Replies

Depends on how one slices it often enough.

I knew that well informed RC’s assert, evidently from quality official documents, that The Vatican asserts that folks can be saved outside the Vatican/RC organization.

However, in terms of what’s often pontificated hereon, it’s easy to lose sight of that because some very strident folks

MAKE IT SOUND LIKE

that’s simply not the case and anyone outside the RC edifice is eternally beyond the pale.

Sometimes, it seems, like RC’s like to have their cake and eat it too.

Sometimes, it seems, like RC’s like to have their cake and eat it too.

It might sound that way. But I think the Church's expression is a reflection of the Lord's infinite JUSTICE and infinite MERCY. They seem to be in conflict, but they are not. The justice part comes in because the Church rightly asserts there is ONE, SINGULAR, UNIFYING TRUTH of Christianity, and strongly rejects relativism. Christ promised He would always be with us, and that He would not leave us like orphans. Teaching authority for objective scriptural truth must therefore be founded on something rock solid, or else Christ was not telling the truth. The See of Peter and his successors is the most obvious "rock" for the maintenance of the Lord's Deposit of Faith. At the same time, the Lord is infinitely merciful, and surely would not submit to eternal damnation someone who was sincerely seeking Him, but somehow didn't pass the theology exam. Both sides of the issue are expressions of the Truth of the Lord, both in his infinite Justice and infinite Mercy. They seem to be contradictory, but actually it's a paradox in which both the mercy and justice of the Lord are in perfect harmony and infinitely Good.

Sometimes it seems like RCs have to have their cake and eat it too.

If I understand you correctly, you mean that sometimes Catholics speak "from both sides of their mouths". Most likely, you're right. On the one hand, the Catholic Church has proclaimed that it is the one true church, outside of which one cannot be saved.

The Church has taken a less stringent position since that decree.

Though it may not be relevant to the subject, I was baptized a Catholic and attended Catholic schools for 12+ years. Throughout my years I've known many Protestants who are/were good-living, caring people. My father and husband were Protestants---hard-working, reliable men who took care of their families.

Aside from the fact that both of them became Catholics later in life, there's no way I will believe that God would have damned them to hell before that.