[metmom]

Vatican II did not change any doctrines of the Church.

Baloney. Try that on someone who doesn't know anything about Catholicism.

The whole issue of whether someone can be saved outside of the Catholic church is probably the best known one.

[Petrosius]

The question of extra ecclesiam is more complicated than simple bumper sticker theology. In his 1863 encyclical letter Quanto confidiamur moerore, Pope Pius IX wrote:

Well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff.

In the same letter, he said:

There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace since God who clearly beholds, searches, and knows the minds, souls, thoughts, and habits of all men, because of His great goodness and mercy, will by no means suffer anyone to be punished with eternal torment who has not the guilt of deliberate sin.

This is well before Vatican II.

[Georgia Girl 2]

So when you drive a stake in a Catholic’s heart do you use wood or silver? Just curious. :-)