So they DO believe salvation is through works!
Boy are they gonna be surprised!
**“The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone!…We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!**
Isn’t this what non-Catholics are always saying? Christ died for everyone?
But then we have the parameters that God the Fathr sets: “Many are calloed’ few are chosen.”
Is this what Pope Francis is saying?
Many are called but only a few will answer the call?
I think it's pretty clear that you cannot just "earn" your spot in Heaven, and I think it's pretty clear that Jesus is the doorway and no one gets in, except through Him.
So now one of the largest Christian religions on earth is in the business of denying Christ?
What has changed? We keep hearing from Protestants that, given the Vatican II reforms, if Luther and Calvin were alive today they’d renew their Roman Catholic membership cards. I doubt it. Not even the craziness of contemporary Protestantism could push them to make that move against a Scripture-bound conscience.
What has changed is that Rome has carried its incipient Semi-Pelagianism to its logical conclusion. I know, Karl Rahner and Vatican II repeatedly condemn Pelagianism and extol grace as the fundamental basis for salvation. Yet that has always been Rome’s teaching. It is by grace alone that we are empowered to cooperate in meriting further grace and, one hopes, final justification.
Michael Horton / White Horse Inn PING!
“The ONLY way to the FATHER is through ME”.
JESUS
Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. John 14:6
Faith is through Christ and Christ alone. No need for a pope, priest, pastor or any other title you can name. It is through Christ and Christ alone.
Here’s a Catholic article that tries to clarify what he meant:
http://www.catholicvote.org/what-pope-francis-really-said-about-atheists/
” Pope Francis did not say that an atheist who does naturally good things can be saved if he dies an atheist. Yet that is the impression given by Catholic Online’s half truth headline…
The Pope… simply reminded the faithful that there can be, and is, goodness, or natural virtue, outside the Church. And that Christ’s death on the Cross redeemed all men. He paid the price so that every man could come to God and be saved.
If Catholic Online is insinuating that Pope Francis has “reformed” the irreformable dogma, outside the Church there is no salvation, then that is shameful and disingenuous.”
Review John 14:6.
This is typical of how some who call themselves “christians” spread calumny and distort truth. Catholics believe that only God knows men’s hearts and circumstances, and salvation is be determined by God, for whom anything is possible. For some reason those who claim to own salvation truth, also pretend to be authority on Catholic doctrine. I guess if you can be God-like and determine salvation, that also makes you all knowing. Good works are a reflection of faith, nothing sinister about that. Perhaps if somebody was busy doing good works, like spreading God’s message of love, the wouldn’t be so busy looking for splinters in their brothers eye.
Odd, I thought that had been settled at the Fifth Ecumenical Council with the condemnation of Pelagius (on salvation through good works) and of Origen (on the apocatastasis). (Last I checked the Latins do regard the Fifth Ecumenical Council as authoritative, their heresy of papal infallibility notwithstanding.)
Christians are allowed to pray for the apocatastasis (or as some more modern folks have put it “to pray for an empty Hell”), but not to teach that it is or will be so.
Once again, the Pope shows he has not read the Bible. How sad. He is robbing people of great joy with his false teachings.
So, when is he going to change his position on homosexuality. I’d say any day now.
I think the writer is reading too much out of what Pope Frances said. It is true to say in Christian orthodoxy that all men and women have been redeemed. So, it is also true to say the atheist has been redeemed.
The pope is not saying that the atheist, as atheist, will be saved or not. Instead, the pope went on to talk about doing good, and meeting the atheist on that common ground.
I don’t see what is so bad about that...he is talking about common ground in this world - doing good. Sharing common ground is an excellent ‘place’ and occasion from which to evangelize and share the fullness of the Gospel with all - including the atheist.
So it appears that we have, on the one hand, a secularized press that really, really, really wants to find in Francis a liberal who will affirm their “everything is beautiful,” non-theology. They pray (though I am not sure to whom) that the Pope will say that all you have to do is become a Democrat, vote for Obama and be nice to poor people, Muslims and gays and you will get into heaven. You don’t even have to believe in God.
Well, sorry folks, the Pope did not say that. Any of it.
On the other hand we have members of the Church who, perhaps more married to their own brand of doctrinal purity than to Christ, are willing to misrepresent what the Pope says in order to get in another punch at the evil romanists.
The Pope did not say, as Horton claims, and the edited blog title seeks to enhance, that all can be saved without Jesus. He did not say that good works are sufficient for salvation. Of course if all one reads is the Huffington Post response to the Pope’s statement, perhaps it is understandable that the truth of Francis’ statement would be missed.
Horton linked to HuffPo. For those of you who wish to make up your own mind, here is the full text of the Pope’s homily:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/22/pope_at_mass:_culture_of_encounter_is_the_foundation_of_peace/en1-694445
For the record I am not Catholic.
This is Christianity 101 fundamentalism. I've always been leery of preachers of works salvation. The thief on the cross was promised paradise that day, even though he expressed his belief nailed to the cross. He wasn't required to tithe, give to the poor, or help an old lady cross the street. As a saved person, you are thought to obey Christ and do good works, but that isn't what saves you. If good works saved you, the guy in England with a meat cleaver in his hand could go to heaven if he was kind and did good things more than bad things.
I have been looking at the new pope and fearing something like this. A Jesuit is more of a political position than that of a faith position. They ALWAYS side with commie dictators thinking Jesus was a commie. If you give to the poor,....you are saved and follow Christ. That is why someone like Chavez can get support from the Church while shooting people against a wall. They preach death to poor people and the poor follow error thinking they follow correct teaching.
More Wine of Babylon for the masses...
One of the many scriptural references the Catholic Church can rely on when it teaches the theological concept of “invincible ignorance” -
John 9:41 Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you should not have sin: but now you say: We see. Your sin remaineth.
One of the precepts of invincible ignorance is that God reveals himself through natural law and other means even to those who have not been exposed to the Gospel. The Catholic Church holds that it is possible for these people to achieve a Heavenly reward if they respond properly to what God has revealed to them.