Oh, what a foolish question?!

I feel like dumbhead at times going to the Vatican offices and asking them if we can see the dead on earth.

Today morning Fr.Angelo at the Congregation for Catholic Education had that particular look of: ' What?? In general we humans cannot see the dead don't you know?! He could have lost his patience and said 'Stupid, I have more important things to do this morning'.He was glad when I was ready to go.

It's odd having to ask this question: 'Can we see the dead on earth who are saved.' And yet this is assumed in general  at the Universities and even at the CDF office.Since they are not aware of it I have to keep asking this question which seems silly.

Last night I was telling a religious Sister who was closing the Church after Mass that I had visited the Vatican office of the Congregation for the Liturgy.And that the priest said that Vatican Council II does not contradict itself nor the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus He said if  a priest was denying this in public it  was an issue for his bishop.

This elderly Sister was surprised.She asked how could a priest deny it.

So I asked her if she accepted what the priest at the Vatican Congregation office said.She said yes. She said we should all accept it.

I asked her if she accepted the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus. She said yes. I asked her if she had read the dogma. She said no.

I explained the text of the dogma.

She said this was true for a time in the past 1441 and it did not apply now!!!

We now have a more profound understanding of this issue,she said, in Vatican Council II.

I kept quiet and did not say anything and let her close the Church gate.

She is the Superior of a religious community relatively comfortable, with a large convent and with many elderly Sisters.So how could she emotionally accept this teaching? It is more prudent and politically safe to say something like ,'we can see the dead saved on earth who are exceptions to...'It sounds so profound!

-Lionel Andrades