I have yet to meet a genuine atheist. It turns out that every professed atheist I have ever met was just mad at God about one thing or another, so they tried to justify Him out of existence. They tried to deny Him, but when pressed on it, I discovered that this anger remained just below the surface. It’s impossible to be angry at something that does not exist.
I agree with the Pope. If you know about the church but somehow you didn’t really understand, then you can be saved.
Therefore everybody is covered.
“There are people who don’t believe in Hell until they get there.”
I’m not catholic, use to be, but I really like this pope!
So now spokesmen speak infallibly?
“He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe will be damned,” Jesus declares in Mark 16:16.
The pope cannot change the teachings of Jesus to fit the wishful thinking of the times.
Not even the Catholic church claims that everything the pope says is infallible.
1Jn 2:1 My little children, I write this to you, so that you do not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Intercessor with the Father, Yeshua Messiah, a righteous One. 2 And He Himself is an atoning offering for our sins, and not for ours only but also for all the world.
Jn 3:16 For God so loved "the world"
The pope’s infallible statement is no longer operable.
Pope Francis did not speak “ex cathedra” and was not united with the bishops.He was speaking “off the cuff” as it were. Infallibility does not pertain.
I am more convinced that many in the ‘Vatican’ will burn in hell, than I am that ‘atheists’ (I wonder which type of atheist they meant?) will.
What this means is that once again the Press tried to do Theology and failed. Redemption and Salvation are not the same thing. If you knew the Truth of the Catholic Church and rejected Her, then yes you will be damned. Knowing the Truth is different than just knowing the Church exists.
Yes, nothing the Pope says is infallible unless it is formally spoken ex cathedra, in an Encyclical, in a Church Council, or in agreement with the Bishops.
Also, I don’t know what either the Pope or “the Vatican” actually said, but this report is very careless (which is why I don’t trust it to report anything accurately).
The teaching of the Church is that no one can be saved except through the grace of God and through His Church. But—that grace can be extended to Christians outside the Church, to Jews, to pagans, to atheists, or to anyone else whom God chooses to save because they sin through ignorance rather than deliberate choice.
Something to that effect. Matter of fact, the point was one of the few clarified in the Second Vatican Council and in Encyclicals published since then.
God has redeemed atheists — they just choose not to accept God, Christ or the Holy Spirit.
**Vatican corrects infallible pope: atheists will still burn in hell**
What a misleading headline.
The statement was not made infallibly — it was just said in a homily/sermon.
Some journalists have no brains at all when it comes to telling the truth about the Catholic Church.
It makes for an interesting spectacle to see the infallible pope being corrected by his handlers, doesn't it? For a moment it was possible to recall the welcoming and indulgent style of the short lived Pope John Paul I in the unexpectedly all-embracing words of Pope Francis. But you'll recall how quickly John Paul I was replaced by the much more doctrinaire John Paul II.
Ping for later
We are all REDEEMED. Christ's sacrifice on the Cross paid the price for man's sin, closed the breach between man and God, was sufficient to make salvation possible for all.
SALVATION is only for those who accept the grace of God made available because of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. Even if one who, through no fault of their own, has never heard the true Gospel places their trust in God to the extent that God has revealed Himself to them, CAN (not WILL) be saved.
Basically, redemption is collective, while salvation is individual. Christ redeemed humanity collectively from slavery to sin and from the debt of punishment that mankind, as a whole, owed due to sin. Every person, Christian or non-Christian, is redeemed because he is a member of the human race. Salvation is the application of redemption to individuals. A person can choose to reject the graces won for him by Christ even though he has been redeemed.
So, to recap:
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
REDEMPTION is not the same as SALVATION
Get that fact straight and there is no problem with anything the Pope said.
Now, more than ever, we need to call to mind the words of Archbishop Charles Chaput:
We make a very serious mistake if we rely on media like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN, or MSNBC for reliable news about religion. These news media simply don’t provide trustworthy information about religious faith—and sometimes they can’t provide it, either because of limited resources or because of their own editorial prejudices. These are secular operations focused on making a profit. They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God’s truth. Things of the Church reported in the secular media, particularly about the Holy Father, need to be viewed with the most jaundiced eye.
The Holy Father's words:
"The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this ‘closing off’ that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.”
“Instead,” the Pope continued, “the Lord has created us in His image and likeness, and has given us this commandment in the depths of our heart: do good and do not do evil”:
"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! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class! We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all! And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: we need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: we will meet one another there.”
But, of course, does Irish Central mention this little ditty from Pope Pius IX, written all the way back in 1863:
There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.
Of course not.
But, still, there are those who believe NOTHING written by the MSM when it regards politics or culture but yet become instantly gullible when they read something regarding religion...particularly Catholicism.
It would be funny if it wasn't so pitiful.
Although they are otherwise good, moral people they are still doomed to burn in a lake of fire for having the temerity to have been born outside of Catholicism or having chosen to remain so.
How do you quantify ‘moral’ outside of All Mighty God?