned to hell, and to be bitterly disappointed that it is not! But even to please you I cannot say that it is. The Catholic Church does not teach that all Protestants are necessarily lost.
Heresy is the denial of some essential doctrine or doctrines of the Christian religion. Where infidels and Jews refuse to believe in Christ Himself, the heretic professes to believe in Christ but accepts only such of the teachings of Christ as commend themselves to his approval, refusing to believe in other doctrines which the Catholic Church teaches as equally taught by Christ. But it is to be noted that a man could support a heresy either through his own fault or not. If a man has known and accepted the full Catholic Faith, yet later chooses to deny vital parts of the Catholic religion, he is guilty of heresy. If, however, a man has never known the full Catholic Faith but was born and educated as a member of some heretical sect, he could live and die without ever having a doubt as to the truth of his creed. He would be in good faith and not guilty of any sin of heresy. A Catholic might know that the Church to which such a man belongs is heretical; but the man himself would not realize that, and would be excused from guilt by his lack of knowledge.
The difference between the Catholic religion and other religions is more than a mere diversity of ritual. There are many important truths revealed by God which Catholics dutifully accept, but which others reject. But whilst the religion of a non-Catholic is less acceptable to God than the Catholic religion, the good non-Catholic himself may not be less acceptable to God than the Catholic. In the Acts of the Apostles we are told: "God is not a respecter of persons, but in every nation he that reverences Him and worketh justice is acceptable to Him." Acts, X, 34-35. That applies always. Even when the Jews were God's especially chosen people, their own Hebrew Scriptures described Job as a man most acceptable to God, although Job did not belong to their Hebrew nation but was an Arabian chieftain.
Of course. Since God wills all men to be saved (I Tim., II, 4), it follows that He gives to every man sufficient grace according to his circumstances to enable him to attain to salvation, if he has the goodwill. Whilst the Catholic Church is the normal channel of truth and light and grace to humanity, in His dealings with souls God certainly reserves to Himself the right to act beyond the frontiers of the visible Catholic Church, in accordance with His mercy and human needs.
Never yet has God inspired any person to set up new Churches, whether opposed to the Catholic Church or merely independent of it. Sincerely religious people may have received personal graces from God, and may have persuaded themselves that they ought to establish new Churches of their own. But in believing that to be the will of God, they have misinterpreted the grace they have received. Christ loves good people who with all sincerity believe it right to belong to such Churches; and the Catholic Church would apply to them the words of Christ: "Other sheep I have who are not of this fold." John, X, 16. But the only Church officially His is the Catholic Church; and that is why Christ went on to say, after the words just quoted, "Them also I must bring, that there may be one fold under one shepherd."
Such Churches may have led people to a knowledge of Christ, but they have not led to an adequate knowledge of His teachings. In fact, through ignorance, the adherents of such Churches deny many vital teachings upon which Christ insisted again and again. However sincerely their converts feel that they accept Christ as their personal Savior, they do not know all the conditions He appointed, nor have they all the means He has provided for the attaining of the salvation they seek.
She does not regard the good dispositions awakened in converts outside her fold to a more Christian way of living as null and void before God. But she declares that if God accepts such people, it is because He overlooks mistakes due to a lack of knowledge for which they are not responsible. If they realized the truth of the Catholic Church, their conversion would have to include conversion to the Catholic Church if they wanted to be acceptable in God's sight. Acknowledgment of the Pope's supremacy is demanded by the Catholic Church because that is the will of Christ according to the constitution He gave to the one true Church He established. The Catholic Church is not free to abrogate any of His requirements, however many other good and sincere people fail to advert to them. She is not free to say they are not mistaken, merely because they are good in their own way; nor can she-say that the doctrine about which they are mistaken, but which she knows to have been taught by Christ, does not matter. She must teach the full truth, insist upon its acceptance, and declare those to be in error who reject any part of it.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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