Can Non-Catholics Be Saved?

Inside Catholic ^ | October 24, 2009 | Mark Shea

[NYer]

 

Unam Sanctam is the sort of document that gives our Protestant brothers and sisters a real jolt, primarily because it looks at first blush as though it teaches that Catholics cannot have Protestant brothers and sisters. Written by Pope Boniface VIII in 1302, this papal bull concludes with a shocking dogmatic definition:

 

We declare, say, define and pronounce, that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.

 

The average modern reader concludes that these words mean: "We know exactly where the Church both is and is not. It's in the visible Catholic communion and only members of the visible Catholic Church go to heaven."

 

After this basic assumption has been made, most people go on to assume it is simply a matter of deciding what you think about that proposition. Generally, people fall into one of the following groups:

1. Those nice people who say hopefully, "That statement was not dogma, but just Boniface's opinion."
   
   
2. Those progressive dissenting Catholics who say, "That statement used to be narrow-minded Catholic dogma, but Vatican II thankfully contradicts all that. How the Church has grown!"
   
   
3. Those anti-Catholics who say derisively, "That statement used to be unbiblical Catholic dogma but Vatican II reversed all that. Now the supposedly infallible Church has flatly contradicted the Bible and itself!"
   
   
4. Those reactionary dissenting Catholics who say, "That statement used to be glorious Catholic dogma, but Vatican II betrayed all that. How the Second Vatican Council has corrupted the One True Faith!"
   
   
5. Those orthodox Catholics who say, "Unam Sanctam's definition is still dogma, and the teaching of the Second Vatican Council does not contradict it or the Bible. Rather, the council develops the Faith of the Church infallibly taught since the apostles, a faith that has never demanded we believe that the Church is found solely in the visible Catholic communion, nor that only members of the visible Catholic Church can go to heaven." 

Let's look at these five views of Unam Sanctam.

 

First things first: I must disappoint group one by making clear that the Faith does not allow us the easy out of denying the dogmatic nature of Unam Sanctam any more than it allowed Arius to fudge the difficult and seemingly contradictory proposition that God is One, yet Three. As John Hardon, S.J., points out in his Catholic Catechism, the passage cited above was "solemnly defined and represents traditional Catholic dogma on the Church's necessity for salvation." When a pope declares, says, pronounces, and defines, he is using the formula to make crystal-clear that he is delivering not his personal opinion but the dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church. The fact is, then, Boniface VIII committed the Church to this proposition for the rest of her history. We cannot dodge this with a convenient "that was then, this is now." If it was dogma once, it still is.

 

However, neither can we dodge another fact of Catholic history: the Second Vatican Council. At that council, 660 years after Unam Sanctam, the Church formulated Lumen Gentium, in which she declared, "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."

 

To groups two, three, and four, this sounds like a flat contradiction. For all these folk make the fatal error of placing one or another of the Church's teachings in opposition to (and superiority over) the other. Thus, progressive dissenting Catholics, anti-Catholics, and reactionary dissenting Catholics all assume that Unam Sanctam was simply vetoed by a newly coined doctrine in Lumen Gentium that essentially declares that our relationship to the successor of Peter doesn't matter one iota. If we agree about this, all that remains for us to do is to decide whether to cheer along with progressive dissenters (for the Church's "deepened maturity"), to gloat along with anti-Catholics (over the alleged collapse of the Church's infallibility), or to grumble along with reactionary dissenters (about those damned modernists who hijacked the Church at Vatican II).

 

But there is one simple problem with this assumption: It's not true. First, the Church, centuries before Vatican II, regarded Orthodox sacraments as valid, which is awfully hard to do if you don't think Christ can be found anywhere but in the Catholic Church. Similarly, it has always regarded the baptism of non-Catholics as valid -- and a valid baptism means you are, in some sense, in union with Christ. Still more recently and most plainly (but still well before the council), Rev. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated for insisting that only people in visible communion with the Catholic Church could be saved. So this simplistic "We're in, you're out" reading of Unam Sanctam (and the corollary that Lumen Gentium "cancelled" it) doesn't fly.

 

So is there a more balanced picture that reverences both Unam Sanctam and Lumen Gentium as authentic magisterial teaching? Yes. To find it, let's begin with an imperfect analogy.

 

 

An Unknowing Disciple

There is a priest I know (call him Father Smith) whom I have come to regard as a second father. I came to do so because, as an Evangelical, I first loved Christ and the things of Christ and did for years before I met this man. As I sought to draw closer to Christ, I then happened to meet Father Smith and to discover that he loved and understood far more deeply than I the things that I myself sought, for he was a disciple of our Lord, too. When I recognized this, I realized our Lord had put into my life a man who could disciple me and to whom my life was inextricably linked in Christ and by Christ. In short, I had been a disciple of Father Smith for years before I met him -- because I was first a disciple of Jesus.

Thus, in spirit, Father Smith became my father and I am, so to speak, subject to him in Christ precisely because I desire what he desires -- union with Christ.

 

If this seems difficult to grasp, it should be noted that it's a concept as old as the New Testament. When we look there, we discover Jesus saying exactly the same thing:

 

John said to him, "Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in your name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us." But Jesus said, "Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in my name will be able soon after to speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is for us" (Mk 9:38–40, emphasis added).

 

Jesus' point is that, in following Him, both the man casting out demons and the apostles -- whether the man or the apostles realized it or not -- were brought into some kind of union with one another through Him. It didn't matter whether the apostles or the man were conscious of it. Their mutual obedience to Him put them in relationship to each other, just as the right alignment of spokes to a hub necessarily put the spokes in right alignment to one another. The fact is, it is His Spirit, not we, who is the principle of unity holding His Body together and drawing its members into ever more perfect union with each other. But that does not mean (as I had long believed as an Evangelical) that unity with the Body of Christ doesn't matter so long as one is "spiritual." For to be brought into union with the Body of Christ at all is to be brought into the order that Christ has established for that Body, since

 

His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:11–13).

 

Or, to put it into the simplest form, if A=B, then B=A. That is, if one is a Christian at all, one is, as Lumen Gentium says, in some kind of union with the Church, the Body of Christ. This is why the Church teaches and has always taught that "outside the Church, there is no salvation." For the Church is the company of the saved. To talk about salvation "outside the Church" is like talking about swimming outside the water. It is the logical consequence of Jesus' statement, "He who is not with me is against me" (Mt 12:30).

 

It therefore follows that to be subject to the gospel to any degree is to be in union, to that degree, with the office of Peter, since the office of Peter was created by Christ for one purpose only: to help bring people into subjection to Christ. It is therefore impossible to accept Christ without accepting the authority of Peter's office to some degree or other. If you say to Jesus, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," you are submitting to the judgment of Peter, who said it first (Mt 16:16). If you declare that salvation is by grace through Christ, you are again subjecting yourself to Peter, who was the first to say that by the Holy Spirit (Acts 15:11). If you teach that Jesus is the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, you are simply agreeing with what the Church in council and in union with the office of Peter has always taught. If you acknowledge the canonicity of the New Testament books, you are likewise submitting to the judgment of the Petrine office, which made that call in the fourth century and ratified it in the 16th. In short, it is not possible to be a Christian at all without already submitting (whether you realize it or not and whether you like it or not) to Peter in precisely the sense that Unam Sanctam speaks of.

 

 

One With Peter?

 

Naturally, it will be noted that such union with the Roman pontiff is, for Protestants and Orthodox, imperfect. Just so. But the point nonetheless holds that such union is real. And the reason it is real is precisely because the pope is not the principle of unity, but merely the sign of unity. The principle of unity is the Spirit of Christ Himself. It is He who binds together the apostolic Church with those who appear (like the exorcist in Mark) to be "outside" the Church yet who are, in a real but imperfect way, in communion with her. That's because it is simply not possible for there to be more than one body. This is true, not because the power-hungry Roman pontiff must have absolute control over all Christians, but because Christ cannot ultimately be divided. What Paul said in Ephesians remains just as true today:

 

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all (Eph 4:4–6).

 

So it is simply impossible for there to be, in any ultimate sense, more than one body. And since that body is, by Christ's solemn word, founded on Peter the Rock, it is not possible to belong to it without, in some way, being subject to the office of the one who was given the charge to "feed my sheep" (Jn 21:15).

 

I say the office, mind you, not the person of the pope. As a person, a pope can be a perfect jerk, and some have been. In the same way, the office of the Davidic monarch (also founded by God) was often filled by extremely sub-optimal men. But the office never went away or lost its God-ordained authority.

 

Dante, a contemporary of the man who wrote Unam Sanctam, makes precisely this point in his famous Divine Comedy. In an age of Da Vinci Code illiteracy and ignorance of the Catholic Faith, it comes as a surprise to many modern readers to discover that so far from running a police state, the medieval Church was, in fact, full of critics who had lots of tart things to say about, among other things, the pope and other clergy of the time. Dante was chief among these critics in his day and, in particular, was chief among the critics of Boniface VIII. Dante, in fact, places Boniface in his Inferno, damned forever. But note this: Dante does not damn him for the teaching of Unam Sanctam, which he takes for granted. He damns him for his moral corruption yet, like a typical Catholic, honors his office. That's why Boniface is buried upside down in hell: As pope he is oriented toward heaven even when, as a sinner, he is worthy of hell, for the way out of Dante's hell is not up but down, through the center of the earth, then up Mount Purgatory, and into paradise.

 

So is this partial and imperfect unity enough? Depends on what you mean by "enough." If you mean "enough to be saved," then I submit that this is Minimum Daily Adult Requirement thinking. No lover asks, "What's the absolute bare minimum amount of contact with my beloved I can get away with?" Similarly, if, as the Church claims, the fullness of revelation subsists in the Catholic communion, then "How little contact with the fullness of revelation can I get away with?" is the exact wrong question for somebody who is serious about discipleship to Christ. Our goal, according to Scripture, is not to achieve bare minimums of love, fellowship, and discipleship with Christ and His Bride, but to "attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. . . . We are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love" (Eph 4:13–16). When people tell us "I'll be there in spirit!" we know they mean "I won't be there." Similarly, a merely partial spiritual unity, while a good start, is a bad finish. That is why we must all continue to work toward full unity in Christ, neither denying our commonalities nor papering over our differences.

 

 

So... Who Is Saved?

 

At this point, members of groups three and four (who tend to take heaven more seriously as something that is there and not simply -- as members of group two are wont to say -- a "concept" or a "beautiful myth") are likely to ask, "So does all this boil down to saying the Church thinks Catholics are going to heaven and non-Catholics aren't? Or does it really mean the Church is now saying that everybody is saved?"

Again, both of these are the wrong questions, which is to say they are nonsense questions. The Church makes no comments on infernal population statistics. Rather, the Church teaches that because validly baptized non-Catholics are real members of the Body of Christ, they share in the life of the Blessed Trinity and therefore share with Catholics the hope of salvation.

That said, mark that it is hope, not certainty, they share with Catholics. For it is important to remember that Catholics don't assume that even Catholics are automatically going to heaven. The whole point, as Paul says, is that hope means we have not, in this life, attained what we hope for yet.

 

For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Rom 8:24–25).

 

Catholics don't believe in "once saved, always saved" any more than in salvation by demographics. So the mere fact that somebody says he is a Christian, whether non-Catholic or Catholic, doesn't mean we assume he is going to heaven. Till we die, we retain the radical freedom to reject the grace of God and end up among the damned. Catholics leave God to judge all that.

 

But by the same token, Catholics also don't assume that anybody (even a non-Christian and indeed even an atheist) is going to hell. The Church has always believed that those who do not know Christ by name may yet respond to the promptings of His Spirit and so ultimately be saved by Him. She believes this because it was taught by Jesus Christ in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, which describes the judgment of people who had no idea they were serving (or rejecting) Jesus as they answered (or refused) the demands of conscience with respect to "the least of these." That is why both the saved and the damned in the parable reply with astonishment to the King, "Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?" (Mt 25:37–39).

 

Some of the saved, says our Lord, are going to be astonished at their salvation. They just thought they were doing the right thing and had no idea they were, in fact, answering the prompting of the Holy Spirit to obey the will of Christ. As Paul says, "When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus" (Rom 2:14–16). In short, what matters incomparably more than calling Jesus "Lord, Lord" is obeying Him. Or as St. John of the Cross put it mere sweetly, "At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love."

 

But again, that doesn't mean, "It doesn't matter if you are Catholic or not." We live in a fallen world and are fallen creatures who need every bit of help we can get from the grace of God to become the glorious, love-filled creatures God calls us to be. And even with that help, history demonstrates our genius for being schleps and sinners. We are like patients in a hospital requiring intensive care, but with the hope and promise that the full panoply of modern medicine could give us back our life if we cooperate with the Divine Physician and let Him use all the treatments He has tucked away in His little black bag. That little black bag is called "the fullness of Christ's revelation in the Catholic communion." It includes the common life, common worship, and common teaching of the Church; as well as the seven sacraments, the accumulated wisdom of the Tradition both in Scripture and in the life of the Church, the Magisterium (including the papacy), and the "riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints" (Eph 1:18). Other churches and ecclesial bodies like to use various items out of that black bag (say, the Bible, or baptism, or the doctrine of the Trinity; or some particular moral teaching like the indissolubility of marriage, or predestination, or free will) in various combinations and to varying degrees, and believers do well to avail themselves of as much of God's treasury in the Church's Tradition as they can lay hold of.

 

But if you are mortally ill (and the whole human race is mortally ill with sin), it's crazy to say, "I find that I'm most comfortable when the doctor prescribes aspirin, and I do like his penicillin now and then, but I don't want his other prescriptions and treatments and I won't allow him to send other hospital staff to treat me." If we were mortally ill, we'd want whatever the doctor has available to heal us.

 

 

All May Be One

 

Likewise, though the Catholic Church rejoices that real elements of the saving gospel are present and working in other churches and ecclesial bodies, and though she even rejoices that the semina verbi, or "seeds of the Word," can be found in the various non-Christian religious and philosophical traditions of the world, she nonetheless points out that the best thing of all is to lay hold of the fullness of His gifts. So the Church, of course, encourages anyone who can do so to become Catholic. It doesn't presume to judge those who do not, for we mortals cannot know the reasons why others make the choices they do. People may refuse the Church out of ignorance, or woundedness, or some other cause that renders them inculpable for rejecting her. However, it is only sensible to point out that, everything else being equal, if we say we want God, but refuse the fullness of His gifts, then it is worth asking ourselves if we really want God after all or are, in fact, seeking something else.

 

As an Evangelical who discovered how much truth was in the Catholic Faith and how much I agreed with it, I came to the realization that it was not enough for me to say "I share the same goals as Peter, so I am 'spiritually subject' to him already and do not need to be sacramentally and ecclesially subject as well." I realized that the very essence of what Peter proclaims is that the Word became Flesh. Moreover, I came to realize that there was, in fact, nothing in the Church's deposit of Faith that was either opposed to reason or anti-biblical. So I eventually concluded that it was therefore my duty, in obedience to Christ's prayer for unity in John 17, to enflesh my faith by becoming really, tangibly, physically, sacramentally joined to the visible Church our Lord commended to Peter's care and feeding. I could no longer say "I'll be with you in spirit" to the pope if I were not also willing to really be with him in body as well.

 

Catholics do not say, and never have said, that they are the sole possessors of revelation. Indeed, the Church does not "possess" revelation at all. Revelation possesses her; and that revelation, who is Christ, has, she teaches, committed Himself fully to her. "God," said the great Protestant writer George MacDonald, "is easy to please, but hard to satisfy." On the one hand, God is delighted when the most miserable sinner takes the smallest serious step toward the love of God and neighbor. On the other hand, He will not be completely happy until every last person He came to save is completely perfected in the image of Christ and overflowing with perfect love for God and neighbor. This same pattern is supremely evident in the Catholic Church's understanding of her relationship with her members, whether in full or very imperfect communion. For the Church is happy to recognize even the smallest commonalities she may share, not only with other Christians, but even with non-Christian religious traditions and the great philosophical traditions of paganism. The Church can even find things to affirm in virtuous atheists. But at the same time, the Church is acutely aware that there is a real difference between imperfect and perfect unity and so she, too -- easy to please, but hard to satisfy -- labors toward that day when all the members of the Body of Christ will be perfected in faith, hope, and love.

 

Till that day, we know where the Church is; we do not know where she is not.

[Melian]

Anyone who says Catholics don’t read the Bible is not telling the truth. We do. Practicing Catholics attend Mass every Sunday. At every Mass we hear a passage from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament and the Gospel. The readings are selected on a three-year cycle.

That is all we are required to read; however most Catholics read the Bible on their own in various ways. Some attend Bible studies, some attend more than weekly Masses, some read it on their own at home.

The only difference that I’ve ever been able to see is that most Catholics don’t memorize passages to the degree that other Christian faiths do. We will memorize some that are meaningful to us, but we tend to focus on the message or concept in the passage rather than rote memorization of it.

This accusation that we don’t read the Bible is just a “talking point.” Good Catholics read the Bible, just as good Christians of all denominations do. This talking point is flawed because many non-Catholic Christians do not read the Bible much either. I know lots of people who call themselves Christian who rarely look at a Bible. Some of them are very good, spiritual people who do many loving acts of charity.

Finally, I might add that some Christians seem to make the Bible their god. They actually seem to revere it above all else. The Pharisees were like that too. They were so concerned with the minute details of the Law, arguing the minutia all day long, that they forgot to treat the people right in front of them with respect and dignity and love. They were so concerned with the memorized passages they would fling at people like weapons that they couldn’t even recognize the Messiah standing right in front of them radiating love and concern.

We know what Christ thought of them. He called them whited walls. Let us not forget, also, that the Pharisee, who had memorized the Torah cover to cover, was able to step over the injured traveler lying on the ground in the parable of the Good Samaritan and continue on his way. Perhaps he didn’t notice the broken human before him because he had his nose buried in his holy book. This parable made clear that Christ considered the Samaritan who responded to the human being in front of him with compassion and respect to be His kind of Christian. He had nothing but contempt for the Pharisee who spent his days memorizing the Torah and using it to hurt, humiliate, and browbeat people.

[Mad Dawg]

So you do get it. One CAN disagree with something somebody says without calling them a liar.

[Mad Dawg]

Krylon-buzz?

Sir, you were wandering all over the space-time continuum. Somebody might have gotten hurt.

[Kolokotronis]

“For all the ink spilled in polemics concerning the filioque (and the papacy) in the east, why has it never been condemned in Liturgy via the Synodicon of Orthodoxy?”

I have no idea.

[Kolokotronis]

You know, it occurs to me that the condemnation and anathemas of any changes to the Creed contained in the Horos of the “Eighth Ecumenical Council” might obviate the necessity of any mention in the Synodicon.

Here’s a link to an interesting article on that condemnation by Fr. George Drags. I know Fr. Dragas well. He is one of the most brilliant theologians in Orthodoxy. He also chants a beautiful liturgy.

http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/dragas_eighth.html

[wagglebee]

How can you possibly say that an opinion I’ve formed based on observations over many years is untrue? Can you somehow verify that all of the “former Catholics” on here are actually former Catholics?

[Mad Dawg]

(I'm proofing this and I'm troubled by its length. Sorry. I don't know how to make it shorter and still adequate.)

Jews seemed to have tradition as well, but Jesus quoted scripture, not tradition. Ever wonder why?

Because until something is written, it's hard to quote?

Please remember that I am a convert. That means that most of the arguments which seem so conclusive no longer have any effect on me. I used to believe them. Further study led me to stop finding them persuasive.

One unpersuasive thing is the illogic of taking an argument against SOME traditions and interpreting it as an argument against all traditions. "Traditions of men" is not one word; it's not a predication. "Of men" specifies a group, possibly a sub-group. There may be other traditions which maybe might could be of God.

(It's similar with "vain repetitions". The very use of the word vain suggests the possibility that there might be repetitions which are not empty. But the assault on the Rosary often presumes that ALL repetitions are by this saying shown to be vain. No sale. It doesn't follow.)

Do in remembrance?

It is interesting, though I am sure inadvertent, that you do not give the full line. It's not ποιειτε (Do as my memorial) but τουτο ποιειτε (THIS do as my memorial...) εισ την εμην αναμνησιν -- εισ (as) την (the) εμην (of mine) αναμνησιν (anamnesis -inadequately translated memorial or remembrance).

Interesting because it is the "This" over which the disagreement lies.

And we also have Scriptural witness that it is not simply a "remembering." It is also a proclamation (I Cor 11:26: καταγγελλετε, katanggellete - "announce down"?), and a κοινωνια, (I Cor 10:14-15) a participation or sharing in Christ's Sacred Body and Precious Blood (according to Paul) which makes us one with one another in the Body of Christ.

So it's a pretty large, powerful, and comprehensive τουτο — This — that we're doing, not "merely" a remembrance, If the Scriptural witness is to be taken in its entirety.

So how do you represent the blood and flesh of Jesus when his sacrifice was in the past?

You got me! It's a miracle! And one thing that means is that it's GOD who does it, not us.

Here is a deep rift in theology or in the philosophy which undergirds theology: namely, a disagreement about God and time.

I'm a little diffident about discussing this because recently when I mentioned it I got mugged, and I was never quite clear what the problem was for which I was being mugged. But we think God is outside of time as well as in time.

(We also think that God is always blissful and always all-powerful. So when we look at that crucifix for which we are so often castigated, we do not see a feckless, defeated Christ, as we have been accused, but the mystery the perfect revelation of Divine power and of God's joy and of the peace which passes all understanding.)

I mention that all to reinforce my earlier saying that we have a very different way of looking at things. It is NOT airy-fairy, at least not in my experience. As a hospital chaplain especially I experienced many times what Paul says, that when I was weak, then I was strong, because God acted in my weakness.

So, anyway, we don't claim to know HOW God does it. We just believe that He does, that in the Eucharist the discontinuity between time and eternity is broken, softly and secretly as it was at the Incarnation, as it is every time God speaks in the heart.

And this gets me back to the initial "fully equipped" question. It IS possible, you know, to have a differing opinion about a passage of Scripture without actually ignoring it.

As an attempt at rebuttal I'd say that it seems that I am asked to take one passage literally and figuratively at once. I am very dubious that Paul meant "the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament" when he wrote πασα γραφη, though I can see that it's not a huge step from literal sense of the Scriptures HE understood to be theopneustos to the figurative larger sense of the group of Scriptures WE understand to be the same.

I am also not certain about putting too great a burden on the "fully". The RSV renders thus:

(16)All scripture is inspired by God and (OR Every scripture inspired by God is also) profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (17) that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I don't consider the RSV an unquestionable authority, but I don't think of them as dishonest either, and their translation is not quite so restricted as the one offered often in these threads. (Once the grammarians of koine Greek disagree, I tend to throw up my hands.)

In any event one of the things WE find in Scripture is a reference to the reliability of tradition (the tough part being to determine WHICH tradition.) So the complete equipping (in our reading) includes directing Timothy to pay attention not only to all Writing, but also to what has been handed down to him otherwise.

That sort of driving one beyond itself is, to me, the hallmark of both Scripture and sound tradition. The point, after all, is not to stop at Scripture, Tradition, Church, or even Sacrament but rather to see all these as at least LIKE our Lord in that He is both Way and Truth.

Yeah, I know. Blah blah blah. And I've only had one cup of coffee!

[wagglebee]

Here’s the biggest give aways. Not all Catholics went to twelve years of Catholic schools, in fact, I would say that since Vatican Council II most have not and even prior to this Catholic schools were not available in many rural parts of the country. The other strange thing is that they all seem to think that ONLY nuns and Jesuits teach at Catholic schools and this isn’t true either.

[Iscool]

So, I'm guessing Boniface was trying to use his position and clout to push around fractious European monarchs. He set out to make a statement about how they owed him some kind of homage, and ended up making a definitive ecclesiastical statement. He meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.

So you admit Boniface was a scoundrel...What makes you think God was involved at all in Boniface's proclamation???

[onedoug]

Deuteronomy 4:19 and Malachi 1:11.

[Mad Dawg]

So you admit Boniface was a scoundrel...

Well, YEAH!

I don't get this. We clomp around, talking about the number of popes in Dante's Inferno. The great saint of the Lay Dominicans pretty much got in her pope's face and yelled at him to man up.

And yet some Protestants do an end-zone dance whenever we diss a Pope. What's up with that? It's God in whom we place our confidence. Yes, there have been some awesome and awesomely holy popes. But, starting with Peter himself, many of them have, well let's say, had their moments. "We have this treasure in earthen vessels," and we are well aware of their earthen-ness.

What makes you think God was involved at all in Boniface's proclamation???

Asked and answered: God's promise to the Church.

[Mad Dawg]

Malachi 1:12 is also interesting.

At the Lord's table I find more than the bread of angels.

[Iscool]

Yep. They think that there's only one possible way to think about atonement.

One problem is they forget that we are talking about mysteries here, and that language is asked to do a task it can hardly bear, while reason is asked to do something analogous to the unassisted naked eye trying to count sunspots.

Obviously you've bought into the hype...

No mysteries...
There is no language barrier...
Reason has nothing to do with it...

Jesus died for our sins...ALL of them...We have become righteous in the eyes of God...

For us, the desert isn't just imputed moisture and fertility. It actually becomes moist and fecund, bringing forth seed for sowing and bread for eating. Justification, sanctification, merit, all these are gifts, not earned. But they are real gifts, not badges, tokens or changes of status.

A bunch of empty words...So how does your desert become moist if it was not imputed??? You worked it out on your own??? You provided the rain???

[Mad Dawg]

Okay, when you're done expressing how empty and useless my words are, do you think you might muster an argument?

Imputation without actual rain doesn't make the desert fertile.

[Iscool]

Trying to be facetious? What evidence is there that Christ founded the LDS Church, as compared to the evidence that does exist that shows Christ founded the Catholic Church?

They're about the same...Neither one resembles anything in the scriptures other than the Pharisees...

[Petronski]

Got a job yet?

The term Fair Game is used to describe various aggressive policies and practices carried out by the Church of Scientology towards people and groups it perceives as its enemies.

[Iscool]

What can be expected from the celebrated, almost joyful, abandonment of the God-given gifts of discernment: logic and common sense.

Petronski, I would so love to repond to you in the way you deserve but the Holy Spirit is holding me back...

Discernment is a spiritual gift...Logic and common sense are not gifts...They are traits inherent in all humans...Your mis-guided logic is not from God...It is from your own ego...

IF you ever become led by the Holy Spirit, you too will abandon your own wisdom and reasoning in scriptural and spiritual matters...

[Petronski]

Logic and common sense are not gifts...

Perhaps yours aren't.

IF you ever become led by the Holy Spirit...

False premise.

[Iscool]

Imputation without actual rain doesn't make the desert fertile.

If God makes the desert wet without rain, it's still wet...

[wagglebee]

If the shed Blood of the Lamb of G-d covers all of our sins, why do we need to go to some non-scriptual place ?

And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come. (Matthew 12:32)

What precisely is the "world to come" where sins are forgiven? There is no forgiveness in Hell, in Heaven everything has already been forgiven. So, what is this "world to come" that you dismiss as "non-scriptural"?

If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire. (1 Corinthians 3:15)

Where is the "non-scriptural place" where man shall be saved "as by fire"? There is no salvation in Hell and no flames of Hell in Heaven.

16 The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus: because he hath often refreshed me, and hath not been ashamed of my chain: 17 But when he was come to Rome, he carefully sought me, and found me. 18 The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou very well knowest. (2 Timothy 1:16-18)

Why is Saint Paul asking for others to pray that Onesiphorus find mercy? Onesiphorus is already dead, there is no mercy in Hell and no need for it in Heaven. And what is "that day" is there some future day of judgment for Onesiphorus?