Timocrates wrote:
You are presuming to take it upon yourself to interpret Church dogma and doctrine. You do not have that power or authority. The Church has clarified the meaning of these statements as, e.g., in the Catechism of the Church and the continued teaching of the Magisterium.


Timocrates, you do not seem to understand what a Dogma is.  The Maryknoll Catholic Dictionary of 1965 defines a Dogma as "A truth of faith or morals authoritatively proposed by the Church as revealed by God and requiring the belief of the faithful."  Dogmas are defined for our belief, not for our 'massaging'.  Dogmas are laid down so as to END debate, not enkindle it.  Please try to grasp that point.  We are required to BELIEVE Dogmas, as written, LITERALLY.  That's why they exist.  Dogmas are not intended, nor allowed, to be "interpreted".  By anyone.  Do we "interpret" the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception?  The Assumption?  The Real Presence?  The Trinity?  Would anyone dare to?  They mean precisely what the words of definition say, no more, no less.  Dogmas define the Deposit of Faith that we are bound under pain of sin to assent to.  Do not dare accuse me of "interpret[ing] Church dogma and doctrine"; that's what Modernists do.  I "interpret" nothing.  Infallible pronouncements are irreformable and cannot be changed or "clarified", not even by a Pope, and certainly not by a fallible instrument, subject to human error, like a catechism.  I simply believe the infallible pronouncements of Popes.  You apparently do not.  Nor apparently do you believe in Papal infallibility.  That's a pretty good working definition of Modernism.

 

 
 

Timocrates said:  "You're not the Pope."

Thanks for the clarification, but I'm not sure what you're trying to say.  Are you?  As I pointed out, Pope Innocent III settled the matter infallibly in 1215.  In 1302, in the Bull Unam Sanctam, Pope Boniface VIII elaborated infallibly on Innocent III's declaration:  "We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff".

I stand with the Popes.  Where do you stand? 

Please read the article I linked.

 

Scott wrote:

Jeremy Taylor wrote:

From the Catechism:

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.
 

Precisely. I've already linked to this part of the Catechism, and it's quite a sufficient reply to the Feeneyist heresy.

Precisely wrong.

Jeremy Taylor and Scott:

Your statements betray a serious misunderstanding of one of the most fundamental Dogmas of the Catholic Church -- Exra Ecclesiam nulla salus (EENS).  It will probably take me several posts to unravel the confusion that has enveloped this Dogma and the great work that Father Leonard Feeney undertook to rescue it from being emasculated by Liberals, Modernists, and Progressives within and without the Church.  I hope you will bear with me and hear me out.  I promise to be as brief as possible.

l preface my remarks by calling attention to the fact that there is not, nor ever has been, a "Feeneyist" heresy.  Fr. Feeney was never charged with, much less convicted of, heresy.  Indeed he could not be, since EENS has always been held as literally true since the earliest days of the Church, by all the Saints, Fathers, Doctors, Popes (several of whom have defined it infallibly), Bishops, theologians, Councils, and laymen.  Only in comparatively recent times has it become 'politically correct' to challenge the Dogma, presumably because it conflicts with the Modernist and Americanist (by "Americanist" I mean the heresy identified and condemned by Pope Leo XIII, but revived just before and during Vatican Council II by John Courtney Murray, S.J., and others) agendas (especially false ecumenism).

Furthermore, Fr. Feeney was

[size=100]Etzelnik:

Welcome, and thank you for your excellent questions.  Let me try to address a couple of them. 

You ask about the Dogma, "Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus".  It means exactly what it says:  there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church.  In order to be saved (avoid hell and get to Heaven), one must be Baptized, profess and practice the Catholic Faith, and die in the state of (Sanctifying) grace (no unforgiven mortal sins on one's soul).  One becomes a Catholic through Baptism, and only through Baptism.  The un-Baptized are not Catholic, and are therefore incapable of being saved -- "Jesus answered [Nicodemus the Pharisee, who came to Jesus by night]:  Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John 3 : 5).  There is no other way to salvation.  Only Catholics can be saved (but by no means are all Catholics saved).  There have been several infallible pronouncements of Popes that confirm my statements and therefore definitively settle the question.  Furthermore, a Dogma, once defined, can never be altered, even by a subsequent Pope (except perhaps to strenghten it by pronouncing on issues not directly addressed in the original formulation).

You ask about grace.  There are two kinds of grace, Actual Grace and Sanctifying Grace (sometimes referred to as Habitual Grace).  Sanctifying Grace gives us a share in supernatural life, and is therefore necessary for salvation (one cannot attain Heaven without it), and is initially obtained only through the sacrament of Baptism.  Therefore Sacramental Grace is only obtainable in the Catholic Church.  But Actual Grace, the Grace that prompts us to do good and avoid evil, which God continually dispenses to all people (unless, Heaven forbid, they steadfastly refuse His promptings and He reprobates them, leaving them in their sins) is always available to all, and, if faithfully followed to the best of one's abilit

I'm even older than Fred, and like him I'm not a professional philosopher, merely an interested layman with a keen interest in Thomism.  My formal credentials consist of three years of required philosophy courses at an eminent Catholic institution of higher learning back in the mid-Twentieth Century (back when, believe it or not, "Catholic" schools were actually recognizably Catholic).