Well, to be a bit more precise:
For according to the teaching of the
Catholic Church the righteousness and
sanctity which justification confers, although given to us by
God as efficient cause (
causa efficiens)
and merited by Christ as meritorious cause (
causa meritoria), become an interior sanctifying quality or formal cause (
causa formalis) in the
soul itself, which it makes truly just and holy in the sight of
God. In the
Protestant system, however, remission of
sin is no real forgiveness, no blotting out of guilt. Sin is merely cloaked and concealed by the imputed merits of Christ;
God no longer imputes it, whilst in reality it continues under cover its miserable existence till the hour of death. Thus there exist in man side by side two hostile brothers as it were — the one just and the other
unjust; the one a
saint, the other a sinner; the one a child of
God, the other a slave of
Satan — and this without any prospect of a conciliation between the two. For,
God by His merely judicial
absolution from
sin does not take away
sin itself, but spreads over it as an outward mantle His own righteousness.
In a sense, but not if you are referring to typical Protestant concept of alien righteousness, whereby our Lord's own personal righteousness is imputed to a believer. If you read the Bible carefully you will notice that there is not a single verse that actually teaches this.
Well if you say so. Let me put it another way. Has God's love been poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit?