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The theological interpretation of “no salvation outside the catholic church” is that people may be saved based on a partial connection to the Catholic Church. A baptized Protestant has a connection to Christ (and the body of Christ - which includes his church) through baptism and may be saved. Even a pagan who does not know Christ MAY be saved if they cooperate with the grace God has given them (e.g. following the last 7 commandments) and do not know Christ through no fault of their own. But this is also a form of a connection to the Catholic Church (i.e. following 7 commandments).

It may be the "Catholic" interpretation but that doesn't make it true. I think it's great that the Roman Catholic Church still retains some of the primitive doctrines that were held from the start of Christianity. I happen to believe in them because they are Biblical and not because the Catholic Church holds to them. In this particular area, though - if you are correctly stating your church's beliefs, I reject that anyone can possibly be saved today who rejects Jesus Christ as Savior, no matter how "good" they are. "Cooperating" with the grace of God would mean coming to the knowledge of the truth and trusting in Christ and His shed blood to save us. The Catholic Church didn't give anyone the ten commandments much less the last seven so, no, even that is not a connection to it. Do you just ignore the Scriptures that say quite clearly that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved? Or, he who believes in him is not condemned but he who believes not is condemned already because he believes not in the name of the only begotten Son of God? I didn't make the rules, God did.

The bible discusses that many righteous Jews, who did not know Christ, achieving salvation.

Those "righteous" Jews were those who believed in the coming Messiah who would take away the sins of the world. Just as we look back to when Christ came to earth, died and rose again to save us, they looked forward to the time when God would do that. It was STILL through faith that they were saved - just as we are today.

Excellent post, boatbums — and cuts to the heart of the matter. In order to believe there are other ways to Heaven one has to cut the heart out of the Gospel and ignore what Christ has said multiple times. There is indeed NO OTHER NAME by which one can be saved. Perilous ground when one begins to ignore Scripture to re-write the Gospel to one’s own preferences. All our good deed are as “filthy rags” as Scripture says. Either we acknowledge that, or we arrogantly believe God is unfair, unjust, and there must be other paths to Him — a doctrine from Hell if ever there were one!