That part of the doctrine was developed because there were some in the pre Christian world like Cicero, Plato, and such that were greatly admired by the early Church. Many of the Early Church Fathers could not see how one who had such a strong moral code that they taught and lived out, but had no knowledge of Christ, would be damned.
It is like saying all the children killed by abortion went to heaven. Simply put, we can't say that. We are not allowed to with the information revealed to us to say that. We can hope for a merciful God to look on those little ones, but if you say all aborted children went to heaven you make abortion a good thing. Because if a mother is going to kill her child, the likelihood of her raising that child to know and follow God was not very good. That child had a decent chance of going to hell, and him or her being killed pre birth saved them.
Same with the “Village in Africa” mind game. We can hope for God's mercy, but with the information given to us the likelihood is that those villagers were not going to make it to heaven.
That’s correct. Many like to revert to human emotionalism which is unscriptural. Catholics can’t have it both ways. Here is what Tertullian said which is basically the RCC view of original sin.
"Every soul, then, by reason of its birth, has its nature in Adam until it is born again in Christ; moreover, it is unclean all the while that it remains without this regeneration; and because unclean, it is actively sinful, and suffuses even the flesh (by reason of their conjunction) with its own shame." Tertullian, On the Soul, 40 (A.D. 208).
Catholics can’t believe that man must be “born again in Christ” to be saved and that those who are not “born again” can also be saved.