What gets me on this thread is that many of you think we protestants are just heretics and are going to hell in a handbasket. True Christians know when they are sinning and we ask for God to forgive us just as much as Catholics do. Catholics don't have a corner on the market on God's forgiveness,nor do EO's. I am just as much Christ's as a Catholic or an EO. Mxxx
No one can or should decide another is hell-bound.
However heresy is a term that applies to a belief or opinion contrary to what is orthodox or right. Protestant doctrine is heretical to Catholics and Catholic doctrine is heretical to Protestants.
These threads are heresy rooms.
I DO think Protestants are at least in error. If I didn't think that, I'd still be one. And they think the same of us Catholics. And the sorts of things we disagree on are of very great importance, and have spiritual consequences. If most of the Protestants here are right, we are committing idolatry and do not fully believe in Christ's saving grace. That's got to matter. And if we're right, lots of Protestants are, at the least, depriving themselves of great and powerful graces and not trusting the Holy Spirit. That's serious stuff.
If you (laboriously) check through this mess, not that I am recommending this, you will see a bunch of us saying that Protestants who are Baptized are members of the Church, though not perhaps in good standing. And the response that gets is, ah, reference to an Italian city. The disagreement includes a disagreement about Ecclesiology, so Bologna doesn't really need to be mentioned. It was already evident that there was a difference of opinion.
But I don't think any Catholic here says that Protestants are going to Hell just because they're Protestants. And we're certainly not saying that Catholics and EOs go to heaven just because of being Catholics and EOs.(But I do understand that Baloney is bad for the blood pressure and artieries -- all that sodium and fat.)