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Can Protestants be saved without becoming Catholic? we know some Protestants are baptized as infants. Justification is not the issue here. The issue is whether they can obtain the special grace the Doctors and the Church call final perseverance (the grace promised for e.g. by the Sacred Heart to all Catholic Christians to keep the Nine First Fridays, and by the Immaculate Heart Herself to all deeply devoted to Her by the Rosary, who keep the First Saturdays), a special form of which is the grace (since it is a grace, this means God alone gives it, and He can choose not to give it, unless Prots become Catholic first) never to commit mortal sin again (and this wondrous and most precious grace - which we should desire for ourselves and for our children with all our hearts, the Twin Hearts together promised to all who make a Great Double Novena of 9 First Fridays and 9 First Saturdays together, after Sacramental Confession and a good Preparation - please see http://lapieta.tripod.com/dnov_ena.html for more on that) which corresponds to a high state of merit, a high degree of grace. If a person attains this level of grace, especially in infancy or while still quite young, as Jesus so earnestly urges in the link, he can well hope to have a rich crown of merit in heaven.

In the Gospel, Jesus seems to plainly connect eating His flesh with obtaining final perseverance and eternal life. For again and again, He refers to Himself as the Bread of life, and He speaks of those who ate manna but lost their souls, but promises those who devoutly and frequently receive this Bread of the Eucharist will obtain eternal life. He says they will live and grow in union with Him as He is one with the Father. And it is the privilege of Catholic Christians alone to receive of the Holy Eucharist in Holy Mass by Holy Communion. At the same time, He threatens those who refuse to do with eternal damnation.

6:47-59 "Amen, amen, I say unto you: He that believeth in Me hath everlasting life. I am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert: and are dead. This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven: that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living Bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever: and the Bread that I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us His flesh to eat?

Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed: and My blood is drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me: and I in him. As the living Father hath sent Me and I live by the Father: so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. This is the Bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eateth this bread shall live for ever.

(amen amen dico vobis qui credit in me habet vitam aeternam ego sum panis vitae patres vestri manducaverunt in deserto manna et mortui sunt hic est panis de caelo descendens ut si quis ex ipso manducaverit non moriatur ego sum panis vivus qui de caelo descendi si quis manducaverit ex hoc pane vivet in aeternum et panis quem ego dabo caro mea est pro mundi vita litigabant ergo Iudaei ad invicem dicentes quomodo potest hic nobis carnem suam dare ad manducandum dixit ergo eis Iesus amen amen dico vobis nisi manducaveritis carnem Filii hominis et biberitis eius sanguinem non habetis vitam in vobis qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem habet vitam aeternam et ego resuscitabo eum in novissimo die caro enim mea vere est cibus et sanguis meus vere est potus qui manducat meam carnem et bibit meum sanguinem in me manet et ego in illo sicut misit me vivens Pater et ego vivo propter Patrem et qui manducat me et ipse vivet propter me hic est panis qui de caelo descendit non sicut manducaverunt patres vestri manna et mortui sunt qui manducat hunc panem vivet in aeternum)

So, can Protestants be saved, as Protestants? Can we agree at least that it is a moral impossibility to obtain final perseverance, without Holy Mass, without Holy Communion, without Eucharistic adoration - and especially when one has contempt and despises these things?

Hi, Jayne. No, I believe you are mistaken. I am asking whether Protestants who do not receive the Body and Blood of the Lord can be saved? we must consider that, at least, a moral impossibility, on par with someone being raised from the dead. Fr. Mueller says Protestants who die as Protestants will be lost; the only possibility, therefore, of their salvation is a hidden deathbed conversion unknown to us. This can happen, and it will be good if it happens, and we should pray for it to happen; since it too if it happens, will not happen without the prayers of the Church, and without the soul renouncing his or her Protestant errors. 

Q. What is the meaning of the word heretic?
A. Heretic is a Greek word, and means simply a chooser.
Q. Who, then, is a heretic?
A. A baptized person who chooses among the doctrines proposed to him by the Roman Catholic Church, to accept such doctrines as they please him, and to reject the rest.
Q. How do we know that heretics are not saved?
A. Because St. Paul the Apostle assures us that such a chooser or heretic is condemned. "A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, avoid; knowing that he who is such an one is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned by his own judgment." Tit. iii. 10, 11.
Q. Are there any other reasons to show that heretics, or Protestants who die out of the Roman Catholic Church, are not saved?
A. There are several. They cannot be saved because
1. They have no divine faith.
2. They make a liar of Jesus Christ, of the holy Ghost, and of the Apostles.
3. They have no faith in Christ.
4. They fell away from the true Church of Christ.
5. They are too proud to submit to the Pope, the Vicar of Christ.
6. They cannot perform any good works whereby they can attain heaven.
7. They do not receive the Body and Blood of Christ.
8. They die in their sins.
9. They ridicule and blaspheme the Mother of God and His Saints.
10. They slander the spouse of Jesus Christ—the Catholic Church.
Q. Why is it that Protestants have no divine faith?
A. Because they do not believe God in those whom He has appointed to teach.
Q. Who is the teacher among Protestants?
A. Every one is his own teacher, his own law-giver and judge in matters of religion.
Q. Was there ever a time when God left men to themselves, to fashion their own religion, to invent their own creed, and their own form of worship?
A. No; from the beginning of the world God established on earth a visible teaching authority, to which it was the bounden duty of every man to submit.
Q. What follows from this?
A. That Protestants, by refusing to submit to that divine teaching authority, cannot have divine faith.
Q. What is the act of faith of a Protestant?
A. O my God, I believe nothing except what my own private judgment tells me to believe; therefore I believe that I can interpret Thy written word—the Holy Scriptures—as I choose. I believe that the Pope is anti-Christ; that any man can be saved, provided he is an honest man; I believe that faith alone is sufficient for salvation; that good works, and works of penance, and the confession of sins are not necessary, etc.
Q. Is this an act of divine faith?
A. It is rather a great blasphemy against God; it is the language of Luther, who, according to his own avowal, learned it from the devil ...

Q. Who were the first Protestants?

A. 1. Martin Luther, a bad German priest, who left his convent, broke the solemn vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which he had made to God, married a nun, and became the founder of the Lutherans.
2. Henry VIII., a bad Catholic king of England, who murdered his wives, and founded the Episcopalian or Anglican Church.
3. John Calvin, a wicked French Catholic, who was the founder of the Calvinists.
4. John Knox, a bad Scottish priest, who was the founder of the Presbyterians or Puritans.

Q. What great crime did these wicked men commit?

A. They rebelled against the Church of Jesus Christ, and caused a great number of their Catholic countrymen to follow their bad example.

Q. What will be the punishment of those who wilfully rebel against the Holy Catholic Church?

A. Like Lucifer, and the other rebellious angels, they will be cast into the everlasting flames of hell.

Q. Who has assured us of this?

A. Jesus Christ Himself, the Son of God.

Q. What are His words?

A. "He who will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican." MAtt. xviii. 17.

Q. What does Jesus Christ tell us in these words?

A. He tells us plainly that he who is out of His Church, and does not obey her, is before Him as the heathen and publican.

Q. What follows from this?

A. It follows that, as the heathen is damned, so, also, all those will be damned who die out of the Church of Jesus Christ.

http://www.catholicapologetics.info/thechurch/catechism/familiar.htm

When EENS was preached like this to Protestants, there were innumerable conversions. If there were 10,000 missionary Priests in America or most nations today with the same spirit and missionary zeal as a Fr. Michael Mueller or a Fr. Arnold Damen had, that nation would be converted to the Church in a matter of decades. They made 10s of thousands of converts. One reason for unbelief in the plain sense of the doctrine - that all must be converted to the Faith and become Catholic Christians to be saved - is because it requires much prayer, work and effort on our part. If we convince ourselves non-Catholics are saved in their ignorance, we can just hope they remain blissfully ignorant. That is mistaken imho. The traditional approach has great fruits and we should return to it.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who has said strict EENS of this kind is a legitimate position although the Holy Father himself does not believe it as such, also comes very close to discerning one major reason for the loss of missionary zeal among Catholics - "The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever. After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation." https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-emeritus-benedict-says-church-is-now-facing-a-two-sided-deep-crisis Would you disagree with him, Jayne?

Fr. Michael Mueller says clearly that as the Lord tells us to treat heretics as heathen, the same applies to them.

My point, Xavier, is that you are not framing the question properly.  It's like asking "Can circles be squares?"  Even if, for the sake of argument, we were to say that Protestants in a state of invincible ignorance could be saved, they would not be saved as Protestants. In such a hypothetical situation, they would be saved in spite of considering themselves Protestants. From God's perspective, they would be Catholic.

If you are trying to discuss whether there are any circuмstances under which a Protestant could be saved, you can't phrase it as you have, including the expression "as Protestant".  Protestantism is not a saving religion.  Nobody could possibly be saved as a Protestant.