SIMON RAFE KNOWS NO CASE OF INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE

Apologist Simon Rafe wrote in an e-mail to me:

The teaching of the Church is that a person CAN be saved if they are not a visible member of the Church.

To deny this is to cease to give full acceptance to the Church. We do not wish to be party to such things.

Yes the teaching of the Church in Lumen Gentium 16 Vatican Council II is that a person can be saved in invincible ignorance etc and so not a formal,visible member of the Church.

Apologist Simon Rafe of Real Catholic TV.com needs to read Lumen Gentium 16, Vatican Council II according to the following step by step analysis in five points.

1. There is no genuine invincible ignorance which we humanly can know of. We do not know whom Jesus Christ will judge on the Day of Judgement as having invincible ignorance.

2. There is no explicit invincible ignorance (external, seeable, repeatable) known to us.

3. There is no implicit invincible ignorance (In principle we do not know any case).

4. We do not know a single case of invincible ignorance over the last 100 years.

5. We can only accept the existence of invincible ignorance as a concept. It is something hypothetical, a probability, a possibility known only to God.

So when LG 16 says non Catholics in invincible ignorance can be saved it is hypothetical, something we accept in principle. None of us knows any person in Islam or the other religions who is in genuine invincible ignorance. We cannot judge.

Ad Gentes 7, Vatican Council II states ‘all people’ need Catholic Faith and the baptism of water to avoid Hell and go to Heaven. AG 7 is saying ‘there is absolutely no salvation outside the Catholic Church’

So the Catholic Church is affirming in Vatican Council II. the ‘rigorist interpretation’ of the ex cathedra dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus, an infallible teaching which can only have one interpretation.

Similarly no where in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is there a quotation or citation which contradicts the rigorist interpretation of the ex cathedra dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

Without proof of anything contrary Rafe would have to agree with a Vatican Council II interpretation according to Sacred Tradition of the Catholic Church.

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has said that Vatican Council II is not a break from Tradition.

The baptism of water is both a concept and a known reality (see able, repeatable and explicit).

Invincible ignorance can only be a concept for us since it is known only to God.

I could say that everyone with no exception needs to enter the Catholic Church formally (with Catholic Faith and the baptism of water), while a person in Hinduism, ‘ in certain circumstances ‘(Letter of the Holy Office 1949) could be saved in Hinduism and this would be known to God only.
 Real Catholic TV's Michael Vorris has no problem with this. On The Vortex he said there are only Catholics in Heaven.

Everyone in invincible ignorance saved by God is a Catholic.




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1. Those also can attain to salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.-Lumen Gentium 16, Vatican Council II.

http://eucharistandmission.blogspot.com/2010/09/simon-rafe-knows-no-case-of-invincible.html#links