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To: Christopher78
If you are truly touched by the Holy Spirit, your affiliation to a certain section of Christianity should not matter

Such an amazing statement! The Sacraments instituted by Christ for the salvation of men are immaterial?

The Gospel remains the same for all of us you know.

St. Paul would disagree; please see Gal. 1:6-9. "Thirdly, O Christian, when you hear that Martin Luther has so great a zeal for God and thinks in his conscience that he is bound to do what he does and thinks that in so doing he is pleasing God and is doing a special service to God and that he is recommitting to almighty God all the souls, which by his false doctrine he is slaying and murdering--yet nevertheless be strong in your faith and see that in this point our Savior has also warned the church, saying: 'But the time is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is offering service to God'" (St. John Fisher, Sermon Against Martin Luther, Preached During the Octave of the Ascension in 1521, Fourth Instruction).

Do you really think that the Apostle Paul (let alone Jesus Himself) would be bothered by the fact Evangelical Christianity is on the rise in Ireland?

Yes, he would.

Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. ...

Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom "the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Savior."[Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in its letter to Pope Leo.] The words of Christ are clear enough: "If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you a Gentile and a tax collector;"[Mt 15.17.] "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me;"[Lk 10.16.] "He who does not believe will be condemned;"[Mk 16.16.] "He who does not believe is already condemned;"[Jn 3.18.] "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."[Lk 11.23.] The Apostle Paul says that such persons are "perverted and self-condemned;"[Ti 3.11.] the Prince of the Apostles calls them "false teachers . . . who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master. . . bringing upon themselves swift destruction."[2 Pt 2.1.]

God forbid that the children of the Catholic Church should even in any way be unfriendly to those who are not at all united to us by the same bonds of faith and love. On the contrary, let them be eager always to attend to their needs with all the kind services of Christian charity, whether they are poor or sick or suffering any other kind of visitation. First of all, let them rescue them from the darkness of the errors into which they have unhappily fallen and strive to guide them back to Catholic truth and to their most loving Mother who is ever holding out her maternal arms to receive them lovingly back into her fold. Thus, firmly founded in faith, hope, and charity and fruitful in every good work, they will gain eternal salvation. (Pope Bl. Pius IX, Encyclical Letter Quanto Conficiamur, To the Archbishops and Bishops of Italy, §7-9)


13 posted on 06/25/2005 4:43:02 PM PDT by gbcdoj (Pope Pius X, it is you who are of men the most modern.)
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