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Also, just forget Father Feeney.  Stop trying to shoehorn him into some kind of plan that you're comfortable with, stop mulling over his statements and trying to make them click.  Just trust God, trust the Church, and you can't go wrong.

Yes, Vatican II didn't happen overnight.  But that doesn't mean the Church has allowed a heresy to be taught for five hundred years ( if you think implicit faith is a heresy ).

If you have a tendency to intellectual pride, as I do, you are ripe for incipient Feeneyism or some variant thereof.  THe devil is ALL over it, trust me.  Careful!  The most important thing is to read good books, trustworthy sources.  St. Alphonsus is accredited a great theologian by everyone; Father Feeney is not.

Jehanne said:

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However, pagans, even those who are completely inculpable of hearing the Gospel, will be damned on account of original sin.

I have joined the dark side, so here goes --

Theology has moved on past St. Thomas, just as St. Thomas moved on past St. Augustine.   This doesn't mean there are new revelations, but what was already revealed with the Apostles has been more fully explained.  

Trying to "go back to Augustine" is a recipe for heresy, as was already seen with the Jansenists and the Protestants.  Take it from someone who went down that route for a while ( wink ).

Theology doesn't add anything, it doesn't change, but it does become MORE CLEAR.  Recall that no one was going around teaching "original sin" until Augustine, he came up with that term, but at the same time, proof of it is clearly in the Gospels.  It just took God, using Augustine, to shed more light on it, centuries after the Apostles.

Tread carefully, since a Pope, Pius IX, has spoken of invincible ignorance in an encyclical, and by now it very well may be part of the Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.  Very, very few theologians of the last two hundred years would have denied that it is possible for God to save someone with an IMPLICIT FAITH, despite invincible ignorance.

Apart from that, we can have our opinions.  My opinion is that very, very few will be saved who have never heard the Gospel, it would be an extraordinary grace.  I mean very, very, VERY few.

The last Doctor of the Church is St. Alphonsus, in my opinion, he is the one who must be our guide in this hazy, confusing jumbled modern world.  I have prayed to him to help me avoid scruples and I believe he has been most effective.

Sorry, not buying the "clarity" argument, as it's a favorite of modernists, and Ratzinger in particular, to explain this and that novelty.  To be the faith, it must have either:

1.) Been a divine revelation
2.) Part of constant teaching of the Church throughout its history
3.) Solemly proclaimed by Pope, or Council with the Pope's approval

Moreover, any such clarification must not contradict previous expounded dogma.  That's my problem with arguing that this is an example of doctrinal evolution.  Augustine's works on matter, were never, to my knowledge accepted as being authoritative.  The Summa Theologica on the other hand, as I've stated in another thread, was according a place next to divine revelation of Scripture on the altar at the Council of Trent, and moreover was declared by Leo XIII to be the authoritative exposition of Christian doctrine, with no approbation to the necessity for explicit faith, or anything else therein contained.  Considering that this comes from Leo XIII, who himself would've been quite aware of his predecessor's work, I find this at odds with the belief that the exploration of implicit faith is binding.

True, except you could very well be seeing a contradiction where there is none.

I don't deny this is possible; on this matter, I have no particular stance and defer to the guidance of others.  I do not, however, think it can be much denied that Thomas is both firm and consistent in his doctrine on the need for explicit faith.