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Sir, if you read my post # 156 I did not use the term "invisible Church." I am very well aware that it is a Protestant idea. That's why I did not use it. I did, however, use the language of Lumen Gentium as well as the language of Piux IX and others--that the total Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, that is, the visible Church consisting in those bishops and their flocks who are in communion with the Bishop of Rome, but that others (your baptism of desire) can be saved and if they are saved they are saved through the Church of Christ that subsists in the visible Catholic Church but that one need not be a formal adherent of this visible Church to be saved.

I wish you would not accuse me of using language I did not, deliberately did not, employ. Your quarrel is with John Paul II, e.g., in Crossing the Threshold of Hope, with Lumen Gentium, with Piux IX.

I'd like to try to give a $0.50 summary of the conversation on vincibility to see if I have understood it correctly.

If I understand this conversation, there is quite a bit of agreement. Dion is working from the precept that one cannot be held accountable for what one does not know (Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains. John 9:41) while Hermann is working from the precept that ignorance of truth is always a negative position (" My people are perishing from a lack of knowledge," Hosea 4:6). Both of these precepts belong to the faith, so the question is how to reconcile the two?

The question that I have to ask at this point is, ignorance of what? The context of the thread suggests that it is ignorance that one must be a member of the Church to be saved. Is that correct?

This comes down to an interpretation of individual responsibility. Dion is asserting that there are a number of conditions which could conspire to put one in a position of invincible ignorance vis a vis the Catholic Church. He asserts, if I understand him correctly, that one must actively reject known truth to be vincibly ignorant. Further, he asserts that it is impossible to judge whether or not an individual outside of the visible Church is in a position to meet the criteria for invincible ignorance. Hermann, on the other hand, suggests that it is nearly impossible for a Christian in Western Civilization to be unaware of the Catholic Church and ask himself why he is not a Catholic.

It seems to me that Dion's position points to a willful rejection of known truth, whereas Hermann's points to the responsibility of the individual to investigate the truth, so that something such as, for example laziness that led one to not consider the truths of the Apostolic Faith, would be a de facto rejection of the Truth. Basically, Hermann seems to be asserting that there are a lot of non-Catholic Christians who, by rights, should know, and that this may in fact may be the default position for non-Catholics. (By Catholic, I assume we I would include both the Orthodox and Latin Catholics.) That is, the individual Christian has the responsibility to investigate the Truth and consider it. (But his master answered him, 'You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed?...Matt 25:26)

I think both Hermann and Dion are rejecting extreme positions; namely, a laxity that asserts itself in a doctrine that people Will be saved in any faith so long as they are validly baptized as Christians, and, on the other hand, a belief in an absolute requirement that one be an formal member of the Catholic Church. The question might be framed as, who can be a member of the Church, without being a formal member of the Church?

Sitetest suggested a number of conditions in the West which could lead to invincible ignorance, including insufficient intellectual ability to evaluate competing claims successfully, and prejudices with which one was raised. Sitetest suggests an approach to invincibility that would in a sense be a lack of faith, such that although a person sensed that the Catholic Faith was correct, he nonetheless rejected it because of worldly concerns, such as approval by family and friends.

Basically, the question is about the prevalence of Invincible Ignorance. Is it the typical condition of non-Catholics Christians, or the exceptional condition among them?

The tension is reflected in Scripture itself where it discusses the Universal Salvific Will.

"{God}who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." 1 Ti 2: 4. Here we see the Universal Salvific will coupled to the desire of the Almighty to see all come to the knowledge of the truth.