Lionel, my replies below...
SPERAY: They are not our brother and sister IN CHRIST. THAT'S HERETICAL. If you're in Christ then you don't need the Catholic Church which is the problem with Vatican 2. Also, the subsists clause implies that the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church aren't one and the same thing.
Lionel: Jesus asks us to love all. When I love Christ I can love others.
SPERAY:
Loving others has nothing to do with it. We are to love everyone, that doesn't mean everyone is in Christ.
Lionel:
We love all people but that does not mean that all people are saved. I would phrase it as such.
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Lionel:
There are Catholics who have the Sacraments and they also have Christ. However if they die with mortal sin on their soul being in the Catholic Church was for them vain. What good was their knowing Christ or beleiving in Him.
SPERAY:
You have to love and obey Christ. Demons know and believe in Christ and they are in hell.
Lionel:
Yes we have to love and obey Christ. In obeying Christ , non Catholics would need to formally enter the Catholic Church, since outside the Church there is no salvation.
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Lionel:
Protestants believe in Christ and they have faith in Him but they need to enter the Catholic Church formally for salvation, they need 'faith' (AG 7).They need Catholic Faith with the Sacraments and the faith and moral teachings.
SPERAY:
Protestants don't believe in and don't have faith in Christ. They only claim to do so. Since Protestants reject the Church, they reject Christ. Luke 10. By they way, Catechumens believe in and have faith in Christ, but are they in Christ?
Lionel:
All need to formally enter the Church with 'faith and baptism' for salvation (Vatican Council II AG 7).Protestants do not have Catholic Faith, which include the Sacraments, and the moral and faith teachings, necessary for salvation.
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In an interview with the German newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Ratzinger, aka Benedict XVI, stated:
“When the Council Fathers replace the word ‘is,’ used by Pius XII, with the word ‘subsistit,’they did so for a very precise reason. The concept expressed by ‘is’ (to be) is far broader than that expressed by ‘to subsist.’ ‘To subsist’ is a very precise way of being, that is, to be as a subject, which exists in itself. Thus the Council Fathers meant to say: the being of the Church as such extends much further than the Roman Catholic Church, but within the latter it acquires, in an incomparable way, the character of a true and proper subject.”
Vatican 2 theologians confirm this meaning taught by Ratzinger.
Avery Cardinal Dulles, a member of the International Theological Commission: “The Church of Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed subsist in Roman Catholicism but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities.” (Toward the Church of the Third Millennium: Verso la Chiesa del Terzo Millennio,Brescia: Queriniana, 1979)
Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, one of the main drafters of Vatican II documents, stated: “It is difficult to say that the Catholic Church is still one, Catholic, apostolic, when one says that the others (other Christian communities) are equally one, Catholic and apostolic, albeit to a lesser degree. —- at Vatican Council II, the Roman Catholic Church officially abandoned its monopoly over the Christian religion.”
Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., “First, all of us who are baptized (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox) — all of us belong in a very real way to the Church of Christ.”
Fr. Gregory Baum, “Concretely and actually the Church of Christ may be realized less, equally, or even more in a Church separated from Rome than in a Church in communion with Rome. This conclusion is inescapable on the basis of the understanding of Church that emerges from the teaching of Vatican Council II.”(Quotes taken from Joseph Maurer’s Open Letter to Catholic Family News)
Lionel:
Pope Benedict XVI has clarified this issue in a document he issued.
Any way we have a choice in choosing the correct interpretation. If there are no known cases of Protestants saved with reference to LG 8 ( 'subsistit it' or 'elements of sanctification and truth) , then LG 8 is not an exception to extra ecclesiam nulla salus and Tradition.
SPERAY:
LG 8 is heretical because it denies that the Church of Christ and the Catholic Church is one and the same. If something subsists in something, it automatically implies two different things. SUBSISTS IS HERETICAL BY ITSELF. I've already debated this issue on my blog. You are supporting the heretical word and position it implies.
Lionel:
The Church of Christ is the Catholic Church. This is how I interpret LG 8 and the document issued by Pope Benedict XVI.
-Lionel Andrades
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