Franciscan Friar

A Franciscan Friar the other day asked to meet me again to follow up with our brief conversation on the metro- train.I e-mailed him the relevant text of Ad Gentes 7 and highlighted the words, 'All', 'faith and baptism' and 'salvation'.During our meeting I  told him that there are no exceptions to Ad Gentes 7 mentioned in Vatican Council II.

Therefore, all must be converted to Him...and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door...

By means of this activity, the Mystical Body of Christ unceasingly gathers and directs its forces toward its own growth (cf. Eph. 4:11-16). The members of the Church are impelled to carry on such missionary activity by reason of the love with which they love God and by which they desire to share with all men the spiritual goods of both its life and the life to come.

Finally, by means of this missionary activity, God is fully glorified, provided that men fully and consciously accept His work of salvation, which He has accomplished in Christ.-Ad Gentes 7, Vatican Council II

LG 8, LG 14, LG 16, UR 3, NA 2, GS 22 etc only refer to hypothetical cases.We cannot meet or see someone saved in invincible ignorance(LG 16) outside the Church or with a good conscience(LG 16) or good will(GS 22). I asked him to look at the issue philosophically. If there was an extraordinary way of salvation it would only be known  to God.

So this meant that the Church was saying in Ad Gentes 7 that all Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Protestants,were oriented to the fires of Hell, unless they entered the Church with faith and baptism and lived the teachings of Jesus in the Catholic Church.It all meant that most people on earth at the time of death go to Hell since they die outside the Catholic Church.

For some reason, he could not accept this.Though in a vague way he knew that faith and baptism was important.This text in the Council was asking too much of him.

It was like when Jesus told the rich man who followed the law as a good person, to sell all he had and to follow Him, he could not do it.

I asked the Friar why did he put limits on Jesus. 

Jesus was the only Saviour of the world for him. So whom did he know who will go to Heaven without believing in Jesus?

How could be believe that some people or all the people in other religions would be saved without Jesus and living His teachings in the Catholic Church?-Lionel Andrades