Expert: Marco - 10/8/2011

Question
1. Are non-Catholics or non-Christians not going be saved just because they were born non-Catholics or non-Christians and never knew Jesus or God the way we're supposed to know? Are they going to hell just coz of being born to parents of different religions?


2. Also, this verse in the Bible confuses me: Jesus said 'no one comes to Him unless the Father wants it to happen.' But we say God gives us a free will. But the above verse clearly says we wont be saved unless God wants us to be saved.

And the church doesn't tell us what we need to do to be saved, nor speaks boldly about heaven and hell. They speak only bout the grace and love of God but not His wrath. So aren't we deceived in a way? We are made to believe and think that we are all going to heaven because we come to Church or believe in God.

Answer
Dear Nisha,

the official teachings of the Catholic Church are given in the Catechism, available also on line at:


www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/ccc.html

I report below some verses fromthe cathechism about the problem of salvation of non catholics.

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 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.

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.

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."

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You can find some writings about salvation by Pope John Paul II in the links below:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19950531e

http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp950510.htm



I would like to add some considerations of mine.
Some persons could choose not to be catholic because they have had wrong information about the catholic teachings; these persons are not trully rejecting the Catholic Church, but they are rejecting some wrong ideas about the Catholic Church.
I think these persons can be saved.

God loves us infinitely and He desires to lead each of us to the eternal life  and to the true happiness. But God is perfectly Holy and Good; God cannot tolerate evil because evil is uncompatible with His good and holy nature.
So, we cannot go to heaven as long as we are not completely purified from our sins and sanctified.
Our sanctification is necessary for us to go to heaven.
None of us can sanctify himself by himself; we all need God's grace to be sanctified.
This is reason why Jesus said 'no one comes to Him unless the Father wants it to happen.'
we are sinners and we cannot sanctify ourselves by ourselves, without God's help.
God desires to sanctify us, but He has given us a free-will, so God needs our consent in order to purify and sanctify us. God respects our choices and therefore God cannot santify those who do not want to be sanctified and purified, those who do not want to stop sinning, those who do not want to live a holy life.
These are those who go to hell.
Those who love God and die without being perfectly sanctified go to Purgatory. Purgatory is an addictional phase in the afterlife necessary to reach a perfect purification and sanctification.
I think that those who dies without being catholic, but who desire to be sanctified, will go to Purgatory, and there they will become catholic.

I think the catholic Church speaks about hell and about the cessity to live witout sinning to remain in God's grace.


I hope this may help you,

Your brother in Christ,

Marco