Item #7 -no salvation outside the Church- is often misinterpreted.
The concept that the Church is Christ’s Body is correct and legit. Problems arise when some define Christ’s Body to be totally and exclusively the institution headed by the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the Roman Catholic Church. This leads to the erroneous claim that those persons who are members of the Roman Catholic Church are guaranteed salvation but those who are not members of the Roman Catholic Church are condemned. Those who believe as such make the Catechism self-contradictory. As pointed out in the posting, it is possible for non-Catholics to achieve salvation. If the Church is exclusively the Catholic Church, and non-Catholics can achieve salvation, then there is salvation outside the Church.
The Church, that is, Christ’s Body, is the mystical community of all who belong to Christ. Wherever two or three are gathered in His Name, He will be there. Believers are required to be in fellowship with one another; there is no room for a so-called “lone-ranger” Christian.
I suspect you are well read hereon enough to know that
a sizeable percentage of RC’s hereon are rather routinely and chronically emphatic
about the Vatican INSTITUTION and ONLY the Vatican Institution
comprises, equals, is totally and the only authentic Body of Christ on earth.
Further, that there is NO salvation apart from the Vatican Institution and slavishly following her edicts, rituals etc.
Yeah, there are some relatively few RC’s who mildly to moderately protest occasionally.
On the whole, on such issues, it is the rabid cliques who in volume and frequency seem to carry the day and the white hanky flag of EXCLUSIVIST ROMAN CATHOLIC DOGMA . . . LONG LIVE THE IN-GROUP AND TO BLAZES WITH THE OUT-GROUPS mentality.
That’s the NORM around these parts.
So qualifications such as yours just don’t ring very true nor hold much water.
We’ve been sold far too often and far too intensely the bill of goods that the above is the truly truest true truth of salvation and the Roman Catholic way to the Roman Catholic Heaven . . . via purgatory, of course.
When seemingly the VAST BULK of the RC’s hereon either overtly and loudly or by seeming ‘UNNHHUUUUNNH’S’ AND ‘AMEN’S’ assent to, if not out right applaud such descriptions of ‘spiritual reality,’ I think Proddys can understandably be considered to at least be paying attention when we accept the fact that
THOSE WHO CALL THEMSELVES [ROMAN] CATHOLICS ADHERE TO SUCH IDEAS, DOGMA, RITUALS, MENTALITIES. AND THEREFORE, THAT’S WHAT COMPRISES BEING A ROMAN CATHOLIC.
ALL THE MORE SO WHEN EVEN A LOT OF THE MORE “SPIRITUAL” of the lot—who otherwise—tend to SOUND more spiritual and mostly behave MORE spiritual than a lot of the rabid clique sorts—when THOSE characters hereon also tend to subscribe to such notions and applaud such notions, then we are left inescapably with accepting that as
AT LEAST WELL ABOVE AVERAGE LIFE-AS-A-ROMAN-CATHOLIC-FACT.
That is, when a vast majority of Roman Catholics assert, behave, communicate that as basic Roman Catholic truth, those minority clusters of RC’s who claim otherwise can only be viewed as the peripheral minority being prissy about hair splitting distinctions.