Do any Catholics care to take a position on whether or not Protestants are Christians and saved? I know what the Catholic church used to say. The answer, as I understand it, is No. Does it still say it? Does that mean that Catholics are antiProtestant?
If we are looking for reasons to devour each other, religious wars have served that purpose for centuries.
My intent is not to stir up trouble. Personally, I tend to look for reasons to agree with someone on Christian doctrine, as opposed to looking for grounds to disagree.
The point is that we are not establishing a theocracy. Any church, with a systematized theology, is going to have controversial points. Membership in that church may or may not mean the member is a hard line advocate of those points of view.
Before we run off the lemming cliff because of Bachmann’s church membership, let’s give her a chance to explain herself, and let’s look at what she may have said and done on this topic before.
It is defined ex cathedra (i.e., the pope speaking as the successor of St. Peter) that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. It's not my point to divert this thread to that subject, so let me just confess my full submission to this doctrine and move on. Now back to the subject.
The country was founded on religious pluralism, for good or for bad. The Catholic Church tolerates that. I can tolerate Michele, and I like her a lot. I'd respect her more for holding to Christian morality even though she'd be a Wis. Synod Lutheran. At least, they stand for something. My dad was Missouri Synod, but couldn't take their doctrine that Catholics couldn't be saved, e.g., his wife and kids. Unfortunately, he migrated to the faggy ELCA and ended up a sappy liberal. I wouldn't vote for one like him.