/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>838468

nice larp, feeneyism is a proximate heresy btw.

I smell false flagging in the air

obsessed

>>838468

hey look, the pedophiles are saying the protestants are the heretics. Maybe protestants would listen to you if your church didn't worship satan and rape children

>>838468

I'm getting real sick of prots and ortholarpers (not real orthos). Both are the same thing, scripture idolizing immature fools.

>>838658

You can leave anytime

>>838658

You guys aren't really helping your case when you hate scripture. It used to be the weapon for all church fathers, saints, and even the counter-reformation Catholics who would dispute with Protestants. Is this what modern Catholicism has come to? Just outright dismissive of scripture at this point? Even up to the beginning of the 20th century, Catholics were still based about scripture and saw it as a bulwark against modernism. Even the modern Catechism is anointed with myriad uses and quotes from scripture. A sort of last hurrah of good, conservative scriptural scholarship among Catholics. But now you all just outright dismiss it? Very sad. You have no one but yourselves to blame for the destruction and lunacy overtaking the highest levels of your church at this point.

>>838686

Scripture was only good because it pointed to Jesus/Logos. And maybe Sirach and the Wisdom books are good for life advice but in general the left has an advantage in pilpuling scripture because that's an area jews obsessively study. Evil has no defense against sound logic though.

>>838686

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: he shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for his heel.

Power dictates culture. Those people that are least resistant to leftist pressure find themselves most supported by the wealthy and politically powerful, and those people that are most resistant will find themselves labelled "religious", "racist", "sexist", "behind the times" and cut off from power.

As an example of this, let us consider Horace Rowan Gaither's 1949 Report for the Ford Foundation. Conducted after great consultation with government actors and academic experts, the report presents an outline of the intellectual and cultural state of affairs at the very top of the democratic "church." It is also a justification for the evangelical exporting of American liberalism using the wealth of Ford - far greater than the contemporary budget of the UN.

The Ford Foundation funded: the Gray Areas project, a prime-mover of the "War on Poverty"; federal Community Action Programs (CAPs); the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund; the Native American Rights Fund - to name but a few.

The notion that the 1960s represented a “populist upsurge,” or that New Left values bubbled up from the American grassroots rather than being actively disseminated by precisely such rich, elite institutions as the Ford Foundation, could only be a product of foundation thinking.

Quotations from the report:

"He [the citizen] must choose between two opposed course. One is democratic, dedicated to the freedom and dignity of the individual, as an end in himself. The other, the antithesis of democracy, is authoritarianism, wherein freedom and justice do not exist, and human rights and truth are wholly subordinated to the state." (p47)

Man being an "end-in-himself" is as anarcho-capitalist as is possible.

"Democracy accepts the fact of conflicting interests and even encourages the positive expressions of divergent views, aims, and values. Democracy theory assumes, however, that conflicts can be resolved or accommodated by nonviolent means, and that discrimination and hostility between various groups on the basis of race, national origin, or religion can be kept below the point where basic well-being of society is threatened." (p46)

The implicit insistence that individuals are anterior to society and that their "views, aims and values" are external expressions of internal developments. This is the grounding of anarcho-capitalism; and this state of affairs is created by the power.

"Economic democracy is realized through a fluid and mobile social structure which permits maximum individual freedom of choice and action. This requires practical equality of opportunity for all individuals to pursue the vocation of profession of their choice, to change jobs, to move from place to place, and to advance in their chosen career according to their capabilities." (p37)

Progressives like Gaither are under no illusion that anarcho-capitalism must be enforced by the state.

With this in mind, the funding received by libertarians from the likes of the Rockefeller foundation, the tolerance for anarchist groups protesting outside the annual World Economic Forum conference at Davos-Klosters, and the leniency given to the cries of "Anarchotopia now! Death to statism!" is rendered intelligible. The top of the democratic "church" uses these people to undermine its enemies, and thereby shore-up its position at the top. All these groups share the same set of assumptions, which are best expressed by the definition of human welfare found in Gaither's report:

"Basic to human welfare is the idea of the dignity of man - the conviction that man must be regarded as an end in himself, not as a mere cog in the mechanisms of society." (p17)

"The committee's conception of human welfare is stated in chapter one, as will be seen, it is largely synonymous with a declaration of democratic ideals." (p12)

The children of the serpent will "awaken" because the state necessarily engages in cultivating virtue. The Satanic state cultivates the Satanic "virtues" of negation and inversion; the Satanic state cultivates liberalism.

>>838663

I second this.

>>838658

Practically everyone else can get along except for you. You call Orthodox that don't side with you larpers. We don't have to side with you, we are not the same as you. I hardly see any of the other Catholic posters getting bent out of shape in every thread. Perhaps you're just a catholarper?

>>838745

>no u

I've been a Catholic my whole life and other experienced Catholics will also tell you the importance of logic. You've been harassing me ever since I started posting on this board and my first post was something completely innocuous like "Jesus is God." You admitted in another thread to being a frenchie larping as an Ortho, meanwhile true Slavic Orthodox would agree with me because they claim John is the most authoritative Gospel and even set their Bibles open to John 1. It's because of larpers like you I have to warn other Catholics to be careful around Orthos and make sure they're not larpers.

>>838748

If my id changed I am the same poster here >>838745. It appears you have me confused with some other poster so I can't even speak on most of what you are complaining about.

>true Slavic Orthodox

You are leaving out a number of Orthodox Christians, and a place of particular importance.

>It's because of larpers like you I have to warn other Catholics to be careful around Orthos and make sure they're not larpers.

It is easy to see that you jump to conclusions quite readily. People false flag all the time and that has been board culture for a long time. I find it ironic that a Roman Catholic would have the temerity to assume who is Orthodox and who isn't. Just keep in mind that there is more than one Orthodox poster on here, and we are not all out to get you. God bless you.

The Fulfillment of the Law

17Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. 18For I tell you truly,

until heaven and earth pass away, not a single jot, not a stroke of a pen, will disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

19So then, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do likewise will be called least in the kingdom of heaven;

but whoever practices and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

20For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

>>838468

Protestants are obviously seperated from the Church

The same s— Mahomet pulled in the middle east the “reformators” did in Europe

>>838468

No one has the right to judge who goes to hell except God Himself.

>>839643

Why do you idolize the Roman Church as the only way to Christ and dismiss others who follow the word as "heretics". You're not winning anyone over to your cause

>source: the pope

>>839688

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.

God allowed Constantinople to fall to the Muslims on the Feast of the Holy Spirit as a sign against, and a punishment for, the peoples' rebellion against the Filioque, the true doctrine of the Church of Christ on the Holy Spirit, and the resistance to other truths that were formally proclaimed at the Council of Florence that must be considered Ecumenical.

All those of the Eastern "Orthodox" are heretics, and all of them are sent to hell.

>>838471

Protestants are not Christian and their ignorance, though great, is not invincible. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus.

>>840116

>God allowed Constantinople to fall to the Muslims on the Feast of the Holy Spirit as a sign against, and a punishment for, the peoples' rebellion against the Filioque, the true doctrine of the Church of Christ on the Holy Spirit, and the resistance to other truths that were formally proclaimed at the Council of Florence that must be considered Ecumenical.

This is not even close to the truth. God allowed it because of their sins. It was not because of a little thing like the filioque. You are not educated enough about why God causes such calamities. Did you decide this yourself or did you decide to believe a priest. Constantinople fell because it’s Christian citizens committed half the sins that were done to them during that fall. Much like every other time God allowed Christianity and the Jews before Christianity to fall.

God doesn’t care about petty doctrinal differences, he cares about results. He cares about his people keeping clean and away from reproach.

His people were raping, molesting, and fornicating to a ridiculous degree, and involved in spiritism, much like the Christians of today. Like those Christians we will also see God’s wrath. Many Christians in that area were miraculously saved from the calamities. Many were helped by Turks who risked their own lives to help those Christians. No Turk risked their neck for a fake Christian, it was the true ones who had Islamic neighbors that didn’t want to see good people perish.

God’s about to do a similar thing to the whole world, because of their sins, not because of a silly misunderstanding. BTW, Catholics have already lost the filioque argument. Your pope yielded to it himself, I think it was pope John Paul II.

Again, a catholic insulting the personality of God unknowingly. All that calamity over a word? You don’t know God at all. This filioque argument is not even on Gods radar at all. All the abortions done by Christians is though. The idolatry Christians are involved in is though. The sleeping around and swinging couples and molestation and rape by Christians is though. The spiritism and magic used by many denominations under the guise of angelic intervention is though.

A silly little argument over a word, one of many arguments between denominations is not even something God cares about. God cares about His people keeping His commandments and showing love toward one another. Both those things are in shambles today. Calamities ready to fall again on every denomination. Your filioque will not hinder your churches portion of Gods judgements.

My goodness I can go on and on.

>>840121

Antipope John Paul II was a manifest heretic, and therefore not a Christian.

The Eastern "Orthodox" are not Christians, they are schismatics and heretics.

There is an imminently obvious connection between doctrine and results, and to believe otherwise is specious and breeds a false unity between Christians and heretics; there can be no unity with the spawn of serpents.

>>840116

Also, since the trinity is really just a family consisting of a Father Mother and Son. This filioque argument is ridiculous. The Father tells the Mother what to do. The Son can speak to the Father and the Mother and ask them for help over a certain thing, or even ask his Mother if she can do something for him, the Mother tells the Son to go ask the Father because the Father is the head of the family. The Holy Spirit belongs to God the Father, She does what God gives her permission to do. Even if the Son says ‘I will send the Holy Spirit’, it just means that He will get permission from his Father to send his Mother to help someone. She will always say ‘ask your Father’. Like any Mother she has to do the will of the Father, yet takes her Son’s pleading seriously.

We go to the Father through Christ. Christ asks the Father, the Father sends Mother. That doesn’t mean Jesus is the one sending the Holy Spirit. Jesus is simply interceding to the Father on our behalf, because we are not good enough to speak to the Father without going through the Son.

>>840122

How do you believe he was a heretic and yet still trust your religion? After him came Benedict the 16th. He gave up his seat to the evil sh!t sitting on the catholic throne today. Why are you still a catholic? Pope John Paul II was the last functioning pope you guys had. Yes he was evil, but if you see that he was why can’t you see that this current one is?

And if God has inflicted your church with evil demons then why do you boast about your “protection and blessings”?

The way I see it, the orthos got chastised because God loved them and wanted to stop their sins. The Catholics he didn’t care for so he allowed them to continue in their sins till it’s time to wipe out every cult. God doesn’t seem to treat the Catholic Church like it’s His. If it was His he’d chastise it sooner.

>>840123

Read the current thread on the Filioque. Your understanding of the divine essence is unreasonable and heretical.

>>840124

Nothing I said suggested that I cannot see the evil of Antipope Benedict XVI.

Christ suffered and now, as it has before, His Church suffers; the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so also by Christ our comforts abound.

The Catholic Church is the One Church established by Jesus Christ, to which all must belong in order to be saved. This Church exists in a remnant of Catholics who maintain the infallible teachings of the true Popes throughout history. Per Saint Athanasius:

"Even if the the true Church of Christ were reduced to a handful of true believers and one true priest, they would remain the true Church of Christ on earth."

God has not abandoned His Catholic Church. It remains the Immaculate Bride of Christ and the gates of Hell will never prevail against this Church, that Jesus founded upon Peter the Rock. Per Pope Vigilius at the Second Council of Constantinople:

"…we bear in mind what was promised about the Holy Church and Him who said the gates of Hell will not prevail against it (by these we understand the death-dealing tongues of heretics); we also bear in mind what was prophesied about the church by Hosea when he said, I shall betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord; and we count along with the devil, the father of lies, the uncontrolled tongues of heretics and their heretical writings, together with the heretics themselves who have persisted in their heresy even to death."

Per Pope Innocent III:

"By the heart we believe and by the mouth we confess the one Church, not of heretics, but the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church outside of which we believe that no one is saved."

>>840136

Protestantism was a sponsored rebellion; Martin Luther, through Georg Burkhardt, was sponsored by Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, because Luther advocated for the secular right of kings; John Wycliffe was sponsored by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, because Wycliffe advocated for the secular right of kings; Jan Hus was sponsored by Zbyněk Zajíc of Hazmburk, military advisor to the Bohemian King Wenceslaus IV, because Hus advocated for the secular right of kings. Protestantism was a collection of rebellious movements and those that gained traction did so only because they were of value to the people in power. For by weakening the Immaculate Bride of Christ, the Catholic Church, the One Church established by Jesus Christ, the secular powers were able to hedge and strengthen their own position. This rebelliousness against God and reason has persisted into the chaotic age through the specious philosophies developed for this same purpose at those universities sponsored by those same secular powers.

In short, to rebel against the Holy Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church is rebel against Jesus Christ.

>>840126

Twisting your punishments into persecution is a tool Christian based cults use all the time and one I’m all too familiar with. The JWs are currently doing this same thing in Australia with their child abuse. They sent out a message to all Jehovah's Witnesses telling them to not believe what they are about to see in the news and that it’s a lie from satan to attack “God’s one true organization”. You’d make a fine Jehovah’s Witness, they love blind faith and people like you.

I agree

>>840139

I don't think barking up the tree that kingship has sponsored protestantism is really charitable when Catholicism was corrupted as a state religion centuries beforehand.

>>840182

>Tu quoque.

>>840145

And you are the arbiter of what is punishment and what is persecution? You readily admit the the log in your eye against all authority. Your equating of the Catholic Church to the Jehovah's Witnesses is a false syllogism - the first is the Immaculate Bride of Christ and the second is yet another strain of Protestantism.

>>840195

>And you are the arbiter of what is punishment and what is persecution?

No, I’m definitely not. But if your church is so blessed and holy then you wouldn’t have an evil man as it’s head unless God is punishing your church. Your members wanted to indulge in sins, so God sent you demons, as He said He’ll do for those who keep pushing Him.

>You readily admit the the log in your eye against all authority.

All but The Father’s, The Holy Spirit’s, and The Son’s. No one needs any other authority. No one needs to answer to anyone else.

>Your equating of the Catholic Church to the Jehovah's Witnesses is a false syllogism - the first is the Immaculate Bride of Christ and the second is yet another strain of Protestantism.

Well they are two sides to the same coin. I understand now why the Jehovah’s Witnesses teach against the Catholic Church so much. They both are the exact same at it’s elite classes that’s why they don’t get along. They’re members are equally ready to tell people they’re gonna be destroyed, one tries to scare people with Armageddon, the other Gehenna. Fear is your guys’ best tool, and it’s of the devil.

However, even I’ll admit that when it comes to the common catholic, they can be found here and are able to speak freely. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are too scared and brainwashed to even do that much. For that I should give Catholics some credit.

So no, you are not completely like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but you have a lot more in common with them than you should be comfortable in having.

>>840203

>Christian-based cults

Only Catholics are Christian.

Applying the term to Protestants and the Eastern "Orthodox" developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in the United States. The application of Christian to these groups promotes a false cooperation and unity between heretics and Catholics.

>But if your church is so blessed and holy then you wouldn’t have an evil man as it’s head

Consider 2 Thessalonians 2:1-14, and its relation to the revolt of the Protestants, to the Post-Vatican II Antipopes that have sat upon the Throne of Peter, to the love of iniquitous liberalisms and the dissolution of the True Faith.

And we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of our gathering together unto him: That you be not easily moved from your sense, nor be terrified, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by epistle, as sent from us, as if the day of the Lord were at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, Who opposeth, and is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself as if he were God. Remember you not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?

And now you know what withholdeth, that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity already worketh; only that he who now holdeth, do hold, until he be taken out of the way. And then that wicked one shall be revealed whom the Lord Jesus shall kill with the spirit of his mouth; and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming, him, Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying: That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity. But we ought to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of God, for that God hath chosen you firstfruits unto salvation, in sanctification of the spirit, and faith of the truth: Whereunto also he hath called you by our gospel, unto the purchasing of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.

>No one needs any other authority. No one needs to answer to anyone else.

What sophistry. Please indulge us with your "ethics of effective co-operation" and your denial of the nature of man and of telos.

catholics really are lobotomized.

>>838468

While they may be "heretics", it's not for you to decide where a soul goes. Not even to suggest.

>>840323

Conclusions on the fate of all those who die in grave sin or outside the Faith, either because they never embraced the Faith or, after having embraced the Faith, they rejected it in one or more areas, can be formed. Those conclusions flow directly from the infallible teaching of the Church: that certain activity places a person outside the Faith or in grave sin; and that those who die outside the Faith or in grave sin go to hell.

All Protestants are outside the Faith and are in grave sin. All Protestants therefore go to hell.

Catechism disagrees with you, fren.

Please don't listen to >>840326 we're not all this retarded.

>>840392

What catechism and where?

For, by my argument, you are either denying that those in grave sin go to hell or denying that that those outside the Faith go to hell.

>>840394

Do not worry brother, you are right. There is no salvation outside the Church, and the majority of protestants go to hell, but the majority of people go too. A protestant may go to the purgatory if God wills it, but, the probability of it it's lesser in comparison with Catholics. Not a single protestant goes to heaven directly, yet almost no one does neither. Everyone who goes directly into heaven is Catholic, yet the majority of Catholics aren't saved… Almost everyone is outside the Faith brother, salvation and damnation aren't absolute in appearance, but in the Soul. We must oppose protestants, they are grave sinners because they have a great part of responsibility in the secularization of the world, which led to atheism, but… there may be some protestants who go to purgatory and stay there a long time until they are purified. There may be even some atheists who go to the purgatory, surely to be there for almost all of eternity. Yet, surely, the numbers must be so low that saying No protestants are saved isn't fully incorrect. So, yeah, you are right.

I've increasingly found the notion that if you make mistakes in doctrine and thus fall in with the "wrong" church, that you are going to be "destined to hell", to be absolutely absurd and evil.

Have fun with your circlejerk thread where you reminisce fondly on the days when you could censor people at will.

>>840394

>What catechism and where

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, fren.

<However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [protestants] and in the mare brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers (CCC 818).

So protestants are not immediately hell-bound just because they are protestant. They suffer from a lack of certain graces which are prescribed through the Church, but the sin of schism applies only to the following.

<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 (CCC 846).

It takes deliberate hardness of heart and an act of free will to refuse to become Catholic.

>>840566

meant "and in them are brought up"

>>840566

Let us instead consider the Catechism of the Council of Trent.

>Need Of An Authoritative Catholic Catechism

But whole the preaching of the divine Word should never be interrupted in the Church, surely in these, our days, it becomes necessary to labour with more than ordinary zeal and piety to nourish and strengthen the faithful with sound and wholesome doctrine, as with the food of life. For false prophets have gone forth into the world, to corrupt the minds of the faithful with various and strange doctrines, of whom the Lord has said: I did not send prophets, yet they ran; I spoke not to them, yet they prophesied.

In this work, to such extremes has their impiety, practised in all the arts of Satan, been carried, that it would seem almost impossible to confine it within any bounds; and did we not rely on the splendid promises of the Saviour, who declared that He had built His Church on so solid a foundation that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, we should have good reason to fear lest, beset on every side by such a host of enemies and assailed and attacked by so many machinations, it would, in these days, fall to the ground.

For - to say nothing of those illustrious States which heretofore professed, in piety and holiness, the true Catholic faith transmitted them by their ancestors, but are not gone astray wandering from the paths of truth and openly declaring that their best claims to piety are founded on a total abandonment of the faith of their fathers - there is no region, however remote, no place, however securely guarded, no corner of Christendom, into which this pestilence has not sought secretly to insinuate itself.

For those who intended to corrupt the minds of the faithful, knowing that they could not hold immediate personal intercourse with all, and thus pour into their ears their poisoned doctrines, adopted another plan which enabled them to disseminate error and impiety more easily and extensively. Besides those voluminous works by which they sought to the subversion of the Catholic faith - to guard against which (volumes) required perhaps little labour or circumspection, since their contents were clearly heretical - they also composed innumerable smaller books, which, veiling their errors under the semblance of piety, deceived with incredible facility the unsuspecting minds of simple folk.

The Fathers of the Council of Trent, whose position I espouse, is entirely contradicted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, riddled with errors and promulgated by the manifest heretic Antipope John Paul II. To take the position of the Vatican II sect is to fall in with heretics and to choose death.

The Catechism of the Council of Trent continues:

>The Members Of The Church Militant

The Church militant is composed of two classes of persons, the good and the bad, both professing the same faith and partaking the same Sacraments, yet differing their manner of life and morality…But although the Catholic faith uniformly and truly teaches that the good and the bad belong to the Church, yet the same faith declares that the condition of both is very different. The wicked are contained in the Church, as the chaff is mingled with the grain on the threshing floor, or as dead members sometimes remain attached to a living body.

>Those Who Are Not Members Of The Church

Hence there are but three classes of persons excluded from the Church's pale: infidels, heretics and schismatics, and excommunicated persons. Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, and never knew the Church, and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments. Heretics and schismatics are excluded from the Church, because they have separated from her and belong to her only as deserters belong to the army from which they have deserted. It is not, however, to be denied that they are still subject to the jurisdiction of the Church, inasmuch as they may be called before her tribunals, punished and anathematised. Finally, excommunicated persons are not members of the Church, because they have been cut off by her sentence from the number of her children and belong not to her communion until they repent.

Now, Protestants do not profess the true Faith, nor do they partake in the same Sacraments. Hence, they cannot be members of the Church militant. To wit, Protestants are not members of the Church because they belong to the class of heretics and schismatics, and have separated from her. Your position denies the Catholic nature of the true Faith.

>>840601

At the time that the Catechism of the Council of Trent was written, all protestants were schismatic. To become a protestant took an act of free will to cut oneself off from the church, which is a mortal sin. But we are now 500 years in the future, where generations upon generations have been born into protestant families without knowing the truth. There is a certain degree of ignorance, which limits culpability.

>>840627

Faith is in act of the intellect, and hence of free will. To cut oneself off from the Church and become a Protestant is therefore necessarily an act of free will. And only a fool would claim that the Protestants are ignorant of knowledge of the Church - their history is tied to the Church and their position is contrapposto to the true Faith.

Your position of Indifferentism, or latitudinarianism, is contained in the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX.

>Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.—Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1846.

>Qui Pluribus

15. Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial.

20. So, in accordance with your pastoral care, work assiduously to protect and preserve this faith. Never cease to instruct all men in it, to encourage the wavering, to convince dissenters, to strengthen the weak in faith by never tolerating and letting pass anything which could in the slightest degree defile the purity of this faith. With the same great strength of mind, foster in all men their unity with the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation; also foster their obedience towards this See of Peter on which rests the entire structure of our most holy religion. See to it with similar firmness that the most holy laws of the Church are observed, for it is by these laws that virtue, religion and piety particularly thrive and flourish.

Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.—Encyclical "Quanto conficiamur," Aug. 10, 1863, etc.

>Quanto conficiamur

7. Here, too, our beloved sons and venerable brothers, it is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity. Such belief is certainly opposed to Catholic teaching. There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace. Because God knows, searches and clearly understands the minds, hearts, thoughts, and nature of all, his supreme kindness and clemency do not permit anyone at all who is not guilty of deliberate sin to suffer eternal punishments.

8. Also well known is the Catholic teaching that no one can be saved outside the Catholic Church. Eternal salvation cannot be obtained by those who oppose the authority and statements of the same Church and are stubbornly separated from the unity of the Church and also from the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, to whom “the custody of the vineyard has been committed by the Saviour.”(Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in its letter to Pope Leo) The words of Christ are clear enough: “If he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you a Gentile and a tax collector;”(Matthew 15:17) “He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you, rejects me, and he who rejects me, rejects him who sent me;”(Luke 10:16) “He who does not believe will be condemned;”(Mark 16:16) “He who does not believe is already condemned;”(John 3:18) “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”(Luke 11:23) The Apostle Paul says that such persons are “perverted and self-condemned;”(Titus 3:11) the Prince of the Apostles calls them “false teachers . . . who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master. . . bringing upon themselves swift destruction.”(2 Peter 2:1)

Besides these Papal Encyclicals, ignorance or error is unpardonable in a Christian. Hence, Saint Paul did not permit some among the Ephesians to remain in ignorance with regard to the Person of the Holy Spirit. For having asked if they had received the Holy Spirit, and having received for answer that they did not so much as know that there was a Holy Spirit, he at once demanded "In whom, therefore, were you baptised?" to signify that a distinct knowledge of the Articles of the Faith are most necessary to the salvation of the faithful.