ella hope -

Amen

I was baptised into the Assemblies of God. Did their "accepting" of Jesus Christ at age 26. I was save according to their interpretation of scripture. But I accepted or was accepted by Jesus and his Church at age 55 in 2002.

God Bless you Ella Hope, Keep learning and read Catholic books written before 1960. they are almost all safe.

I live in SC and we have found the best Catholics are Baptist converts. Most Catholics do no know what they have where as Baptists are blown away by the depth of the Catholic Church.

@Donelda MacDonnell I feel the same way 😟

You can only run with the devil in our lords face for so long before he takes them out in 3s like trees!!!

@@pintdinkler7521 ... may God forgive you! 🙏

Dan Mcmansion That statement is true for the traditional mass, not the novus ordo.

Fake, though!

I pray when I jog That is also a physical, mental, and spiritual experience as well.

Burn it !!!

wintch!

@@pintdinkler7521 heretic f o o l.

Certainly there is great grace attached to the blessing which the priest confers while administering the Blessed Sacrament to communicants. This unique blessing, which persons such as you describe receive, is similar to the blessing which is given during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, when the priest makes the Sign of the Cross with the monstrance over the congregation. While administering Holy Communion, the priest makes the Sign of the Cross with the sacred Host over each communicant, saying (in Latin), "May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto life everlasting. Amen." If he sees that the person at the Communion rail keeps his head down, he discreetly moves on to the next person without drawing any attention to the fact that the person is not receiving. Thus two purposes are served by this practice -- the person who cannot receive Holy Communion is able to garner needed actual graces (according to his dispositions) from this blessing, and at the same time he avoids the uncomfortable stigma of being seen by virtually everyone else in the church to not receive, presumably (in this time of extremely relaxed fast laws) because of having committed a mortal sin.

Yes, Printed copies are available through our online shop for only $5, and the book can be accessed on our website at no cost. God bless you. shop.thefatimacenter.com/collections/books fatima.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Crutial-Truths-to-Save-Your-Soul.pdf

***** I understand what you are saying but a big part of the Apostasy is Christmas and more families celebrate Father Christmas than the birth of Jesus. There are more images of Santa Clause everywhere than Jesus. The Catholics should not all be in fighting, we should all pray for each other. And the Fatima messages or any previous apparitions of Our Lady , never gave a message for Catholics to rise against the pope.

Reason itself demands that we acknowledge the confusion in the Vatican. The Holy Father is like so many parish priests of his generation. He believes that his own personal holiness and kindness can restore the Church to the world. Yet confusion reigns. He put Martin Luther's face on a stamp, and said Lutheran's have the "true faith." He said he found fundamental theology "boring." He issued A.L. which has caused massive controversy. He is not a wise leader in my opinion. When Burke is pope he will have much to clean up.

+Mark Valens And I do believe that he personally is sincerely holy. He just is not intellectually gifted like Benedict, which is what we need in terms of doctrine. Then again, maybe he is right? Maybe his personal holiness will restore the Church? Nevertheless the next pope will need to be someone who speaks with clarity. Western civilization is confused and chaotic right now. We need someone to lay down the law.

Then let's get fasting, etc., for our Holy Father, Benedict!!! Read St. Francis of Assisi's (stigmatist) end-times prophecy about a false pope, prophecies about the pope of Bl.Elena Aiello (a frail elderly pope essentially a prisoner in a palace crying bitter tears) ,and Bl. Catherine Emmerich ( "I saw the relationship between the two popes...how baleful it was" (also both stigmatists). Add to that St. Padre Pio's (another stigmatist) prediction about "free masonry in loafers." And of course Fatima and the great apostasy that starts at the top, and, "In Portugal the dogma of the faith will always be preserved, ETC....." But I guess not in Malta, Sicily or Germany, and not among numerous cardinals, like Kasper, Schonborn (this person you still call "pope" has said we should ask Schonborn if we want the to know Francis' "interpretation" of AL, and by the way footnote 531 is the opposite number of 153 which is the number of Hail Mary's in the 5 decade Rosary--so what, silly superstition, right, just like all the rest of this mmhm), and another of Francis' go-to guys, Archbishop Paglia who recently had that sicko mural painted in his cathedral and asked his sodomite artist friend to include a picture of himself, and which includes children among all the leering writhing folks in the nets, etc.

Mark Valens The Holy Spirit will deal with every thing , Our Lady has made it very clear that all the religious including the Pope don't need our criticism but our prayers. The vineyard is Gods not ours to judge.

Except in danger of death, a child cannot be baptized without the consent of those responsible for raising and instructing him or her, with the promise to raise the child in the Catholic Faith. Nevertheless, we agree that it is impossible to reconcile the expressed beliefs of John Paul II with the clear and unchanging teaching of the Catholic Church.

Our apologies. Could you please clarify your meaning? God bless you.

Procreation is the primary purpose of marriage. A man and woman who are not yet ready or able to raise and support children are not ready for marriage.

+Josh Pulliam We do not recall Father Gruner stating that Francis would be the one to consecrate Russia, as if (beyond hoping) he knew it would be so. Father sometimes referenced a mystic's prediction that not John Paul II, and not his successor, but the Pope after him would be the one to finally make the Consecration. Perhaps Francis is the Pope referred to by that mystic. On the other hand (as Father Gruner pointed out in a number of places, such as the episode of this series titled "Pope Francis and the Consecration" ( kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fp2brN2qzdPQhIk.html) and the three episodes about "Pope and Pope Emeritus" (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/d9lziq93qry4pKc.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jJ19atKDktPVcmQ.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bJpnZ6ib0cy3naM.html), if Benedict is still the Pope (for any of a number of reasons that are discussed) then we have yet to see his successor, and the mystic's prediction would not be in reference to Francis. In this scenario, we could possibly recognize the strange situation described in the Third Secret Vision as already having come to pass -- a mere bishop (not the Pope) dressed in white giving the impression that he is the Pope. A chilling thought, since the Vision goes on to show the martyrdom of the true Pope and a large number of the faithful. No one can say with certainty. We shall see. Here is the text of the Vision as published by the Vatican on June 26, 2000: "After the two parts [of the Secret] which I have already explained [i.e., the Vision of hell, and Our Lady’s accompanying words], at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance! Penance! Penance!' And we saw in an immense light that is God: 'something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the Holy Father.' Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God."

+TheFatimaCenter Thank you very much I recall watching the video in which Fr Gruner was talking about the mystics prediction but since Pope Francis hasn't done it yet I wanted to see what your thoughts are on it. I have another question to I believe I have a calling to the priest hood what do you guys recommend that I research and read. Thanks and God bless

+Josh Pulliam The Society of St. Pius X has some useful articles posted on their website under the category heading "Priesthood": sspx.org/en/priesthood A good start would be to find an SSPX chapel in your area (if that is not where you already attend Holy Mass) and speak with the priest about how to proceed. sspx.org/en/community/priories God bless you.

+Josh Pullman The so-called consecration of Russia has already happened. Russia,along with the other Eastern European countries have rid themselves of communist rule and through the blood and sacrifices of their martyrs have returned to their Orthodox faith. Nothing in the messages, if true, state that Russia will be converted to the heretical Latin church. Any true Christian does not believe in predictions.

+vasilyjc1955 No Russia has not been consecrated, if so there would be peace in the world.

No matter what the circumstances were when the procedure was procured, the obligation thereafter is to have it reversed. If that is not financially possible at the moment, the person is obliged to exercise tremendous frugality in saving toward it.

Thanks for the reply. Please no more replies.

+Stephen Brown Sadly, with Father Gruner's passing in April of this year, we are not able to draw further clarification from Father himself. We do, however, find in Msgr. Philip Hughes work, "A History of the Church to the Eve of the Reformation," the following confirmation of Father's statement that the substance of St. Bernard's claims against anti-pope Anacletus II was based on his faithless character, an "ecclesiastical politician": "Italian affairs were more troublesome. Much against his will the pope [Honorius II] was forced, by losses in the field, to acknowledge the Norman hold on Apulia; and the Roman faction-fighting in which his reign was born continued through all its six years. It raged even around his very death-bed, for the Frangepani, who had so nearly lost in 1124, were determined to maintain their hold. They gathered in the palace where the pope lay dying, set it about with guards, and, the pope no sooner dead, all the cardinals present elected as his successor, the cardinal Gregory, who took the name of Innocent II (February 14, 1130). Unhappily the electors, for all their unanimity, were but a minority of the electoral college, and a few hours later their colleagues, outraged at the unseemliness of the uncanonical proceeding, elected - without any reference to Innocent's election - the cardinal Peter Pierleoni. He called himself Anacletus II. "The Church had a practical problem without a precedent since the new system of papal elections introduced in 1059. Which of the two was really pope? The first elected? or the elect of the majority? That neither was pope, since both were the elect of fragments only - greater or less - of the electoral college, is a view no one seems to have taken. The law of the papal election did not as yet specify any particular majority of the votes as necessary for validity. Nor was there any machinery to decide between the rivals. Anacletus had Rome in his support, and maintained himself there until his death (1138). Innocent meanwhile, driven from Rome, followed the well-worn track of persecuted popes over the Alps to France, to win, ultimately, recognition from the majority of the Catholic bishops and princes. "The chief factor in that general recognition was the recognition accorded by Louis VI of France and the French bishops, and what determined their decision was the immense influence of St. Bernard at the Synod of Etampes. What principle, it may be asked, guided St. Bernard? Apparently the very simple one that, of the two rivals, Innocent was the better man, "une espece de divination de sa conscience." Pierleoni was the chief of the faction that had brought about his own election, an ecclesiastical politician primarily. Innocent, although the choice, perhaps even - in the election - the tool, of a faction, was at any rate not its leader. His election had not about it that air of self-election which, in his rival's case, was so sinister a reminder of the worst days of the last century. And Innocent had played a distinguished part in the struggle against Henry V. He must now have been advanced in years, for the earliest thing recorded of his clerical career is his service with the rival of St. Gregory VII, the anti-pope Clement III dead now these thirty years. Pascal II had made him a cardinal in 1116, he had shared the exile of the next pope, and then, in the time of Calixtus II, he had been the colleague of the cardinal Lambert - the future Honorius II - in the negotiation of the Concordat of Worms. "What the influence of St. Bernard did in France, that of St. Norbert did in Germany. By the end of the year 1131 Innocent was recognized everywhere, except in Rome and southern Italy where Roger of Sicily remained true to Anacletus." (See pages 293 and 294 here: books.google.com/books?id=kBtYocbJq6MC&pg=PA292&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false)

Thanks for the prompt reply. Yes, I had read all of your citings, most of it in New Advent. I was trying to discern what the first principle of papal election validity was. I had thought that it had been based on Collegiality (hence the primacy of the Cardinal Bishops over priests and deacons) but I guess that would be too clear, since better minds than mine have been stumped. I guess it's not as clear as Sacred Orders, eh?

+Daniel Pan God bless you for your continued support and for continuing to extend the reach of Father's work!

St. Thomas gives this definition in his Question on love (Summa Theologica I - II, Q. 26, A. 4), citing Aristotle's "On Rhetoric" (ii, 4) as its source.

We recall Father speaking about the roles of men and women -- with young ladies being subject to their fathers, and married women being subject to their husbands -- in the context of immodest dress, pointing out that in the majority of instances in which women are inappropriately dressed, the woman is not alone in committing the sin of scandal. The man under whose authority that woman has been placed by God, and who has failed to guide or correct her, will also have to answer for this sin. As you mention, the best treatment of this subject is probably that of Pope Pius XI in his encyclical Casti Connubii, paragraphs 26-29.

Sterility, or the mere inability to procreate from sexual intercourse (as in old persons), is not the same thing as impotency, and is not an impediment to marriage. (Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 1084, #3; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology: A Complete Course, #2814) An objection of decency might be raised in the case of persons who purposely neglected to pursue their vocation to the married state during childbearing years in order to avoid the difficulties of raising a family, and then seek to marry in later years in order to give free reign to their libido.

he just said u can't enter in to the marriage saying you're going to prevent themselves from having kids

robertiacomacci LOL! Said with a heavy southern accent, and a hearty dose of snark. 😀

Francis is not Pope he is a Jesuit, Ratzinger will remain Pope until his death. You cannot abdicate your throne of God. Ratzinger is a sinner who knew of the abuse of the children and like they say, the thief who holds the bag is as guilty of the one who commits the sin.

Bergolio, is not the POPE. HE is a heretic, and the False Prophet. It is clear for me with all he DOES and TALK.

Agnes G Bergoglio is evil, he's not even Catholic, he is a Freemason put in to take the church down and finish her off.

Get off your knees and do something. Prayer is great and necessary but there is a time when you have to defend your church.

The last valid Pope was Pius XII. All the Popes that followed him were heretics who were outside of Christ's Traditional Catholic Church. They were antipopes.

A validly contracted sacramental marriage, once consummated, binds the husband and wife irrevocably until the death of one or other.

Is this true even if one of them is adulterous, abusive and a drug addict who places the children in peril?

None of those tragic circumstances would invalidate a marriage, though they might justify a separation. Only the death of one's spouse can bring the marriage bond to an end.

Thank you for your question. Father spoke of valid marriages being necessarily fecund, whereas in more precise terms we would point out that it is impotence, not sterility, which stands in the way of validly contracting marriage. In other words, a man who is incapable of the marriage act is likewise unable to enter into a valid marriage. Infertility has no bearing on the validity of a marriage. God bless you.

One of the first dogmas of Catholic Faith to be all but lost in modern times, as Our Lady warned. This dogma, that outside of the Church there is no salvation and no forgiveness of sins, has been solemnly (infallibly) defined on three occasions: Pope Innocent III (Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, Dz. 430): "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved." Pope Boniface VIII (Bull Unam Sanctam, 1302, Dz. 468-469): "With Faith urging us, we are forced to believe and to hold the one, holy, Catholic Church, and that, apostolic, and we firmly believe and simply confess this Church, outside which there is no salvation nor remission of sin. ... Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff." Pope Eugene IV (Council of Florence, 1441, Dz. 714): "The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church." See Father Gruner's programs on this topic: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/q51hiMSI1tfTimg.html (Please do not misunderstand Mr. Vennari's reference to "the ordinary means of salvation," as if he were saying that false churches might provide 'extraordinary' means of salvation to their members. No false religion can be a means of salvation; neither is it possible that God would act contrary to His revelation in this matter by reserving any extraordinary means of salvation for those who die not joined in communion with the Church of Christ by true Faith.) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gJdylKRh1N6WdKs.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iruGZZh905_Uln0.html

God forgives. I think if you know in your heart that you believe in God and Jesus, practice his teachings consistently, seek forgiveness etc. regardless of religion, He will save you. Priests are still people and they don't think unilaterally--just be good people. I am Catholic btw

Yes, God seeks to save all men, regardless of religion, by bestowing on non-Catholics and unbelievers "prevenient" graces which lead them not only to repentance but also to the one true Faith and the one true Church, outside of which no one can be saved. It is only the Catholic faithful who truly practice Our Lord's teachings.

To believe in Jesus Christ in the manner here spoken of means more than the mere profession of a belief in Him as an historical person, but rather implies belief of His whole doctrine and obedience to His law, without which, calling Him Lord will save no one. (Matt. 7: 21)

ChristiLucem The answer is in the Catachism. That's where I would look.

@Jean B. B. What do you mean by "Don't waste your time with them?"

Undoubtedly he meant well. Apparently he formed the resolution to do so during his captivity in France.

Sterility (i.e., the inability to conceive children) is not the same thing as impotency (the inability to engage in sexual intercourse), and is not an impediment to marriage. (Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 1084, #3; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology: A Complete Course, #2814)

Certainly, you describe two very different things. On the one hand, regarding a couple using birth control, they defile both themselves and their sacred union by those intrinsically evil acts, intentionally frustrating the natural ends of the marital act. To place the act, and at the same time to work against its ordained end, is a vile crime, as the sacred author of the book of Genesis affirms in the case of Onan, saying: "The Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing." (Gen. 38:10) On the other hand, regarding married couples who agree to permanently abstain from intercourse, the late Rev. Joseph Selinger of Loyola College, affirms their prerogative to do so: “The agreement to abstain from the use of conjugal rights ... does not nullify the marriage contract. The parties to the marriage fully consent to transfer to each other the conjugal rights, but, by agreement or vow, oblige themselves to abstain from the actual use of those rights.” Here is Father Selinger’s full discussion of the topic in its context of parties placing nullifying conditions on their consent to marriage, in his Catholic Encyclopedia article, “Moral and Canonical Aspect of Marriage”: Parties to a marriage might, when they make the compact, put conditions, implied or expressed. Would that vitiate the contract of marriage? If the condition concern the past or the present, the contract is valid if the condition is verified at that moment, thus: "I take you for my husband, if you are the man to whom I was betrothed." If the condition regard the future, it must be noted that, if it frustrates any essential property of marriage, it nullifies the act of marriage; if it postulates an act against the very nature of marriage, the marriage is null. Again, the mutual rights acquired and given in marriage being exclusive and perpetual, any condition added by both or one party to frustrate marriage in its natural consequences nullifies the contracts. A resolve or intention, however, to sin against the nature of marriage, or to prove unfaithful, is, of course, no such condition. But a consent in marriage qualified by conditions such as to avoid procreation or birth of children, to have other wives or husbands - conditions excluding conjugal fidelity, denying the sacrament or perpetuity of the marriage bond - is a radically vitiated consent, and consequently of no value. Thus: "I marry, but you must avoid having children"; or, "I marry you until I find someone to suit me better." The condition must be actual, predominant in the will of one or both, denying perpetual union or interchange of conjugal rights, or at least limiting them, to make the marriage null and void (Decretals, IV, tit. v, 7). There might be a sinful agreement between those contracting marriage which likewise nullifies their marriage - e.g., not to have more than one or two children, or not to have any children at all, until, in the judgment of the contracting parties, circumstances shall enable them to be provided for; or to divorce and marry someone else whenever they grow tired of each other. Such an agreement or condition denies the perpetual duties of matrimony, limits matrimonial rights, suspends the duty consequent on the use and exercise of those rights; if really made a sine qua non of marriage, it necessarily annuls it; the parties would wish to enjoy connubial intercourse, but evade its consequences. The agreement to abstain from the use of conjugal rights is, however, quite different, and does not nullify the marriage contract. The parties to the marriage fully consent to transfer to each other the conjugal rights, but, by agreement or vow, oblige themselves to abstain from the actual use of those rights. Now, if, contrary to their agreement or vow, either party should demand the actual use of his or her right, it would not be fornication, though a breach of promise or vow. Such a condition, though possible, is not frequent nor even permissible except in cases of rare virtue.

The text speaks clearly and explicitly of what Onan did, "the detestable thing that he did," not of his spiteful motives or of what he refused to do. Engaging in sexual intercourse while at the same time acting to frustrate the natural end of marital relations, God Himself warns us, is a crime which cries to Heaven for vengeance.

Certainly we at The Fatima Center take great pleasure in hosting this forum for discussion. Getting at the truth is the most important task of this life, along with conforming our lives to it with our whole hearts. We consider it a privilege, more than just a pleasure, to engage in these discussions. Speculating about Onan's motives, we would venture to agree with you that he acted primarily out of lust in admitting his brother's wife to his bed. What prompted him to interrupt the act is more difficult to see -- a selfish pride of his own lineage, as you suggest, or a reluctance to take on the responsibilities and burdens of raising a child, are possibilities. But scholars throughout the ages have agreed that the verse in question represents a direct divine condemnation of all forms of contraception.

We mustn't let ambiguous terms cloud our thoughts. Your argument hangs on an equivocal use of the word "waste," suggesting that intercourse which does not produce offspring "is a waste of the man's seed" (since it is expended without producing a return in the generation of new life) in the same sense in which the Church euphemistically refers to masturbation and similar perverse, unnatural acts as a the "wasting of seed." We have already discussed why there is nothing contrary to nature or chastity for spouses to enjoy the marriage act when conception is unlikely or impossible to ensue, so long as their act is open to that natural end of fruition. We have also discussed why onanism (which deliberately seeks to prevent the fecund purpose of intercourse from being realized) is such a shameful and detestable crime. There is no contradiction or inconsistency in the Church's teaching, or in the biblical revelation warning us that this sin is of such a high order of offense that it cries to Heaven for vengeance, as God's justice does not allow the punishment for such crimes to wait for the next world.

You ask a crucially important question -- that is, regarding the proper understanding of this dogma of Catholic Faith that outside of the Church there is no salvation. We cannot adequately treat such a broad topic in the space of this comment section, but we urge you please to pursue your study of this teaching. The best and most comprehensive source that we can recommend is by Bishop George Hay of Scotland, in an appendix to his classic apologetics text, The Sincere Christian, beginning on page 259. God bless you. archive.org/details/worksofbishophay02hayuoft

Thank you. I'm reading the referenced material now and will continue, with help from above, to try to understand it.

We happen to have a brief article on this very subject which might interest you but it is too long to post here. We could email it to you if you would provide your address. You could send it to us via a private message through our KZfaq channel. (After clicking on our channel page's "About" tab -- or going straight to kzfaq.infoabout -- a little right of center you will see a column headed "Stats", at the bottom of which is a dialogue balloon icon. Clicking on it will open a message box.)

This would be most appreciated. I am trying to find my way through this perplexing question: to reconcile the many dogmatic references, maintained by the Catholic Church of salvation, and a nagging belief in the greater wisdom and mercy of Christ which transcends, but does not conflict with, eternal truth; and man's limited understanding of His wisdom. I feel like my shoreline hole will never be dry, no matter how much, or how fast I dig or ponder this question. Many thanks. ebinn@bigpond.com

Email sent. Please check your spam folder if it does not appear in your inbox. God bless you.

A variety of magisterial sources affirm the true Catholic teaching on this subject, that the procreation of children ("Increase and multiply" -- Gen. 1:28) is the chief purpose of marriage established in the beginning by the authority of God. See for instance Pius XI's encyclical Casti Connubii (Dz. 2226).

Saying that the chief purpose of marriage is like saying that the chief purpose of working is to get rich..

Thank you for your comment. It is clear that those who are ignorant of the essential Christian mysteries must be brought out of that ignorance in order to be saved, for as St. Paul writes, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." (Heb. 11:6) It is essentially and primarily by our faith -- our explicit assent and adherence to the revealed articles of the Catholic Faith -- that we serve God in this world. By our faith (enlivened by supernatural charity, which includes contrition for sins) we merit Heaven; and conversely, culpable unbelief is the worst possible sin. So, the importance of faith. Now what are we to make of this middle area, not culpable unbelief but mere ignorance of the essential articles of the True Faith revealed by God? How is it just for God to require all those without exception who come to the use of reason to believe explicitly in the essential Christian doctrines (and, we should add in regard to Protestants and other non-Catholics, not as a self-determined opinion but by virtue of faith in His authoritatively proposed revelation according to the Catholic rule of faith)? We can be sure that it is both true and just. In the case of any and every person who has attained the use of reason, even without having had the advantages of Baptism or instruction in the True Faith during his childhood, God still requires as an indispensable condition of justification and salvation that this person make an explicit act of faith in the above-mentioned essential Christian mysteries - i.e., the doctrines of the Blessed Trinity and of the Incarnation and Redemption wrought by Jesus Christ. Let’s remember that every human being, no matter how remote he may be from the society of other men or from the influence of Christian civilization, is immediately accessible to the graces of God. And God, Who desires the salvation of every human being, does not fail to give graces to draw every man toward his supernatural end. We can be sure that God will enable every man to do what He requires of him. God leads men who are in need of conversion, from one grace to the next toward that essential knowledge of Revelation that they need in order to be saved. No one who cooperates with God’s “prevenient” graces, which urge him to obey the natural law, for instance, will fail to receive that great and necessary grace also of hearing the True Faith explicitly preached to him. It might be that many such persons never receive this latter grace, but that is only because they neglected the preceding graces urging them to be reverent to their Creator and to be honest and dutiful and chaste in their dealings with their fellow men. Such men who fail in these lesser matters and thus never receive that greater grace of hearing the Gospel preached would not be condemned for the sin of unbelief. It is those other sins for which they would be condemned - sins which were the cause of their being left in ignorance of the Faith. Here are a few passages from St. Thomas in which he explains this teaching: “Unbelief may be taken...by way of pure negation, so that a man be called an unbeliever, merely because he has not the faith. ... If...we take it...[in this] way..., as we find it in those who have heard nothing about the faith, it bears the character, not of sin, but of punishment, because such like ignorance of Divine things is a result of the sin of our first parent. If such like unbelievers are damned, it is on account of other sins, which cannot be taken away without faith, but not on account of their sin of unbelief. Hence Our Lord said (Jn 15: 22) ‘If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin’; which Augustine expounds (Tract. lxxxix in Joan.) as ‘referring to the sin whereby they believed not in Christ.’” (Summa Theologica, II-II q.10 a.1) “[Do those] raised in the jungle have an excuse for their...unbelief? The answer is that according to the Lord's statement (Jn 15: 22), those who have not heard the Lord speaking either in Person or through His disciples are excused from the sin of unbelief. However, they will not obtain God's blessing, namely, the removal of Original sin or any sin added by leading an evil life. For these sins, they are deservedly condemned.” (Commentary On Romans) “Granted that everyone is bound to believe [the essential Christian mysteries] explicitly, no untenable conclusion follows if someone is brought up in the forest or among wild beasts. For it pertains to Divine Providence to furnish everyone with what is necessary for salvation, provided that on his part there is no hindrance. Thus, if someone so brought up followed the direction of natural reason in seeking good and avoiding evil, we must most certainly hold that God would either reveal to him through internal inspiration what had to be believed, or would send some preacher of the faith to him as He sent Peter to Cornelius.” (Quaestiones Disputatae: De Veritate, vol II, q.14 a.11) For the sake of hearing all this in simpler language, we’ll share with you just one more quotation condensed from an 18th-century apologetics classic by Bishop George Hay of Scotland, called “The Sincere Christian”: “Now, to all mankind, God gives such graces as He sees proper for their present state, to bring them to the knowledge of the truth, with a view to their salvation. If they cooperate with His favors, He will give them new and greater graces, till He brings them at last to the true Faith and Church of Christ, and to a happy end; but if they resist His graces, at length He stops the continuance of such undeserved favors. These graces are withdrawn from them. ... [Shutting] their eyes against His light, they remain in their ignorance; but their ignorance is voluntary in its cause, and a just punishment of their own fault. ... “All the testimonies of Scripture concur to prove that God has appointed True Faith in Jesus Christ, and the being in Communion with the Church of Christ, as necessary conditions of salvation. But can none who are in heresy be saved? God forbid we should say so! All the above reasons only prove that if they live and die in that state they shall not be saved, and that according to [God's revelation of His] providence they cannot be saved; but the great God is able to take them out of that state, to cure even their ignorance in their present situation, to bring them to the knowledge of the True Faith, to the Communion of His Holy Church, and to salvation: and we further add, that if He be pleased, of His infinite mercy, to save [anyone] who [is] at present in ignorance of the truth, in order to act consistently with Himself, and with His Holy Word, He will by no means permit him to live and die in his present state, but will so order matters out of the treasures of His Divine Wisdom, that sooner or later he shall be brought to the union of the Church of Christ, out of which He has ordained that salvation cannot be found.”

Lots of room in heaven & on earth.

In fact, the notion that this dogma of Catholic Faith, that “Outside of the Church there is no salvation,” applies only to those who know the Catholic Church to be the true Church, is in no way compatible with the precise and infallible expressions of this dogma. Moreover it is clear from these sources that such a qualification would be a direct (heretical) contradiction of the dogma. The Athanasian Creed states: “Whosoever wishes to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic rule of Faith; which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish eternally.” (Dz. 39, D.S. 75.) The clear expressions apply to “every one whosoever.” Pope Innocent III, presiding over the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, affirmed that “no one at all” is excepted from this obligation: “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Dz. 430, D.S. 802.) The infallible definition of Pope Boniface VIII referring to “every human creature” is also well known: “We must, at the urging of Faith, believe and hold the one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and we firmly believe and simply confess that outside this Church there is no salvation and no remission of sins. … Furthermore, we declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be entirely subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (The Bull “Unam Sanctam,” 1302, Dz. 468, 469; D.S. 870, 875.) And the definition (likewise infallible) of Pope Eugene IV is even more explicit regarding those who vainly profess themselves to be Christians, being outside of the true Church: “The most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those remaining within this unity can profit by the sacraments of the Church unto salvation, and they alone can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts, their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved, unless he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.” (The Bull “Cantate Domino,” 1441, Dz. 714, D.S. 1351.) Tragically this doctrine has been consistently denied, at least implicitly, by a long catalogue of actions and documents that have been issued from the Holy See and the chancery offices of the world since Vatican II, causing tremendous scandal. For instance we read in the documents of Vatican II, “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-these too may achieve eternal salvation.” (The Constitution “Lumen Gentium”) To the astute reader, distinguishing precisely what is said from what is too often inferred, and understanding that all such decrees must be read in the light of the Church’s solemn definitions, there is no contradiction here. Nothing is said in the above decree as to precisely how these people may achieve eternal salvation. The erroneous assumption made by many is that such persons can be saved in their present state of unbelief. Thus to the unwary reader, the statement is a scandal. As Father Gruner used to stress so often, the solemn definitions are our infallibly safe guides for persevering in the true Faith. In so many cases, the tragic consequence of ignoring the definitions, predicted by Our Lady of Fatima, has been the unparalleled evil (and danger) of having lost a dogma of the Faith. Vast numbers of serious Catholics today are so misled about this teaching that, when they hear an accurate expression of the dogma, they reject it as though it were opposed to the Faith.

@WhiteChocolate Bear Thank you for this important question. The catechism states: 29 Q. But if a man through no fault of his own is outside the Church, can he be saved? A. If he is outside the Church through no fault of his, that is, if he is in good faith, and if he has received Baptism, or at least has the implicit desire of Baptism; and if, moreover, he sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can such a man is indeed separated from the body of the Church, but is united to the soul of the Church and consequently is on the way of salvation. It must be plainly admitted that this statement is unfortunate in the extreme. It is phrased in too loose a manner to be called flatly heretical (employing analogies of body and soul and “the way of salvation” rather than strict theological terms, and listing numerous qualifiers of the hypothetical subject to which the predicated description may or may not strictly apply), but it is clearly a misstatement insofar as it leaves itself open to the implication that persons outside of the true Church are able to be saved in that state. It is no exaggeration to say that a person who “sincerely seeks the truth and does God's will as best he can ... is on the way of salvation,” but it is another matter entirely to suggest that anyone can or will find salvation separated from the true Church. The suggested distinction between the “body” and the “soul” of the Church, as if allowing for the salvation of those who remain estranged from the visible Church, is a disaster in itself. Msgr. Joseph Fenton provides a thorough correction to this notion in his book, “The Catholic Church and Salvation,” which we append below in five segments. God bless you.

@WhiteChocolate Bear (1/5) This book would not be complete without at least a quick indication of the historical accidents which have brought about inadequate and even inaccurate teachings about the Church’s necessity for salvation in some sections of the popular Catholic literature of our day. It is quite evident to anyone who is well acquainted with popular Catholic writing during the past century that this dogma has been ... extensively and ... profoundly ... misunderstood and misinterpreted .... In the first place, it must be remembered that the theological treatise on the Church was one of the last sections of dogmatic theology to take scientific form. ... It was not until the middle of the fifteenth century that the first well-developed treatise on the Church in scholastic literature appeared. This was the famous “Summa de ecclesia,” written by the Dominican Cardinal John de Turrecremata. It ... had a controversial objective, but it attained its purpose by means of a thorough scholastic study of what God has revealed about the nature and the characteristics of His kingdom on earth. The “Summa de ecclesia” has always been a rare book. It was last published in Venice in 1561. It was never commented and explained in the way the “Four Books of Sentences” and the “Summa theologica” have been. ... Actually the “Summa de ecclesia” was never used as it might have been and should have been because of the historical accident of the Reformation. ... [P]rotestant writers defended the thesis that the true and genuine supernatural kingdom of God on earth was not an organized society at all, but merely the sum-total of all the good men and women in this world. They classified their own religious organizations, those of the Lutherans, the Calvinists and the like, as merely voluntary societies which could be helpful to people who were already within the “ecclesia” through membership in what they called the “invisible Church.” The Catholic writers who first opposed the Protestant polemicists successfully defended the revealed truth that God, in His wisdom and mercy, has actually constituted the one and only true “ecclesia” of the New Testament as an organized society, the religious unit which is described in the Acts of the Apostles and which exists now as the Roman Catholic Church. But these first Catholic champions of truth in the controversy against the Protestant authors were primarily polemicists themselves. Their works were not, and did not claim to be, anything like complete or adequate treatises on the true Church. They merely set out to unmask the errors defended by their opponents. They did not explain those points on which there was no controversy whatsoever. ... It is a matter of fact that the Protestant writers were perfectly convinced that there is no salvation attainable outside the true Church of God on earth. Hence there was no need for the Catholic theologians to dispute them on this particular point. And, since the writings of these Catholic theologians were directed at that time primarily and essentially to the refutation of the Protestant position, the dogma on the necessity of the Church for the attainment of salvation was not treated at all extensively in these writings. The next generation of Catholic theologians who wrote about the Church included some of the most brilliant men God has ever given to the study of sacred theology. Among them were such figures as Thomas Stapleton, John Wiggers, ... St. Robert Bellarmine, ... Dominic Báñez, Adam Tanner, and Francis Sylvius. Some writers of the first generation of Counter-Reformation theologians had recently begun to organize the content of this Catholic controversial teaching. ... The men of the second generation developed and explained what these earlier writers had set forth. Some of these second generation writers, like ... St. Robert and Sylvius, incorporated ... their teachings ... into more or less extensive summaries of Catholic controversy. ... Báñez and others, however, inserted this controversial theology “de ecclesia” into their scholastic commentaries on St. Thomas’ “Summa Theologica.” This tactic was destined to have immense repercussions in the history of the scholastic treatise “de ecclesia.” Of course, at that time no real place had been found in the actual organization of the “Summa Theologica” for a “tractatus de ecclesia.” ... Báñez, ... and Tanner, however, attempted to make a place by inserting this treatise as a kind of appendix after the matter treated by St. Thomas in the first question of his “Secunda secundae.” In every case, however, the material thus incorporated into a commentary on the Summa, ... was the same essentially controversial material which polemicists like St. Robert Bellarmine and Francis Sylvius had included in their “Controversiae.” It was, in other words, the development of the teaching which had been contained in the works of the original Counter-Reformation theologians who had, for all intents and purposes, limited themselves to the point of Catholic doctrine which had been directly opposed by the Protestant heresiarchs. No one of these writings has anything like an adequate treatment of the dogma that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. The tradition which had been epitomized and perfected in Turrecremata’s “Summa de ecclesia” had given special attention to this dogma. After all, the necessity for the attainment of salvation is one of the basic characteristics of God’s supernatural kingdom on earth. ... In the works of the great Counter-Reformation theologians, however, the dogma is mentioned primarily with reference to the teaching that neither catechumens nor excommunicated persons are members of the true Church. Theologians like Stapleton and St. Robert, who were the first to use the terminology which was to become classical, take cognizance of the dogma when they consider objections to their own teaching. St. Robert taught rightly that a catechumen is not a member of the Church. He likewise upheld the Catholic truth that a catechumen can be saved if he should die before he has the opportunity to receive the sacrament of baptism. Looking at the dogma that no one can be saved outside the Church as an objection urged against his own teaching, St. Robert, following the example of Thomas Stapleton, asserts that the dogma means that a man cannot be saved if he is not within the Church either in reality as a member, or “in voto” as one who desires or intends to become a member. (Cf. St Robert, De ecclesia militante, c. 3; Stapleton, Principiorum fidei doctrinalium demonstratio methodica, Paris, 1579, p. 314) Such, following the example of Stapleton and of St. Robert, was the procedure of all the classical ecclesiologists of the Counter-Reformation period. And, despite the fact that neither Stapleton nor St. Robert produced textbooks of scholastic theology, their approach to the dogma of the Church’s necessity for salvation and their very terminology entered into the fabric of these sixteenth- and seventeenth-century texts of scholastic theology. These commentaries developed, through “Courses” like those produced by John of St. Thomas, the Salmanticences, Tournely, and Billuart, into the nineteenth- and twentieth-century manuals of dogmatic theology. The “tractatus de ecclesia” in these modern manuals was basically the kind of thing which had been inserted into the commentaries of ... Báñez and Tanner, ... and ... the treatment of the dogma that there is no one saved outside the Church is of the sort to be found in the works of St. Robert and of Sylvius, and not of the type found in Turrecremata’s “Summa de ecclesia.” That in itself has been highly unfortunate for the well-being of the scholastic theology about the Church. The teaching that a man could be in the Church only in intention or desire and not as a member and still attain eternal salvation “within” this society is, of course, tremendously important. It is a part of Catholic doctrine about the nature of God’s “ecclesia.” But the learning of this section of Catholic truth in no way makes up for neglect of the equally important doctrine that the Church is essentially, as actually instituted by God Himself, the vehicle and, as it were, the terminus of the process of salvation. Because the modern manuals took the tradition of Stapleton and of St. Robert to the exclusion of that of Turrecremata, they were doctrinally impoverished by an inadequate explanation of the dogma.

@WhiteChocolate Bear (2/5) The modern writers whose aberrations were reproved in “Singulari quadam” and more recently in “Humani generis” had available to them in their contemporary manuals of sacred theology a highly inadequate exposition of the dogma. All of the attention was focused, in these manuals, on bringing out the fact that membership in the Church was not necessary with the necessity of means for the attainment of eternal life. There was almost nothing in them to show how the Church itself, by its very institution, belongs in the scheme of salvation. This impoverishment of the “tractatus de ecclesia” as a result of the historical accident of the controversy against the Protestants was not by any means the only, or even the most serious, blow dealt to the explanation of the dogma of the necessity of the Church in the literature of scholastic theology. One of the most tragic, yet in some ways comical, stories recounted in the history of theology has to do with a highly important misunderstanding of the teaching set forth by St. Robert himself in the most important of his writings, the book “De ecclesia militante.” This misunderstanding had most unfortunate consequences in the teaching about the necessity of the Church for the attainment of salvation. St. Robert’s “De ecclesia militante” is essentially devoted to the defense of one thesis: the truth that God’s true and only “ecclesia” of the New Testament is an organized and visible social unit. This thesis is presented in the second chapter of the book, and all the rest of the work is devoted to a detailed and classically effective demonstration of this truth. It will be impossible to understand how St. Robert’s teaching was misinterpreted without a knowledge of what he actually said in that second chapter. The first part of this chapter “On the Definition of the Church” is devoted to the description and the refutation of the various theories evolved by heretics to explain the composition of the true Church militant of the New Testament. St. Robert deals with five of these theories, and then sets forth his own teaching, which is true Catholic doctrine. This is the pertinent section of the second chapter: “But it is our teaching that there is only one ‘ecclesia,’ and not two, and that this one and true Church is the assembly of men bound together by the profession of the same Christian faith and the communion of the same sacraments, under the rule of the legitimate pastors, and especially that of the Roman Pontiff, the one Vicar of Christ on earth. From this definition it is easy to infer which men belong to the Church and which do not belong to it. There are three parts of this definition; the profession of the true faith, the communion of the sacraments, and subjection to the Roman Pontiff, the legitimate pastor. “By reason of the first part all infidels, both those who have never been in the Church, such as Jews, Turks, and pagans; and those who have been in it and have left it, as heretics and apostates, are excluded. By reason of the second part catechumens and excommunicated persons are excluded, because the former are not yet admitted to the communion of the sacraments, while the latter have been sent away from it. By reason of the third part there are excluded the schismatics who have the faith and the sacraments, but who are not subject to the legitimate pastor and who thus profess the faith and receive the sacraments outside [of the Church]. All others are included [within the Church in the light of the definition] even though they be reprobates, sinful and impious men. “Now there is this difference between our teaching and all the others [the ‘definitions’ offered by the various heretics, and discussed in the first section of this second chapter of the ‘De ecclesia militante’], that all the others require internal virtues to constitute a man ‘within’ the Church, and hence make the true Church invisible. But, despite the fact that we believe that all the virtues, faith, hope, charity, and the rest, are to be found within the Church, we do not think that any internal virtue is required to bring it about that a man can be said absolutely to be a part of the true Church of which the Scriptures speak, but [that what is required for this] is only the outward profession of the faith and the communion of the sacraments, which are perceptible by the senses. For the Church is as visible and palpable an assembly of men as the assembly of the Roman people or the Kingdom of France or the Republic of the Venetians. “We must note what Augustine says in his ‘Breviculus collationis,’ where he is dealing with the conference of the third day, that the Church is a living body, in which there is a soul and a body. And the internal gifts of the Holy Ghost, faith, hope, charity, and the rest are the soul. The external profession of the faith and the communication of the sacraments are the body. Hence it is that some are of the soul and of the body of the Church, and hence joined both inwardly and outwardly to Christ the Head, and such people are most perfectly within the Church. They are, as it were, living members in the body, although some of them share in this life to a greater extent, and others to a lesser extent, while still others have only the beginning of life and, as it were, sensation without movement, like the people who have only faith without charity. “Again, some are of the soul and not of the body, as catechumens and excommunicated persons if they have faith and charity, as they can have them. And, finally, some are of the body and not of the soul, as those who have no internal virtue, but who still by reason of some temporal hope or fear, profess the faith and communicate in the sacraments under the rule of the pastors. And such individuals are like hairs or fingernails or evil liquids in a human body. Consequently, our definition takes in only this last way of being in the Church, because this is required as a minimum in order that a man may be said to be a part of the visible Church.” In the passage just quoted, St. Robert Bellarmine ... contends that the one and only supernatural kingdom of God on earth, the “ecclesia” spoken of in the Scriptures, has been constituted by God as a society composed of members or parts whose appurtenance to this company is manifest to all men. He asserts that the factors by which a man is constituted as a member or a part of this company are the profession of the true Christian faith, access to the sacraments, and subjection to the Roman Pontiff. The group which is God’s one and only “ecclesia” in this world is actually the company of men who have these factors of unity. He acknowledges the presence within the Church of faith, hope, charity, and the other supernatural virtues. Furthermore he realized that these infused virtues themselves constitute another bond of unity with Our Lord and among His disciples. Nevertheless he insists that this spiritual or inward bond of unity is not the factor which constitutes a man as a part or a member of the Church militant of the New Testament. Yet, despite the perfection of St. Robert’s teaching and the clarity of his exposition, this section of the second chapter of his “De ecclesia militante” was destined to be the source of serious and highly unfortunate misunderstanding by subsequent theologians. The weak part of this, perhaps the most important single passage in the writings of any post-Tridentine theologian, was St. Robert’s use of the terms “soul” and “body” with reference to the Church. In the first place, St. Robert’s reference to St. Augustine’s “Breviculus collationis” is lamentably inexact. There is no such statement as “the Church is a living body, in which there is a soul and a body” to be found in any part of the “Breviculus collationis.” In a subsequent chapter of the “De ecclesia militante”, St. Robert again attributes this soul-body dichotomy to this particular book by St. Augustine, and there he indicates the sentence to which he obviously refers here as well as in the later chapter. In the ninth chapter of the “De ecclesia militante” we find the following passage: “Because of these sources [a citation from one of St. Augustine’s works and references to other statements made by him] not only Brenz and Calvin, but even some Catholics imagine that there are two Churches, but this is only imagination. For neither the Scriptures nor Augustine ever indicate two Churches, but they always speak of only one. Now, in the ‘Breviculus collationis,’ in the account of the conference of the third day, when the Donatists were urging against the Catholics the calumny that the Catholics taught that there are two Churches, one containing only the good, and another containing good people along with evil individuals; the Catholics retorted that they had never dreamed that there were two Churches, but that they had only distinguished two parts or periods of the Church. There are parts, because good people belong to the Church in one way, and bad people in another. For the good people are the interior part and, as it were, the soul of the Church. The bad people are the outward part and, as it were, the body [of the Church]. And they gave the example of the inward and the outward man, who are not two men, but two parts of the same man. “Distinguishing the periods of the Church, they say that the Church exists in one way now, and that it will exist in a different way after the resurrection. For now it has both good and evil [members]. Then it will have only the good. And they gave as an example Christ, who, although always the same, was mortal and subject to suffering prior to His resurrection but, after it, is immortal and not subject to suffering.”

@WhiteChocolate Bear (3/5) With this passage from the ninth chapter of the “De ecclesia militante” before us, it is quite easy to find the passage of the “Breviculus collationis” to which St. Robert appealed to justify his use of the expression “body of the Church” and “soul of the Church.” Here is the actual teaching of the “Breviculus collationis”: “They [the Catholics] did not say that this Church which now has evil members interspersed within it is distinct from the kingdom of God, where there will be no evil members; but [they said] that the Church exists in one way now, and is going to exist in another way in the future. Now it has evil men mingled within it. Then it will not have them. Likewise now it is mortal, in that it is made up of mortal men. Then it will be immortal in that no one within it will die even a bodily death. In the same way there are not two Christs just because He first died and afterwards was immortal. And they also spoke of the outward and the inward man, who, although they are different, still cannot be said to be two men. There is even less reason to say that there are two Churches, since these very same good persons who now suffer the evil men mingled among them and die as people who are going to rise again are the ones who then will have no evil members mingled with them and will be completely immortal.” (St. Augustine, Breviculus collationis cum Donatistis, coll. 3, c. 10, n. 20 MPL, XLIII, 635.) In this passage the word “soul” does not occur at all. The word “body” is found once, but with a meaning completely different from any it might have when employed in the expression “body of the Church.” In this section of the “Breviculus collationis” the word is used in a clause explaining that the Church triumphant is called immortal “quod in ea nullus esset vel corpore moriturus.” St. Augustine has used the word in explaining the Catholic teaching that the Church triumphant is truly immortal because none of its members will be subject to the spiritual death of sin or even to bodily death. It would, of course, be grossly inaccurate to say that St. Robert misquoted the “Breviculus collationis.” He was a man of his own time and, in line with the customs of the period in which he lived, he referred to older writings in a way that would be considered quite unacceptable according to the stricter standards of modern scholarship. The teaching he attributed to this section of the “Breviculus collationis” is actually to be found in that document, at least in an implicit manner. But St. Robert couched that teaching in his own terminology and, without quoting his document verbatim, wrote as though his own terminology as well as the truths expressed in that terminology were to be found in the original source. St. Robert ... speaks of the Church itself as “a living body.” Despite the fact that this terminology is not found in the “Breviculus collationis,” as St. Robert’s manner of speaking would imply that it was, it is a standard expression used to describe the Church of God. Basically, of course, it is the name of the Church employed in the epistles of St. Paul. The Church is such that it can accurately be designated under the metaphor of a living body, the body of Christ. In the very same sentence in which he speaks of the Church as “a living body,” St. Robert states that “there is a soul and a body” within the Church. This “body” in the Church is described as consisting in “the external profession of the faith and the communication of the sacraments.” The “soul” within the Church, according to the “De ecclesia militante,” is constituted by “the internal gifts of the Holy Ghost, faith, hope, charity, and the rest.” He then goes on to explain the function of the “body” and the “soul” that he has described as existing within the living body that is the true Church. He tells us that “some are of the soul and of the body of the Church, and hence joined both inwardly and outwardly to Christ, the Head.” In other words, in this second chapter of the “De ecclesia militante,” “soul” and “body” are metaphorical names applied to two distinct sets of forces or factors that function as bonds of unity within the Church militant of the New Testament. A person who is what St. Robert calls “de corpore ecclesiae” is one united to Our Lord in His Mystical Body by the profession of the true faith, access to the sacraments, and subjection to legitimate ecclesiastical authority. The individual who is “de anima ecclesiae” is joined to Our Lord in His Church by all “the internal gifts of the Holy Ghost,” or at least by genuine divine faith. ... In the field of ecclesiology it is St. Robert Bellarmine’s special glory that he clarified and perfected the ... definition of the Church in terms of its membership. ... It is one of the ironical twists of history that St. Robert, pre-eminent among the writers of the Catholic Church for the clarity of his expression, should have offered the occasion for ... serious misunderstanding. ... What turned out to be quite unfortunate for the understanding of St. Robert’s teaching by subsequent theologians was his application of the terms “body” and “soul” to the two bonds of union within the Church .... It would have been easier for him and much more profitable for subsequent theologians if he had simply named the two bonds of unity in the Church for what they actually are. His brilliant younger contemporary, Francis Sylvius of Douai, did exactly that. ... The brilliant and distinguished Louvain theologian John Wiggers actually used and properly explained St. Robert’s own terminology. ... In the course of the history of theology, however, St. Robert’s expressions “soul” and “body” of the Church were not destined to receive the kind of treatment accorded them by Wiggers. They were doomed to serve as instruments for the reversal of St. Robert’s teaching by theologians who, when they employed this part of St. Robert’s terminology, seemed to imagine that they were actually repeating or at least developing his teaching. The first slight step in this direction is observable in the immensely popular seminary manual, the “Breviarium theologicum” published in the seventeenth century by the Cambrai theologian, John Polman. In this manual the “body” and “soul” of the Church appear, not as parts of an explanation of a thesis, but as realities requiring definition in their own right: “[T]he Church is like an animated human body. Faith, hope, charity, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost constitute its soul. The body is the external profession of faith, the communion of the sacraments, and the acknowledgment of the Roman Pontiff as the head.” (Breviarium theologicum, Paris, 1682, p. 206) St. Robert had made it perfectly plain to anyone who took the trouble to read the “De ecclesia militante” in its entirety that he did not claim that the interior bond of unity within the Church was actually “the” soul of the Church. He applied the metaphorical title of “soul” of the Church to God the Holy Ghost, and he spoke of Catholics in the state of grace as constituting “as it were, the soul” of this society. In the same way, he spoke of the Church itself as a “body” and described bad Catholics as being “as it were, the body” of the Church. It was a misfortune for the history of theology that Polman’s seminary manual led men to imagine that the inward bond of unity was “the” soul, and the outward bond was “the” body, of the Catholic Church. The misuse of St. Robert’s terminology went a step farther at the beginning of the eighteenth century in the well-written manual “Elementa theologica” written by the Sorbonne professor, Charles du Plessis d’Argentré. This book employs St. Robert’s terminology in such a way as to undermine the basic thesis of the “De ecclesia militante.” Thus, in speaking of excommunicated persons, D’Argentré asserts that if they “profess the Catholic faith, they will be in some measure (aliquatenus) members of the Church by reason of its soul, that is, by faith, and perhaps by charity (if the excommunication is unjust)” (Elementa theologica, Paris, 1702, p. 167). He insists, however, that these individuals “are not of the body of the Church.” ...[I]n the section devoted to catechumens and their relation to the Church, ... D’Argentré holds that “catechumens are certainly not of the body of the Church, but still there is nothing to prevent their being of the Church by reason of its soul.” (Ibid., p. 166) ...

Sterility (i.e., the inability to conceive children) is not the same thing as impotency (the inability to engage in sexual intercourse), and is not an impediment to marriage. (Cf. Code of Canon Law, can. 1084, #3; McHugh and Callan, Moral Theology: A Complete Course, #2814) Neither would it carry the reproach of those who abuse the privileges of marriage as discussed in this video, unless the spouses had purposely neglected to pursue their vocation to the married state during childbearing years in order to avoid the difficulties of raising a family, and then sought to marry in later years in order to give free reign to their libido.

kevin b It's pretty strange that you base your entire opinion on whether or not Peter was in Rome based on St Paul's letter to the Romans. Just because Paul never addresses Peter does not mean that he was not in Rome, he may have been there and not have been addressed or was simply out of the city doing other stuff at the time, like popes have done before. There is not much evidence in the New Testament to support whether or not Peter was in Rome, I'll give you that, but that still does not mean there are none, in Peter's papal encyclical otherewise known as 1 Peter he does confirm that he was in Rome, it reads in chapter 5 verse 13 "The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you. And so doth my son, Mark." Obviously they were not actually in Babylon, Babylon was a codeword used for Rome, it was basically Peter saying he was in Rome. Also while there is not much biblical evidence there is plenty of historical evidence. Tertullian, in The Demurrer Against the Heretics (A.D. 200), noted of Rome, “How happy is that church . . . where Peter endured a passion like that of the Lord, where Paul was crowned in a death like John’s [referring to John the Baptist, both he and Paul being beheaded].” Fundamentalists admit Paul died in Rome, so the implication from Tertullian is that Peter also must have been there. It was commonly accepted, from the very first, that both Peter and Paul were martyred at Rome, probably in the Neronian persecution in the 60s. In the same book, Tertullian wrote that “this is the way in which the apostolic churches transmit their lists: like the church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed there by John; like the church of the Romans, where Clement was ordained by Peter.” This Clement, known as Clement of Rome, later would be the fourth pope. (Note that Tertullian didn’t say Peter consecrated Clement as pope, which would have been impossible since a pope doesn’t consecrate his own successor; he merely ordained Clement as priest.) Clement wrote his Letter to the Corinthians perhaps before the year 70, just a few years after Peter and Paul were killed; in it he made reference to Peter ending his life where Paul ended his. In his Letter to the Romans (A.D. 110), Ignatius of Antioch remarked that he could not command the Roman Christians the way Peter and Paul once did, such a comment making sense only if Peter had been a leader, if not the leader, of the church in Rome. Irenaeus, in Against Heresies (A.D. 190), said that Matthew wrote his Gospel “while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church.” A few lines later he notes that Linus was named as Peter’s successor, that is, the second pope, and that next in line were Anacletus (also known as Cletus), and then Clement of Rome. Clement of Alexandria wrote at the turn of the third century. A fragment of his work Sketches is preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, the first history of the Church. Clement wrote, “When Peter preached the word publicly at Rome, and declared the gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had been for a long time his follower and who remembered his sayings, should write down what had been proclaimed.” Lactantius, in a treatise called The Death of the Persecutors, written around 318, noted that “When Nero was already reigning (Nero reigned from 54-68), Peter came to Rome, where, in virtue of the performance of certain miracles which he worked by that power of God which had been given to him, he converted many to righteousness and established a firm and steadfast temple to God.”

kevin b He was there and if you respond back wanting to hear our side of the argument I would be happy to tell you.

Onofre Rigor look up what the word Catholic means , dumb dumb

Thank you for your comment. To distinguish the marriage contract from the marriage relationship and also from the Sacrament of Marriage, let us note that a man and woman marry by exchanging vows, but it is God Himself Who joins them in marriage. In other words, their marriage arises as a result of entering into a mutual contract, but their relationship as man and wife is created directly by God, not by their contract: “God hath joined [them] together.” (Mk. 10:9) This is why spouses are bound above all by the divine laws governing marriage, and not just by their mutual promises. Being established by God Himself from the very beginning of human history, marriage is a divine institution, later elevated by Our Lord to be a Sacrament of the Church. Thus each particular sacramental marriage is the indissoluble union of a man and woman “in one flesh,” as a common principle for the generation and rearing of children: “Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24) And having become “one flesh,” the man and woman remain united as husband and wife until that flesh is dissolved by God through the death of either of the spouses.

it is not the vatican wants it is what god's wants . ignoring the prophecy our lady fatima is like ignoring to the God's plan for our total salvation . the story of jesus in the book of mathew , mark , john and luke is the origin of roman catholic apostolic church .

Not pro or anti Jewish.. Separations of church and state has created more problems than solved. Like it or not, Israel is a religious state (Judaism)

You realize he excommunicated a priest who preached gay Marriage is okay. This priest was not in line with catholic teaching. Don't buy what the media says about him they twist his words to their agenda. Pray for him instead of loosing arrows at him.

It gets more and more difficult to apply this kind of spin successfully. He doesn't have to officially change doctrine (which he can't do anyway) to confuse the heck out of people, which he has done. The evidence for this is everywhere, from Secular media who don't really understand Catholicism to orthodox Catholic intellectuals who certainly do. Witness the fiasco of the recent synod which exposed the fact that the Church is already in a virtual schism (and has been for some time).

so true, and very well stated. it's good someone putting the church first for once.

Francis is not faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church; nor does he give a good example; nor does he speak the truth. We do not have to respect an anti-pope. The Catholic Encyclopedia lists 39 anti-popes, to date. Did Catholics have to respect the Borgia popes? No. Did they have to respect the 39 previous anti-popes? Of course not.

Arash, God is our "Holy Father" and the pope must do as He wills. We Catholics don't believe in the pope, we believe in Jesus Christ and we expect Pope Francis to defend the truth. He needs to be a guardian of the truth, and we need to defend him if he is attacked for it. But we don't need to like or believe in a pope that says crazy things. Even if the hierarchy abandons us, we still have the Catholic faith. We know what is right and wrong.

We have to remember that the pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals. The pope isn't infallible when he says something like pizza is the best tasting food or his favorite soccer team is so and so. The pope supposed to be the guardian of Catholic truth by doing so he is following the Holy Spirit Who sanctifies the Church. We have to understand that this pope likes to challenge Catholics because we know more of what God expects from us and therefore He expects more out of us than non-Catholics. He likes to connect and reach out to others who are poor, hurting, and on the margins physically and spiritually. He is still faithful to the teachings; he recently spoken out against gender ideology that is determined by cultural and societal constructs. He is pro-life; he supports the sanctity of marriage and is against abortion, moral relativism, etc. He often quotes from his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who is the complete opposite of Pope Francis, but they both are faithful to proclaiming the gospel. When he was in Philippines he spoke out against contraception and gay marriage and praised the encyclical written by Blessed Pope Paul VI. When he was Cardinal Bergoglio he wrote in a document to the other Latin American bishops that Holy Communion shouldn't be given to pro abortion politicians because there is no eucharistic coherence when they speak out against the commandments and receive our Lord's Body. These are some of the examples that shows he is in continuity with Catholic tradition and faithful to the teachings of the Church. He is comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. His pontifical theme is mercy meaning we should as people of God reach out to others (gays, poor people, the sick, heretics etc.) with mercy so we can be merciful like God is merciful. He is evangelizing the message that God is love and mercy and at the same time he is in continuity with Catholic tradition. Don't let the tone fool you; he is orthodox. His tone and presentation of the faith is a little bit different but he is just as holy and orthodox as the previous popes. With his different and unique tone in his presentation of the Catholic faith he is encouraging and challenging us to reach out; this is how we become a light to the world The presentation and tone is different, but the faith remains the same.

Maybe

Pob

MAYBE

Excuse me father, but modernism inside the Vatican was fault of lutherans invited by John XXIII who sayd them to help to change the vetus ordo mass. That was one the worst mistakes and offense to God. They took off the sacrality of the Holy Mass and people never respect anymore Jesus Christ like He deserves. That the saddest thing. God has mercy of us miserable sinners and weak persons

apostate heretic-apostate the one world government pope agenda and one world religion apostate religion yep sums it up..NWO! They are responsible also for the creating the quran for Mohammed (illiterate) who was married to a nun..and he was so drugged up by the vatican and having strange visions it was his wife who was upset with his ranting and raving like a lunatic..so the muslim so called faith was born to keep suppressing the Christians in the middle east and still is today...as well as the jews. nazi machine! when you read the quran it sounds like it was written by kids for a school project. none of it makes much sense. try it, you'll hate it! lol!