Quote from: SJB

I understand. The Ven. Pope Pius IX didn't contradict himself, that would be the Catholic understanding of what is written.

The point is that it looks like it and i just wanted to see if there was an actual argument that could explain what he said, but i guess there isn't. I suppose you can only say that you have to take it in the context of the other 2 times he mentioned I.I.

Btw, and im not saying that he didn't really deserve it, but Venerable was a title given to him by the Novus Ordo.

Quote from: Ladislaus

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience — those too may achieve eternal salvation" (Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, 16).

This could have been lifted from Tanquerey or any of the pre Vatican II Latin-writing modernists.

Quote from: Ladislaus

SJB, not once have you engaged in an actual rational argument.  You just paste stuff in and then demand counter-citations.

If you don't believe the citation from Vatican II essentially echoes the pre-Vatican II teaching, then please make the appropriate distinctions.

SJB, do you have something to offer on this? Let's get this thread back on track. I'd like to see a meaningful exchange between yourself and Ladislaus.

Quote from: Cathedra

That one sentence seems to say those in I.I. can be saved by default.

You are reading it incorrectly.

Salvation outside of the Church is impossible only for those who know the Catholic Church to be the true Church, and yet refuse to join it; or who by their own grievous fault persist in unbelief or error.

Handbook of the Christian Religion – for the use of advanced students and the educated laity.
Wilhelm Wilmers, S.J. (1891)[/b]

We read in the Acts (10), that an angel was sent to the Centurion; and it is worthy of observation that the Centurion received the Holy Ghost, and therefore became a member of the Church, before he received the baptism of water.

Christian Apologetics – A Rational Exposition and Defense of the Catholic Religion
W.Devivier, S.J.

Even the present Catechism says that Catholics have the right and duty to evangelize all human beings:

Quote

848 "Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men."

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/848.htm

So, we baptize those who we can and lead them to the One True Faith, and as for the truly "invincibly ignorant," the One and Triune God will deal with them according to His Own Perfection.

This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism(124) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.

Quote from: SJB

...a man who hasn't the Faith, whether he is guilty for that or not, cannot be saved.  This is de fide.

Not according to the Catholic Encyclopedia it aint.

You're exactly right about this.  That's why I keep pointing out that invincible ignorance CANNOT save, i.e. it's not salvific, but merely exculpatory (it excuses from guilt).  Invincible ignorance can do no more than to excuse from the actual sin of disbelief.

Once you get past that misconception, then I keep pressing on WHAT then is the mechanism for salvation of some pagan who follows the natural law?  For the longest time all theologians taught that explicit knowledge of the basic revealed supernatural truths of the faith were REQUIRED in order to have supernatural faith.  Without a minimal material supernatural convent there could be no "formal" faith.  Then very cleverly the enemies of the faith reduced it to just believing in a God who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.  So, this way any pagan living in the woods who never heard about the Holy Trinity or Jesus Christ would save himself by following the lights of natural reason, since the existence of God can be known with certainty through natural reason (de fide Vatican I).  But this renders meaningless the entire Church and the Incarnation, reducing the Church, as even Archbishop Lefebvre stated it, to some vague instrumental cause of salvation.