Expert: George A. Card,sfo, M.I - 8/9/2004

Question
I have been raised catholic, but now question every religion.  First, Christians say that beief in Jesus is the only way to salvation.  Does that mean Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and all others are doomed to burn in hell?  Especially when Jesus himself was a Jew.  It doesn't make sense to me that with all the beliefs in the world that there is one correct path.  People's beliefs are shaped very much by parental influence, including my own.  I think that either all are right, or none are right.  Secondly, why would God need create a son to sacrifice for our sins?  Couldn't he just say "You are only human, you will make mistakes, I understand your weaknesses"?  Why would he have to make a sacrifice to prove it, what good would it do?  Basically, I am asking why, if every religion claims they know the correct way, Christianity is any different than the others.  

Answer
Dear Brian


St Augustine of Hippo, a Catholic bishop in the 4th century in Northern Africa wrote:
"God gave the Hebrew nation the Law (revelation) and He gave the Greeks good reason"

    I believe as Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture teaches that we can come to know many truths by use of reason and exploring the universe around us. Such as there is one God. Revelation teaches/explains that the one God is three persons in one being (substance). Reason tells murder is wrong but killing someone in self-defense is not; Revelation clarifies the difference in the gray cases.

And another reasons why polytheistic and other false forms of religion have similar things to us is because of some copycatting. Non-Catholics steal from us but corrupt the good. The Church receives from the cultures it encounters, and in a sense it "baptize" things and restores them to their proper use or a greater use for the glory of God and witness to the salvation He calls all men to.
 Sorry for going off what appears to be off subject, I feel with above being said my answer will make greater sense.
 In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, approved by Pope John Paul II we read:

 #819 "Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth" 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." 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,and are in themselves calls to "Catholic unity."
     
  We also read:

 "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."338

God Bless and Pray this Helps
    your servant but His First
               george