POPE BENEDICT’S CONCEPT OF ‘NO TWO WAYS OF SALVATION’ IS NOT RATIONAL, NOR CATHOLIC

Our pope has created a new doctrine based on an irrational interpretation of Lumen Gentium 16

The pope has broken away from Pope John Paul II’s Dominus Iesus 20 and the Cantate Domino, Council of Florence on extra ecclesiam nulla salus. In the book Light of the World- Conversations with Peter Seewald he tells us that ‘there are no two ways of salvation’ and that the revised Good Friday Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews was not for their conversion in the present times.

In his ‘no two ways of salvation’ he means that those who are saved in invincible ignorance (Lumen Gentium 16) are known to us in the present times. So this contradicts Cantate Domino, the ex cathedra dogma on outside the Church there is no salvation.

Yet rationality tells us that we do not know any case of a person saved in invincible ignorance in the present times. So if we do not know any case in the present times it does not contradict extra ecclesiam nulla salus.

Then it means that there are ‘no two ways of salvation’ and so everyone with no exception needs to enter the Church to be saved.

Ad Gentes 7,Vatican Council II, Dominus Iesus 20 and Cantate Domino says there is only one way of salvation, there are no two ways of salvation, and everyone with no exception needs to enter the Church to be saved from Hell. Including Jews.

While Pope Benedict’s one way of salvation says Jews are saved in general through this one way and so they do not have to convert into the Church.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church there is a reference to the Letter of the Holy Office 1949 to the Archbishop of Boston. The Letter, also placed in the Denzinger-Enchridion, refers to the ‘dogma’ the ‘infallible’ teaching.

Here is the Letter :

Now, among those things which the Church has always preached and will never cease to preach is contained also that infallible statement by which we are taught that there is no salvation outside the Church.

However, this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church herself understands it. For, it was not to private judgments that Our Savior gave for explanation those things that are contained in the deposit of faith, but to the teaching authority of the Church…-Letter of the Holy Office 1949 to the Archbishop of Boston (Emphasis added)

 Here is the ‘dogma’ the ‘infallible’ teaching referred to by the Letter.

1. “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” (Pope Innocent III, Fourth Lateran Council, 1215). Ex Cathedra

2. “We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII, the Bull Unam Sanctam, 302.). Ex Cathedra

3.“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.” (Pope Eugene IV, the Bull Cantate Domino, 1441.) Ex Cathedra – from the website Catholicism.org and “No Salvation outside the Church”: Link List, the Three Dogmatic Statements Regarding EENS ) http://nosalvationoutsideofthecatholicchurch.blogspot.com//

The dogma above indicates that all Jews in Boston need to convert into the Catholic Church for salvation. There ' are no two ways of salvation' and all Jews in the present times need to enter the Church to be saved from Hell-fires.

So the pope's new doctrine is contrary to Tradition and rationality.