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Dr. Eckleburg: But primarily I worry that the RCC teaches its members to disregard the Holy Spirit as a personal means of God instructing, leading and comforting His family.

Since you've reposted this, I will again point out that this post is false. By restating it, you bear false witness against us.

I bore true witness when I quoted from CCC #79:

... And the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the Gospel rings out in the Church - and through her in the world - leads believers to the full truth, and makes the Word of Christ dwell in them in all its richness."

It appears to say what it says, and you did not argue against it. This is a full filtering middleman. And besides, no FR Catholic has ever told me that I don't need your Church to be saved. While there is the general principle of invincible ignorance, no one has ever told me to rely on it. To my understanding it is a wild card, solely at God's discretion with the idea of one here, maybe one over there. It has never been described to me as some kind of far reaching practice. To the Catholic we are not saved through a personal relationship with God, we are saved by or through the men of the Church, and the physical rituals they perform.

I see what you are probably saying as something similar. CAN the Holy Spirit EVER speak directly to a person? I would expect the Catholic to say "yes", maybe once in a while, but the normal practice is for Him to go through the men of the Church in order to reach the laity. As Dr. E. said, this does not describe a personal relationship with God.

It's partially a matter of view point.

Everyone in heaven is a member of One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, Church.

That would be by definition.

Not all people who are members of the Church( that is, the baptized with water in the name of the Trinity) will go to heaven. Not all in heaven were baptized as described above.

So it is not absolutely required to be a member of the Church on earth to be saved.

A fortiori it is not not required to be in communion with the See of Rome to be saved.
(But it helps.)

This is based on the catechism's teaching about baptism, but it finds echoes in Dante, who was not a great theologian but was a great propounder of the theological work of others.

I wish I could find the quote, but I can't. But recently Benedict XVI said that we have to start thinking about Protestantism differently. It's one thing to make a schism. It's quite another, he was suggesting (I stress "suggesting") to be an 8th generation Protestant, or to have been brought up in a Protestant or pluralistic culture and to have made a commitment to Christ but not to an organization in communion with the See of Rome.

In addition I often use as an example the poor people of Ceylon who were told by the conquering Portugese (I think it was), "Hi: we're giving you a choice today. YOu can be Christian or dead." And then the Dutch came in and said, "Hi, you can be Protestant or dead."

It's hard to imagine how someone moved by the Spirit to a deep love and yearning for Divine love and justice wouldn't be pardonable for thinking Xtians were murderous dopes. A few might have been given an extraordinary grace and by it enabled to see the beauty and truth of the Gospel. But many of the people who first presented the Gospel to them did almost everything they could to pervert it and obscure it.

Even Baptsts can be saved. I know that's hard to believe. But we have a Lord so incredibly more gracious and loving than human hearts would dare imagine that there are even one or two lawyers in heaven!

So , as a Cat'lick, I have to admit that anything is possible.

PART of the problem is that this is how we sound:

Baptism is ordinarily necessary to salvation.

and, mutatis mutandis, so also for other similar declarations.

Last Fall I wrote an informal paper, more an article, at the request of the most rigorous of the Dominicans here. In it I made a functional equivalence between "validity" and "reliability". He liked it enough to pass it on to some folks. So maybe it wasn't too wrong.

But what our claim is, as I presented it, is this: you can take our "sacraments" to the bank. When I as an Episcopal priest pronounced absolution to someone who was appropriately penitent and who, by grace, trusted in the love and forgiveness of God, MAYBE that person was forgiven. ( I would even say "probably".) But when an appropriately penitent and faithful RC receives absolution, he is sure enough absolved.

Experience is always a totally lousy datum. But my experience is that as a Catholic, I find myself being surprised all the time by little evidences of God's love. Most of my adult life I have said, one way or another, "Oh God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you."

Now I feel like God, more clearly than ever, is saying, "Step back and watch this. I'm gonna SHOW you some grace." If anything, personally, I am more aware of my meritlessness than ever. But, praise God, I am also more aware of how that doesn't seem to matter much to God.

So that's why I, aware of the unsatisfactory nature of the argument from experience, am nonetheless willing to agree with the Catholic claim that some kind of "fullness" of "Church" and of the means of Grace are here. It just keeps on sneaking up on me!