If you are offended, I apologize...It is just my opinion based on my observations...
The Pope didn’t say anything about who’s going to Heaven and who isn’t. He simply said that the only legitimate apostolic succession rests with the Roman Catholic Church. And in that, he is stating the simple truth. You don’t even have to be Catholic, or believe that that matters, to acknowledge that.
Sorry if that offends anybody, but it’s the fact.
I’m guessing you must have a big shortage of Southern Baptists down in LA.
I guess Jesus is d@mned to burn in hell for eternity, according to the Catholics.
After all, he wasn’t Catholic... and didn’t believe in the trinity... or worship himself.
And if you don’t do that, then you’re ‘supposed’ to go to hell.
For only Catholic faith can get you into Heaven.
(rolls eyes)
If you ever hear a Baptist say that you will know that he or she doesn't represent Baptist doctrine in any way, shape, or form. A person's salvation has nothing to do with his or her denomination, it only has to do with his/her personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
Romans 10:9-10. "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
That is the pure and simple Gospel of Christ. Anyone who truly, openly, and verbally puts his or her faith and trust solely in Jesus Christ and His blood atonement for their sin is saved from condemnation and is a member of Christ's body on earth, whether Protestant, Baptist, Pentecostal, Catholic, Orthodox, etc.
Galatians 1:8, "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."
And that is the Word of God's judgment on those who pervert the true Gospel of salvation by grace through faith alone into a false gospel of salvation through the works of man. What the bible says in those verses is either true or a lie. If those verses aren't true, then the bible is not the inspired Word of God and we are left to our own devices as to how to gain salvation and escape eternal damnation in a place the kind and loving Savior Himself called the lake of fire.
But they are true words from God Himself to the people of the world, and where a man or woman will spend eternity is determined by his or her response to the Gospel of Christ as proclaimed by the divinely inspired authors of the New Testament, not by membership in a denomination.
Imagine yourself in my position as a 3rd or 4th grader in a Catholic school. My Mother was Catholic, my Father was not.
I recall the pain I felt when the sister (nun) instructed us that anyone who was not Catholic could not enter heaven.
What!!! My Dad who worked hard at his factory job, was a perfectionist at what he turned out, stood on his feet all day, and turned his paycheck over to our Mother to run the house, would never be with God when his earthly life ended?
No, I wasn't aware at my young age of what Dad actually did everyday on his job. I learned more as I got older.
I did realize that he supported all of us.
No. I don't believe ANYONE on this earth has the knowledge and power to decide who God will choose to be with Him in eternity.
Guess I'm not a "real Catholic" anymore, along with the "practicing" Catholics who never miss receiving Communiion; even those, I suspect, who practice artificial birth control which the Catholic Church forbids, and some of whom rarely, if ever, avail themselves of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
One of the laws of the Church is to confess one's sins at least once a year. Are all those receiving Communiion fulfilling that obligation?
While I'm getting a bit off track here, it doesn't hurt to take an honest look at the bigger picture.
Really? When I used to live in Virginia I'd regularly have Baptists, upon learning I am RC, ask me "so how does a Catholic get to heaven?"
Perhaps it would be an act of Christian kindness to correct those people! Even before Vatican II, it was not the belief that non-Catholics were damned to hell.
You are right. They always couch their response in the negative. Such as:
If you don't believe what I believe then you are going to hell.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I can say that with certainty.