(FYI, you can find the answers to questions like this by searching the Catechism. Since the on-line version is difficult to search, I recommend googling something like, "catechism Catholic Church salvation non-Catholics.")
From the Catechism:
"Outside the Church there is no salvation"
846
How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:
Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. 336
847
This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337
848
"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."338"
R2Z: “Please, is this your opinion or is it taught throughout the Roman Catholic church?”
STA: “(FYI, you can find the answers to questions like this by searching the Catechism. Since the on-line version is difficult to search, I recommend googling something like, “catechism Catholic Church salvation non-Catholics.”)”
Would you be more comfortable if at this point in the thread you were invited to give your evasions to virtually every sincere question FReepers have posed to you...in Latin? (I don’t speak Latin so you would be still safer from giving a true answer.)
Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.
But God says:
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. (John 14:6)
"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:16-19)
I guess there IS hope; after all!
But which also is manifestly open to interpretation, a has been seen here. Some understand it as requiring conversion of Prots to Catholicism for salvation, excluding them as brethren before that, allowing only the ignorant to be saved otherwise, while others affirm trinitarian baptized Prots such as me as their brethren now.
However, 846,47 is under the section, "The Church and non-Christians," and teaches that Baptism is a door to enter the Catholic Church, and is preceded by 838 under the section, "Who belongs to the Catholic Church?," which states
she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honored by the name of Christian, but do not profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter."322 Those "who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church." ith the Orthodox Churches, this communion is so profound "that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord's Eucharist."
And as Lumen Gentium states, which i showed you already,
: "..there are many who honor Sacred Scripture, taking it as a norm of belief and a pattern of life, and who show a sincere zeal. They lovingly believe in God the Father Almighty and in Christ, the Son of God and Saviour. (Cf. Jn. 16:13) They are consecrated by baptism, in which they are united with Christ. They also recognize and accept other sacraments within their own Churches or ecclesiastical [Protestant] communities…"
Also in further affirmation,,
“All who have been justified by Faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ: they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church.” — http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
"Ecclesiastical communities" does not describe EOs, as Rome calls them churches, which it imagines Prot churches are not to be called (though even the Laodiceans was called a church, so perhaps Rome can be), and other RC teaching shows baptism only refers to trinitarian baptism, eliminating the SA and OPs, and most cults at least.
It can hardly be thought that this affirmation of salvation only refers to some (basically theoretical) Prots who have never heard of the claims of Rome, which would be basically make it meaningless. Instead it calls trinitarian baptized Prots who are part of "ecclesiastical communities" "Christians," and places them into the Catholic church, in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic church.
Accordingly, those who are not trinitarian baptized would not be called Christians, nor those who know that Rome is the one true church but rebel from it, versus those that who see the weight of evidence as being contrary to that elitist claim, from the EOs to sincere Prots, who in the light of Scripture are not convinced of the claims of Rome, and like myself, see Rome as so contrary to the NT church in Scripture as to be basically invisible. And while not an infallible organ and assuredly determinative of Truth (or is Rome),
"Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church" (Pope Benedict XVI [then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger], Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Vorgrimler, 1968, on Gaudium et spes, part 1,chapter 1.).