I'll try to lay it out in a hypothetical Q & A (quasi-Socratic) format:

Q:  There's an animist living somewhere in African who's never heard of the Catholic faith.  If he were to die right now, could he be saved?

A:  Yes.

Q:  How?

A:  Because he was invincibly ignorant.

Q:  Can an infant who dies without Baptism be saved?

A:  No.

Q:  But isn't an infant about as invincibly ignorant as someone can be?  Ignorance therefore cannot be salvific, but merely exculpatory; in other words, it can excuse from sin but cannot save.  What then allowed this animist to save his soul?

A:  It was because he followed the lights of his conscience as he knew them and believed in God who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.

Q:  What if this "god" required him to sacrifice infants to him and he just did it because he thought that this "god" required it of him?

A:  I suppose that if he really believed that it's what God wanted.

Q:  Let's say some colonial power came along and banned this child sacrifice under pain of execution.  This animist, then, out of abject fear, stopped following nis conscience?  Wouldn't his soul be at risk?

A:  I don't know.

Q:  Well, Vatican II drew the line for religious liberty at doing things that would hurt others, so this may not be the best example.  Let's say instead that this animist felt that his "god" required him to do some relatively harmless rituals every once in a while and that, without doing this, he would not be rewarded in the afterlife by this god but would be punished.  Wouldn't it be wrong to forbid this person from this practice, if it didn't hurt anyone else?  Since following his conscience pleases God and allows him to save his soul, shouldn't he have a right to do this and wouldn't it be wrong for a government to prevent him from doing what pleased God and saved his soul.

A:  I suppose so.

[to be continued]

I've never seen anything in this as requiring the animist to only follow his conscience. What he must do is follow natural law.  Practice of child murder is an obvious break with natural law. The person in question would go to Hell.

But people can be in "material error" regarding the natural law also.  So this animist can have the formal intention to follow the natural law and thus would be following the natural law in voto, no?  I brought up child murder as an extreme, and even V2 Religious Liberty drew a line at when people might harm others.  I brought up the child murder as argument ad absurdum.

What "he must do". my friend. is to accept the CATHOLIC FAITH.  So now following the natural law becomes "salvific"?  I would have to say this indeed would be heresy.

But people can be in "material error" regarding the natural law also.

1. God has imprinted the natural law on the heart of every man; this forms the fundamental rule of human actions. A young child who has done something wrong lied, perhaps, or committed a theft, feels uncomfortable, frightened, or ashamed; though it may never have heard of the Ten Commandments, it is conscious that it has done amiss. It is the same with the heathen who knows nothing about God's commandments. Hence we may conclude that there is a law of nature in every human heart, a law not written upon it, but inborn in it; an intuitive knowledge of right and wrong. St. Paul declares that the Gentiles do by nature those things that are of the law (what the Ten. Commandments enjoin), and consequently they will be judged by God according to the natural law (Rom. ii. 14-16). The characters wherein this law is inscribed upon our hearts may be obscured but not obliterated; the Roman Catechism tells us no man can be unconscious of this law, divinely imprinted upon his understanding, This natural law teaches us the most important rules of morality, e.g., that homage is due to almighty God; that no man must wilfrily injure himself; that we must not do to others what we would not have others do to us; furthermore from this moral code certain inferences directly follow; these are the Ten Commandments of God (the observance of the Sabbath excepted).

 

Quote from: SJB

You can talk about how obviously a direct denial of defined dogma occurred, yet it's not that easy to show it in a convincing manner.

Not that easy? Unconvincing? Says who? To whom? You? The sspx?

Who have you "convinced" or "converted?" I'll bet you irritate people more than anything.

Quote from: SJB

Vatican II was diabolically ambiguous, craftily not directly saying anything, but undermining everything.

You think ambiguity excuses v-2?

Who said anything about "excusing V2?"

Pope Pius VI condemned ambiguity if there was heresy and error involved and said to hold the author(s) to the heretical/erroneous part.

This is what 90 something % (probably) of false traditionalists think.

They think, oh v-2 was ambiguous, these popes are ambiguous, so we can't really say anything.

Wrong. Those are the tactics of the modernists and heretics.

Except ambiguity confuses people. Crafty language deceives people. Of course this is the language of the Modernist. You don't even make any sense, little Cathedra.

Quote from: MyrnaM

Makes perfect sense to me, which is why in simple terms, when people do something wrong they sneak around, even a small child.  

What makes sense to you, Myrna, is simply what you WANT to believe.

Claiming that people can now save their souls by simply following the natural law is nothing short of heresy.

Even the more extreme BoDers would state that one needs to have a supernatural motive in doing so, which then gets tied up with the notion of false religions.

Let's say you have a Protestant who believes that God has revealed that we're saved by faith alone and that he's bound by his beliefs to convert Catholics.  He's following his conscience (which here is no longer a pure natural law thing but is based now on what he believes to have been revealed by God).  BoDers must posit that this person has formal motive of faith while being in material error, but the formal motive would ironically be uprooted if the state were to thwart this person acting according to his conscience.

Ladislaus, can you show us a catechism or theologian who teaches the REAL Catholic doctrine?

Quote from: SJB

Quote from: Cathedra

Quote from: SJB

You can talk about how obviously a direct denial of defined dogma occurred, yet it's not that easy to show it in a convincing manner.

Not that easy? Unconvincing? Says who? To whom? You? The sspx?

Who have you "convinced" or "converted?" I'll bet you irritate people more than anything.

Well 4 people so far, of the truth of sedevacantism, but 1 apostatized because she didn't want to change her lifestyle and the other 2 are like in-between, like they know it's true but aren't doing anything yet.

The first one i converted was a 19 year old pagan girl, an american, and when i say pagan i don't mean an indian or native. She is now the only traditional Catholic in her entire family and the only one that dressess modestly.

What about you? How many have you converted?

Actually it's more than 4 people. A few others in my family i have convinced of the fact of sedevacantism and they've acknowledged it but they don't want to abandon their sinful lifestyle so they don't really care either way. Others i have confronted and they just remain in an idle state doing nothing. They see the truth and know it's true but they don't want to give up the people. Their family members and their "friends" stop them from doing anything.

These novus ordos are idolaters now and they idolize the people and put them before God.

Quote from: Cathedra

Well 4 people so far, of the truth of sedevacantism, but 1 apostatized because she didn't want to change her lifestyle and the other 2 are like in-between, like they know it's true but aren't doing anything yet.

Well, it sounds like you've not converted anybody to the Catholic Faith. How many others have you alienated then just assumed they were "bad-willed?"

 

I already told you 1 fully converted to the Catholic Faith.

Now you go assuming good will. You don't even know the people im talking about. They are bad willed liars, heretics and apostates.

But of course you will assume i "alienated" them.

"Alienated" them from what? From the novus ordo apostasy? You bet i have. I got my parents to stop going to the new mess even though they don't really care about anything.

I know you think I'm a liberal, but that's just because you don't know what you're talking about, especially in the most critical areas.

Yes sure i know that you think you're so smart and an enlightened one.

Please specify in detail how is it i don't know what im talking about, especiually in the most critical areas.

Btw you didn't even answer: how many have you converted?

What I am trying to say is, I don't believe God created anyone just to be damned.  He puts into our hearts certain truths, and if someone who never, ever and will never hear about the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, but because of God's grace obeys his/her conscience and dies, can save their soul.  God does not hold anyone responsible for something impossible, and in the case I just sited, He will judge each person like that by the opportunities He gave them to know the truth.  

We are all created for heaven, but only a few actually make it.


From Who Shall Ascend?:

The idea of salvation outside the Church is opposed to the Doctrine of Predestination. This Doctrine means that from all eternity God has known who were His own. It is for the salvation of these, His Elect, that Providence has directed, does direct, and will always direct, the affairs of men and the events of history. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that happens, has not been taken into account by the infinite God, and woven into that tapestry in which is written the
history of the salvation of His saints. Central in this providential overlordship is the Church itself, which is the sacred implement which God devised for the rescuing of His beloved ones from the damnation decreed for those who would not. (Mt. 23:37).

The Doctrine of Divine Election means that only certain individuals will be saved. They will be saved primarily because, in the inscrutable omniscience of God, only certain individuals out of all the human family will respond to the grace of salvation. In essence, this doctrine refers to what in terms of human understanding and vision, is before and after, the past, the present, and the future, but what in God is certain knowledge and unpreventable fact, divine
action and human response. St. Paul summarized this doctrine with these words in his Letter to the Romans:

8:28 - And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints.

29 - For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren.

30 - And whom he predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.