Are Catholics Saved?

[Filia Mariae]

"Is it a sin to go rollerskating?"
Twenty pages of opinions later, no one agrees.

 

[tigersnare]

If that misinterpretation causes them to make light of their mortal sins, as if they do not need to repent of them, maybe, but only God can be the judge, not me.

Word....I agree only God knows their/our hearts.

Btw, what's the difference between mortal sin and other sin?

No, that is not correct.

Sorry I should have made it more clear....this was a "for instance" statement.

 

[tigersnare]

that is incorrect, the Council of Trent defined the requirements for salvation as follows:

These are all acts of disposition which are state of mind.
- Faith in God
- Detestation of Sin
- Love of God
- Intention to sin to more
- Purpose of recieving baptism
(Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ott)

Now, along with misrepresenting Catholic teaching, are you telling us that you can be saved by faith, apart from love of God? or faith, with the intention to continue in sin? or faith, without detesting sin?

Even satan has faith.

Take it easy buddy, I was giving a "for instance" statement, next time I'll make that alittle clearer.

I wasn't intending to be doctrinally sounds, becuase my statment was loosly based on just two different views, not necisarrly Catholic/Protestant.

And I'm telling you anything of the sort about salvation, I was mearly trying to give two examples, why go on the defensive? Sorry but I'm not looking for a fight.

 

[Plan 9]

After Constantine the Great issued his edit of tolerance, the Christians were free to worship. The Church was faced with a serious problem. Thousands of former Christians who had denied their faith to save their necks suddenly came back to the Church seeking forgiveness. At first some of the Bishops said that you could only be baptized once, and that if you committed the sin of apostacy, well, you were just out of luck. Other Bishops said that you could commit apostacy once but if you failed again, then your salvation was uncertain, to put it mildly.

St. Constantine was baptized on his deathbed because of this uncertainty. He didn't want to use up his "one free ticket" to heaven by falling into sin.

St. Augustine was also baptized later in life, after he had learned to control himself.

The ancient Catholic and Apostolic Church really struggled over this issue of "once saved, always saved" and finally came to the conclusion that sins committed after Baptism (even deliberate serious sins) could be forgiven IF THE PERSON WAS SINCERELY REPENTANT and confessed them in sorrow in Holy Confession. It's not easy to confess one's sins before a Priest. It's not easy to look him in the eye and say "I'm sorry." It takes guts and the gift of the Holy Spirit, without which, we could never repent.

That's why when a person deliberately falls into sin, he can not presume that he is going to receive the grace of repentance. He might not. He could become a hardened sinner and die in the gas chamber.

We must love God with all our heart and soul, and love our neighbor as ourselves. We must detest all sin and promptly repent whenever we commit the slightest sin.

This is the daily struggle of the true Christian.

Hope this helps.

Elizabeth

One of the many things you have going for you here that protestants don't is nearly 2,000 years of unbroken church history and theological tradition to advise you. Second, you have the confessional and, therefore, know when you've been absolved. Third, you have an intellectual tradition; your parochial schools offer you a superior education.

 

[BAChristian]

Third, you have an intellectual tradition; your parochial schools offer you a superior education.

Mmmm...I don't know if I'd agree with that statement...

My daughter does just fine and is a great student in her public school education -- and it doesn't cost me a penny.

I went to public school too, and look at me! (Ok now, no funny jokes!!)

 

[Bayhawks83]

"One of the many things you have going for you here that protestants don't is nearly 2,000 years of unbroken church history and theological tradition to advise you."

you just quoted someone proving that there isnt 2000 years of unbroken church history didnt you?,dont the catholics keep changing their minds? constantines baptism was done at the end of his life, but now catholics baptize infants, you see?

 

[Plan 9]

Mmmm...I don't know if I'd agree with that statement...

My daughter does just fine and is a great student in her public school education -- and it doesn't cost me a penny.

I went to public school too, and look at me! (Ok now, no funny jokes!!)

Yes, some public schools are good, but I did not have as good an experience with public schools as did you and I know many people who move to another scool district in order to get their children the best possible public school education and I've met a number of protestants who do scrape up the money to send their children to Catholic schools. My nephew went to a Catholic school, yet his mother was an unbeliever; it was the only school available in his area which had computers and taught the use of them.
BA, I find it hard to believe that your and your Parish church aren't supplementing your daughter's education.

Education has always been an important tradition in my family; we've had many teachers my family, as a result. In addition, mothers and fathers teach their children from an early age; my aunt once sadly explained to me why my grandmother was unable to teach my mother Latin, and my mother was, therefore, unable to teach it to me.
Still, I do not have as well-rounded education as many Catholics I know.

 

[BAChristian]

BA, I find it hard to believe that your and your Parish church aren't supplementing your daughter's education.

In terms of schooling? Believe it. I'm not going to pay $8,000 a year when I can get just as good education in the public system...

My daughter does well in school, she can demonstrate what's been taught of her, and she can even speak a little in Spanish (they are taught bi-lingual here), so I'd say, for free, I'm getting a pretty good deal...

Why pay the 8K, for what? A little better education? No thanks.

 

[Plan 9]

"One of the many things you have going for you here that protestants don't is nearly 2,000 years of unbroken church history and theological tradition to advise you."

you just quoted someone proving that there isnt 2000 years of unbroken church history didnt you?,dont the catholics keep changing their minds? constantines baptism was done at the end of his life, but now catholics baptize infants, you see?

There's about a hundred years of early church history of which we have no real written record, but as soon as we have written records, we read of Christians going to Mass.

I think you misunderstood that post: Catholics have always baptised infants.

 

[Plan 9]

In terms of schooling? Believe it. I'm not going to pay $8,000 a year when I can get just as good education in the public system...

My daughter does well in school, she can demonstrate what's been taught of her, and she can even speak a little in Spanish (they are taught bi-lingual here), so I'd say, for free, I'm getting a pretty good deal...

Why pay the 8K, for what? A little better education? No thanks.

If you can count on your Parish church for a fine religious education, you, your wife have much to teach her which might not be a available in a public school, and her school is a good one, I completely agree with you.
My parents dropped a pile of cash to try to repair the deficiencies in mine, though and I'm very grateful to them. I'm sure they would have been far happier if my situation had remained as good as your daughter's and they hadn't had to.

 

[MariaRegina]

If you can count on your Parish church for a fine religious education, you, your wife have much to teach her which might not be a available in a public school, and her school is a good one, I completely agree with you.

Dear BA Christian:

In the public school system of California, gay education is mandatory. So your child may come home one day and say something weird. Also all the bills that Grey Davis signed are going to hurt our children. They must do background checks on everybody who teaches, but background checks only reveal past criminal records not present deviant behavior. Anyway, some of the bills that Davis signed into law will impact Christians.

What's really sad is the sex education that starts at Kindergarten. Children shouldn't be exposed to that stuff at 5 and 6 years of age. They're not ready for it.

In my college class in Health, it is mandated that we learn all about deviant acts, worse is the mandated explicit acts that are shown to our junior high school students in movies.

I saw one of the movies that are shown to junior high school students -- and it wouldn't surprise me if the students ended up being rapists after viewing it. It was supposed to teach how AIDS can be acquired, but instead, it showed date rape scenes between 12 year olds. I was so embarrassed. It was pornographic. The movie gave the impression that everyone was doing it. We complained and the teacher finally discontinued the movie. How our schools allow that movie to be shown to our innocent youth just astounds me.

Not only that, planned parenthood is allowed in the junior high classes where they teach the children how to put condoms on bananas and then they give out free samples. Now that is going too far, especially with 11 and 12 year olds.

What they teach k-5, I don't know. Be careful.



Yours in Christ,
Elizabeth

 

[BAChristian]

In the public school system of California, gay education is mandatory. So your child may come home one day and say something weird.

What's really sad is the sex education that starts at Kindergarten.

Well she hasn't come home yet asking me about anything, "sexual"...and you can bet that if they were teaching them this in Kindergarten, she'd come home asking me about it...

I seriously doubt that they teach kids any sort of sex ed during Kindergarten...that seems pretty, "out there", to me...I've never heard of that.

Not only that, planned parenthood is allowed in the junior high classes where they teach the children how to put condoms on bananas and then they give out free samples. Now that is going too far, especially with 11 and 12 year olds.

It wouldn't surprise me.

What they teach k-5, I don't know. Be careful.

I seriously am not too worried right now. I have no reason to be so far...

 

[admtaylor]

I'm not sure if I should be posting here, but here goes.....I see some misconceptions here as far as Protestant belief. Mainly I see a lot of statements taking the more "radical" beliefs on this subject and lumping them into one. Here's what I believe on this and I know many others that do as well. I believe that theres a moment in time that everyone who is actually saved realizes in their heart and soul who Christ is and what He's done for us. From that point sanctification begins and continues until death. Salvation is a one time thing, but anyone who believes that they are saved because they prayed a few words and then they can go about doing whatever they want is wrong. That's the main problem in the modern evangelical movement. We get all these people riled up about praying and accepting, when they don't even get what the faith is about in their hearts anyway. I think works are a natural by product of true salvation. They aren't something that really needs to be worked at, they're the fruit that is spoken of in Scripture. A Christian may do more works or get deeper into some particular "good deed" as they go on in life, but I think that's just a sign of the further work of sanctification. Anyway, that's my thoughts. Hope noone is miffed by what I've said here, I just didn't feel I should post this under some catholics don't understand us heading. I thought posting at the source would keep some tension and unnecessary arguments from sprining up.

 

[Plan 9]

Adam, in my experience, Catholics tend to be exposed only to the most "radical" (supposing that you mean both "loopy" and "obnoxious" by that), and sometimes, denigrating Protestants. Just take a good long look at the OPs in the IDD forum.

In addition, they have to deal with "Protestants" (in the sense that I'm not Catholic) like myself, who are too easily hurt and, in consequence, sometimes behave badly, but can't find the right words to apologise.

 

[admtaylor]

Adam, in my experience, Catholics tend to be exposed only to the most "radical" (supposing that you mean both "loopy" and "obnoxious" by that), and sometimes, denigrating Protestants. Just take a good long look at the OPs in the IDD forum.

In addition, they have to deal with "Protestants" (in the sense that I'm not Catholic) like myself, who are too easily hurt and, in consequence, sometimes behave badly, but can't find the right words to apologise.

Yeah, I understand Plan, I just thought maybe they should hear it from the mouth of a non catholic. I'm appalled at some of the arguments going on back and forth in the "Protestant" and "Catholic" camps on this forum. I believe that if you have TRUE FAITH in Christ that the walls that we've set up in our seperate camps could collapse. Wasn't that the point of this board in the beginning? It seems that we can't even focus on it here. Here's a quote from another memeber of this board that was posted in a forum asking why not a God?.

Edward has given the most succinct answer to the reworded question. "Why don't we believe that God exists?" "Why would we?"

There's no reason to disprove the existence of something for which there is no reason to believe exists. It's possible there is a race of intelligent three-legged dogs living deep under the surface of Mars. But I don't believe there is, because... why would I? I don't have to run around disproving the existence of those three-legged Martian dogs, because there's no reason to believe them in the first place.

And neither do you. There's no reason for you to believe there are three-legged Martian dogs. I can't turn to you and say, "Why on earth don't you believe in three-legged Martian dogs?! Prove to me that they're not there!" Because you can simply respond, "Why would I?"

But now imagine a world where a long time ago people explained things like life and death and lightning and diseases by saying, "Well, there's these three-legged Martian dogs that take an interest in Earth's affairs and use their powers to cause these things." Stories about the Martian dogs spread, because people were hungry for explanations and meanings, and some of these people would talk themselves into believing they'd seen the Martian dogs - perhaps they had mental illnesses, who knows. And some people claimed to speak for the Martian dogs, and other people claimed to speak for the Martian dogs, and they sent their followers off to fight each other.

As time went on, schools of thought about the nature of the three-legged Martian dogs developed. People applied their increasing skills of reason and logic towards determining more clearly how the Martian dogs wanted them to act, and how to convince those unbelievers that their idea of the Martian dogs was the right one. Sometimes, disagreements would occur. Some people realised that three legs was not enough for beings so great, and began a school of thought that believed in five-legged Martian dogs. Debates raged.

And now, here's you. You're in this world where huge numbers of people believe in three-legged Martian dogs. They love the Martian dogs. They have a relationship with the Martian dogs. Their actions, their votes, their words are influenced by their belief in the Martian dogs. And there's still no reason to believe there's any Martian dogs. But they keep freaking asking you, "Why don't you believe in the three-legged Martian dogs?! What is wrong with you? Isn't it obvious that they're there? Look how many people in the past believed in the Martian dogs! Look at how this person stopped doing drugs because of the Martian dogs! My life is better now that I know the Martian dogs love me! Prove there's no three-legged Martian dogs living deep under the surface of Mars!"

Welcome to the world of the atheist.

Isn't this one of the things we should be focused on? While we bicker about this and that people like this are ticking their way to eternal punishment and seperation from God. Just a thought.

 

[Plan 9]

I could not agree more, Adam. The level of verbal violence here is disgraceful and it's as though it's a disease we catch from each other. I find myself behaving badly, too. I am terrified that I am changing for the worse because of it.
We do not belong in separate camps and our feuding hurts everyone, just as you say.

 

[MariaRegina]

... I believe that theres a moment in time that everyone who is actually saved realizes in their heart and soul who Christ is and what He's done for us. From that point sanctification begins and continues from death. Salvation is a one time thing, but anyone who believes that they are saved because they prayed a few words and then they can go about doing whatever they want is wrong. That's the main problem in the modern evangelical movement. We get all these people riled up about praying and accepting, when they don't even get what the faith is about in their hearts anyway. I think works are a natural by product of true salvation. They aren't something that really needs to be worked at, they're the fruit that is spoken of in Scripture. A Christian may do more works or get deeper into some particular "good deed" as they go on in life, but I think that's just a sign of the further work of sanctification.

If I may put your statement into a brief format, you seemed to be saying:

1. If a person has the faith, he will bring forth good fruit by doing good works. This is consistent with Catholic teachings.

2. Once a person has the faith, they put on Christ. From this point on, they begin their walk with Christ, but conversion is a heart-felt, one-time experience.

Here we differ. Catholics believe that conversion is a series of steps, like children learning to crawl, then to learning to walk, and finally learning to talk,read, and write. In fact, babies are baptized and literally grow in the faith as they grow physically.

We continue to grow in the faith as teenagers and adults. We experience Christ anew every time we have a conversion experience -- everytime we go to Holy Confession. In fact, Confession is just like an altar call. We go to the altar and confess our sins before our pastor who represents Christ, just like protestants do at an altar call. The only difference: the priest can absolve and remit our sins in the name of Christ.

(However, you don't mention baptism. Do you believe that baptism is essental for one's salvation?)

Catholics believe that when a person receives Baptism, they die with Christ and rise with Him, a new creation. Christ gives that new Christian the grace to live a Christian life. Catholics believe that the sacrament of Confirmation illuminates and sanctifies a new Christian. With the Holy Sacrament of Holy communion, the new Christian receives Christ into his very being and becomes one with Christ. Catholics would agree with you that when a child reaches the age of reason, it is important that they accept Christ into their young lives and begin their walk with Christ. Catholics do this by receiving the Holy Sacraments.

An adult who converts to Catholicism must make an informed decision to accept Christ into his life and accept all the teachings of the Catholic Church. One he reaches that step and is approved by the priest, he is baptized, confirmed and receives Holy Communion. Usually all three Sacraments are given in one ceremony just before the Pascha service.

 

[admtaylor]

I would further like to add that I myself have not been immune to this, but realized a few weeks ago that my posts should be seriously considered before I commit them. These words harm just as much as those spoken and detract from the light of the church if not spoken with understanding and discernment.

Ok I'm done hijacking your thread guys, unless you have any comments or questions. God Bless.

-Adam

 

[admtaylor]

If I may put your statement into a brief format, you seemed to be saying:

1. If a person has the faith, he will bring forth good fruit by doing good works. This is consistent with Catholic teachings.

2. Once a person has the faith, they put on Christ. From this point on, they begin their walk with Christ, but conversion is a heart-felt, one-time experience.

Here we differ. Catholics believe that conversion is a series of steps, like children learning to crawl, then to learning to walk, and finally learning to talk,read, and write. In fact, babies are baptized and literally grow in the faith as they grow physically.

We continue to grow in the faith as teenagers and adults. We experience Christ anew every time we have a conversion experience -- everytime we go to Holy Confession. In fact, Confession is just like an altar call. We go to the altar and confess our sins before our pastor, just like protestants do at an altar call.

(However, you don't mention baptism. Do you believe that baptism is essental for one's salvation?)

Catholics believe that when a person receives Baptism, they die with Christ and rise with Him, a new creation. Christ gives that new Christian the grace to live a Christian life. Catholics believe that the sacrament of Confirmation illuminates and sanctifies a new Christian. With the Holy Sacrament of Holy communion, the new Christian receives Christ into his very being and becomes one with Christ. Catholics would agree with you that when a child reaches the age of reason, it is important that they accept Christ into their young lives and begin their walk with Christ. Catholics do this by receiving the Holy Sacraments.

An adult who converts to Catholicism must make an informed decision to accept Christ into his life and accept all the teachings of the Catholic Church. One he reaches that step and is approved by the priest, he is baptized, confirmed and receives Holy Communion. Usually all three Sacraments are given in one ceremony just before the Pascha service.

I think what you're speaking of as a continuing salvation is actually sanctification, or further and deeper revealing of what the faith is about and how you are to show it through your life. Salvation is a one time thing.

Baptism is an essential showing of your proffessed belief, but not essential in actual salvation. If that were true the thief on the cross wouldn't have been meeting Christ in paradise.

I believe that fasting and the Lords Supper are also important, but not essential to salvation. Where I stand on these things is why wouldn't a Christian do these things as they are things that Christ spoke of and did himself.

But I don't believe that they are neccessary for salvation because anyone that has a true repenting faith in Christ, I believe, wouldn't be barred from heaven on these points......We could get into whether one is saved or not if they don't do these things, but I think that's up to God and isn't productive or healthy to discuss.

I have to run away from the computer for a moment or two, but will answer any other questions you may have when I get back.

God Bless,

Adam

 

[MariaRegina]

I think we all need a wake up call before the Lord comes again to judge us, or we'll all be sorry.

Lord have mercy on us and save us.

I think what you're speaking of as a continuing salvation is actually sanctification, or further and deeper revealing of what the faith is about and how you are to show it through your life. Salvation is a one time thing.

We differ here - we are in the continual process of being saved.

Yours truly in Christ,
Elizabeth