I’m a Catholic. I was a Mennonite not that long ago, and an Anglican before that.
Christ is very clear, in saying that wide is the gate that leads to destruction and narrow is the gate that leads to salvation.
He also warns that many who are on the inside will be outside, and outside inside.
Do I believe that God will save protestants? Yes, if they sincerely love him and do not deny the truth in his word.
Will he save everyone who is Catholic? No, I believe that there are many who call themselves Catholics who do not truly love him.
Let us be clear where the true divisions lie. The teachings on Mary, the teachings on scripture and tradition, are all far older than those of John Calvin. It is only by rejecting them can you charge the church with heresy, when the Church has not changed anything at all. It is the Calvinists who have changed things around, and claimed that the Church itself changed at some unspecified point.
We do not believe that obedience to the pope is necessary for salvation, even as we believe that the pope is the Vicar of Christ here on earth. We do not believe that accepting the immaculate conception is necessary for salvation, even as Mary is the Theotokos, and God-bearer.
Just because one does not possess a virtue doesn’t make that virtue necessary for salvation, just the opposite. Salvation is by the Grace of God through faith in Christ. No more, no less. He decides, not us.
I appreciate your explanation, and agree wholeheartedly.
Just a small correction: here's what the solemn declaration of the Immaculate Conception by Blessed Pius IX said: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful."
You need to re-read your Catechism....>QUICKLY!!
BK: Pope Pius IX infallibly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary (that she was from her very conception free of original sin and its consequences) in the 1850s. As Catholics, we DO have to believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. She apparently never died (She went to sleep and was taken body and soul to heaven by angels) and never suffered the pangs of Childbirth since those are specific consequences of original sin (inherited by the rest of us from Adam’s and Eve’s disobedience to God).