[Apologetics] Re: Please Criticize/Correct: The Gospel of Desire

Tue Apr 19 19:59:37 EDT 2005

First, justification by faith has always been a
Catholic doctrine. 

The faith that justifies requires a determination to
follow Christ, including Jesus' frequent commandment
to help those who are less fortunate.

Second, then-Cardinal Ratzinger's DOMINUS IESUS, ON
THE UNICITY AND SALVIFIC UNIVERSALITY 
OF JESUS CHRIST AND THE CHURCH, at
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000806_dominus-iesus_en.html
is the authoratative statement on the necessary role
of Jesus and the Catholic Church for salvation.

Still, God will not hold anyone resposible for what he
or she DOESN'T know. The Catechism at
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/church3.html
says in part:

816 "The sole Church of Christ [is that] which our
Savior, after his Resurrection, entrusted to Peter's
pastoral care, commissioning him and the other
apostles to extend and rule it.... This Church,
constituted and organized as a society in the present
world, subsists in (subsistit in) in) the Catholic
Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter
and by the bishops in communion with him."[267] 
The Second Vatican Council's Decree on Ecumenism
explains: "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church
alone, which is the universal help toward salvation,
that the fullness of the means of salvation can be
obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of
which Peter is the head, that we believe that our Lord
entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in
order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ
into which all those should be fully incorporated who
belong in any way to the People of God."[268]

818 "However, one cannot charge with the sin of the
separation those who at present are born into these
communities [that resulted from such separation] and
in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the
Catholic Church accepts them with respect and
affection as brothers .... 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 in the Lord
by the children of the Catholic Church."[272] 

819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and
of truth"[273] are found outside the visible confines
of the Catholic Church: "the written Word of God; the
life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the
other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as
visible elements."[274] Christ's Spirit uses these
Churches and ecclesial communities as means of
salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of
grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the
Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ
and lead to him,[275] and are in themselves calls to
"Catholic unity."[276)

"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]

Art

--- "Stuart D. Gathman" <stuart at gathman.org> wrote:

> 
> 	T h e   G o s p e l   o f   D e s i r e
> 
> In the April 23 World Magazine,  
> 
>
http://www.worldmag.com/subscriber/displayarticle.cfm?id=10558
> Edward Veith said, among other things:
> 
>   In one area, the late pope was not traditional at
> all. By emphasizing that
>   good works are the fruit of God's grace, he had
> many Lutherans and
>   evangelicals thinking that Catholics now agree
> with them on justification by
>   faith. But the pope applied this principle to
> other religions, as well. If
>   Muslims and Hindus demonstrate good works, that
> must be a sign of God's
>   grace. Now, Catholics are teaching that not just
> other Christians but
>   believers in other religions can be saved, even
> apart from conscious faith in
>   Jesus Christ. This ecumenical theology tallies
> well with relativism, making
>   Catholicism palatable to our new polytheistic
> culture.
> 
> That is not a completely accurate description of
> this Catholic teaching.
> George MacDonald does a better job in
> _The_Princess_and_Curdie_:
> 
>   "All men, if they do not take care, go downhill to
> the animal's country;
>   many men are actually, all their lives, going to
> be beasts.  People knew it
>   once, but it is long since they forgot it."
>   
>   "I am not surprised to hear it, ma'am, when I
> think of some of our miners."
> 
>   "Ah! But you must beware, Curdie, how you say of
> this man or that man that he
>   is travelling beastward.  There are not nearly so
> many going that way as at
>   first sight you might think.  When you met your
> father on the hill tonight,
>   you stood and spoke together on the same spot; and
> although one of you was
>   going up and the other coming down, at a little
> distance no one could have
>   told which was bound in the one direction and
> which in the other.  Just so
>   two people may be at the same spot in manners and
> behaviour, and yet one may
>   be getting better and the other worse, which is
> just the greatest of all
>   differences that could possible exist between
> them."
> 
> The liberal idea is that all roads lead to heaven. 
> Protestant teaching
> is that Christ is the only road that leads to
> heaven.  Catholic teaching
> is even more restrictive: the Holy Catholic Church,
> the Body of Christ,
> is the only road that leads to heaven.  Vatican II
> says that God is faithful,
> and will not suffer any to be lost who set foot on
> that road in faith.
> A one sentence summary is, "Be true to the light
> that you have, and God
> will give you more light."
> 
> The Catholic idea is that a sincere Protestant who
> is faithful to the truth
> of Scripture, will eventually come to embrace the
> full truth of the
> Catholic Church as he seeks after God.  Many
> Protestants do
> come to that point in this life, but the new
> clarification concerns
> those who do not become visible members of the
> Catholic Church before
> they die.  Prior to Vatican II, it was assumed that
> these poor Protestants
> were condemned to Hellfire.  The clarification is
> that those Protestants,
> and others, who have begun the journey to Catholic
> faith, can be saved.
> 
> In the early church, many believers were martyred
> before they could be
> baptized.  There was concern as to whether these
> souls were lost, since Christ
> commanded us to "believe and be baptized".  The
> decision of the elders was that
> these martyrs had a "baptism of blood".  Their
> sincere desire to obey
> the Lord in baptism counted as baptism in the face
> of their death.
> Hence, the "Gospel of Desire".  Those who are
> seeking after God, and obey
> the light they receive, will be given more light,
> and on are their way
> to becoming Catholic - even if death intervenes.
> 
> This is indeed different from a typical Protestant
> formula, but Protestants
> such as George MacDonald and C.S. Lewis had a view
> closer to the Catholics (the
> young Calormene in _The_Last_Battle_,
> _The_Great_Divorce_).  The important
> point is that the Catholic teaching is the opposite
> of the Liberal idea that
> "all roads lead to heaven": there is but one Way and
> one Church that
> leads to Heaven.  Be sure you are on that Way.
> 
> -- 
> 	      Stuart D. Gathman <stuart at bmsi.com>
> Business Management Systems Inc.  Phone: 703
> 591-0911 Fax: 703 591-6154
> "Confutatis maledictis, flamis acribus addictis" -
> background song for
> a Microsoft sponsored "Where do you want to go from
> here?" commercial.
> 
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