>The Pope answered that for me. No.<
You have been throwing around a lot of insults about people not knowing Catholic doctrine and making up their own.
I would suggest you check out the official Catholic Website and talk to your Priest because that is not what the Pope said.Don’t feel bad that often happens when people fail to ask the Holy spirit to reveal God’s word and istead base their theology on what they think someone else said.That is why Peter said Scriptur was a “more sure word”
From the Vatican
The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation.
It follows that the separated Churches(23) and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.
So I insult people when I speak the truth? So be it. I certainly don’t care what Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell or any other protestant says, why should you care what the Catholic Church says? I have certainly been told I am going to hell from a protestant at an airport in Wisconsin. Does it bother me? No.
And yes people do make up their own doctrines, why so many protestant churches if they all came to the truth independantly? To which Church does the Holy Spirit speak to? They can’t all have the truth if they teach different things. This is the fallacy of sola scriptura.
Even Luther believed that...
“If Christ had not entrusted all power to one man (The Pope), the Church would not have been perfect because there would have been no order. Each one would have been able to say he was led by the Holy Spirit. This is what the heretics did, each one setting up his own principal. In this way, as many churches arose as there were heads. Christ therefore wills in order that all may be assembled in one unity that his power be exercised by one man to whom also he commits it. Wherefore, whoever breaks away from this unity, and this order of the power, let him not boast of his great enlightenment or his wonderful works.”
Martin Luther, prior to his break with the Catholic Church
“There are as many sects now and beliefs as there are heads. This fellow will have nothing to do with baptism. Another denies the sacrament. A third believes that there is another world between this and the last day. Some teach that Christ is not God. Some say this, Some say that. There is no rustic so rude, but that if he dreams or fancies anything, it must be the whisper of the Holy Spirit and he himself must be a profit.”
Martin Luther, 1525, 7 years after his break with the Catholic Church
As far as Salvation is concerned, I stand corrected,
The Catholic Church states in CCC 846; Vatican II, Lumen Gentium 14), there are exceptions for salvation, and it is possible in some circumstances for people to be saved who have not been fully initiated into the Catholic Church (CCC 847).
But the same Fathers who declare the normative necessity of being Catholic also declare the possibility of salvation for some who are not Catholics.
These can be saved by what later came to be known as “baptism of blood” or “ baptism of desire”
The Fathers likewise affirm the possibility of salvation for those who lived before Christ and who were not part of Israel, the Old Testament People of God.
However, for those who knowingly and deliberately (that is, not out of innocent ignorance) commit the sins of heresy (rejecting divinely revealed doctrine) or schism (separating from the Catholic Church and/or joining a schismatic church), no salvation would be possible until they repented and returned to live in Catholic unity.
Ignatius of Antioch (110 AD)
“Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons” (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]).
There are many more examples. But you don’t seem to be interested in what the Church Fathers said. They are important because it shows an apostolicity.