Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
Choose a topic from Vol 4:
One can save his soul as a non-Catholic only provided he is unaware of the truth of the Catholic Church through no fault of his own. If a man has any doubts about his position as a non-Catholic, it is his own fault if he does not try to solve those doubts. If, after due thought and prayer, he becomes convinced of the truth of the Catholic Church, then it is his own fault if he refuses to join that Church. A man neglecting that serious obligation could not expect to save his soul.
For a man aware of the truth of the Catholic Church, the advantage of fulfilling an obligation necessary for his very salvation; for one is certainly obliged, under pain of serious sin, to follow his conscience in so grave a matter. But in addition to this, there are the advantages of attaining to a certainty of the full Christian truth not to be obtained elsewhere, and of having at one's disposal many additional spiritual helps which, if used with proper dispositions, will contribute immeasurably towards a life of greater virtue and holiness. After all, we should desire, not only to save our souls, but to sanctify them, aiming at the perfection possible to us, even as God is perfect in the degree proper to Himself. There are immense advantages in embracing that religion best fitted to help us in these things, apart from the sheer duty of joining the Catholic Church once we advert to its truth.
That does not do justice to the position. For if a man is convinced of the truth of the Catholic Church, he is obliged to become a Catholic if he wishes to save his soul. For him there is no other choice. There is no room for your comparison in such a case, as if he would be able to save his soul in some other religion, but better able to do so in the Catholic religion. The man who has never suspected the Catholic religion to be the true religion and who adheres to some other religion in good faith will receive at least sufficient grace for his salvation. Yet still the Catholic would be in the better position and could more surely attain to heaven. For it is better to be well-informed than ill-informed about the route one must travel; and it is better to have the sacramental means of grace at one's disposal as a Catholic, than to have the interior graces only upon which others have to depend.
Yes. It is an article of the Catholic Faith that God Himself is the Principal Author of both the Old and the New Testaments. No one could become a Catholic who was not prepared to acknowledge the Bible to be the Word of God. The Catholic Church denies that the Bible alone is an adequate source of Christian teaching, but she firmly believes in the truth of all that the Bible does contain.
Yes. But faith in Christ must be regarded as including not only faith in the Person of Christ, but faith also in all that He taught. That requires faith in the Church He established. Thus from the earliest times Christians have said, in the Apostles' Creed, "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church."
Yes, as including not only an interior change from bad dispositions to good dispositions, but also to all else that the Christian religion requires. Certainly the Catholic Church does not hold that the merely formal and mechanical fulfillment of the external practices of religion will save anybody. But some people say that they believe in personal spiritual religion to the exclusion of external institutional religion. They seem to think that institutional religion leaves no room for personal interior response. In that they are quite mistaken. Personal spiritual religion cannot dispense one from the duties of external institutional religion; and external institutional religion cannot dispense one from personal spiritual religion. Both are necessary, external religious practices as prescribed by the Church, with interior and personal dispositions of faith, devotion and love corresponding to those practices.
Why not? Not one of the things you have mentioned renders it unnecessary to be a Catholic. Rather the opposite. Belief in the Bible and belief in Christ both lead to and include belief in the Catholic Church. If one does not think so, then he has not fully understood the message of the Bible and the teaching of Christ. Again, personal conversion includes conversion to the Catholic religion in all its fullness if such personal conversion is not to be incomplete.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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