Yes, Ladislaus most Catholics have simply forgotten it, but undoubtedly in good faith, so a proper catechesis is necessary more than anything else. I know posters on this forum who previously had thought the Church teaches the other opinion and only had to hear the true teaching to embrace it gladly, like PereJoseph, for example. It would be great if all Catholics believed it today, and the lack of belief in it is one reason for the loss of missionary zeal, and opens up the broad path to indifferentism. Christ becomes for most modern Catholics no longer the only Savior of all, but just one way among many, since pagans can be saved. Christians always believed those who died as pagans were lost, even those who lacked nothing to be Christian other than hearing the Faith, that is why they, like St. Francis Xavier whom you cite, made every effort to labor at any cost to bring souls to the knowledge of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Fr. Jean Marc Rulleau, SSPX, mentions it was the teaching of St. Thomas that not only faith in God the rewarder is necessary but also at least in the Trinity and Incarnation, to have Catholic Faith and be saved. Fr. hαɾɾιson, who writes for the Remnant, also teaches an implicit faith doesn't suffice for salvation. These are the few traditional priests today who hold to what St. Augustine, St. Thomas, St. Alphonsus etc held. Theologians who follow St. Alphonsus exactly on this question include Jone,  Noldin, Prümmer, Tanquerey, Van Noort, McHugh & Callan and Merkelbach among others in favor of faith in the Trinity and Incarnation being necessary as a means. I've followed your other thread on Vatican II, there we will discuss whether a Protestant or Orthodox can be a "material heretic or schismatic". The question is what is the minimum necessary for justification, and so to enter, or remain in the Church, if baptized.

-Regarding the points on which explicit knowledge is required as the indispensable means of justification, this certainly extends to the belief that God exists and that He shows Himself the Rewarder of them that seek Him.  This amount of belief is declared by St. Paul to be essential, if any one will please God. (Hebrews xi. 6) The Greek word translated Rewarder means literally the payer of wages: the "seeking" God is therefore the application to enter His service; and the absolute necessity of the knowledge specified will be readily understood, if any one is to earn a reward.So far there is universal agreement, and in fact the necessity that we have stated is not open to doubt, for Pope Innocent XI condemned the assertion that explicit belief that God rewards is not necessary (prop. 22; Denz. 1039).  

There is a controversy whether St. Paul, in the passage quoted, intended to mention all that is necessary, or whether explicit belief in the Trinity and Incarnation is required.  At one time, a few writers were found to maintain that this explicit belief not only is necessary, but always has been so; this is now held by no one, but many followers of the Thomist school hold that it has been necessary since the revelation was brought by Christ, although under the Old Law it was not requisite.  These found their opinion upon the language of Scripture, which frequently speaks of faith in Christ as the essential condition of salvation; and to believe in Christ means to believe that He is God and Man.  

Some modern theologians have fallen into error, against the teaching of the Fathers and Doctors, because they have great difficulty in answering the objection of what happens to the invincibly ignorant pagan adult who has not heard of Christ. But St. Thomas, following the Fathers, already answered that if someone followed the natural law and sought to obey God and know and do His will, he would not fail to be enlightened by God about Christ.

Quote from: Ladislaus

Traditional Catholics have had their minds and their faith poisoned by the very Pelagian subjectivism which led to most of the problems with Vatican II.  Yet the reject the errors and heresies of Vatican II.  But these "errors and heresies" are NONE OTHER than the same ones that they themselves hold.

Just my opinion...

I think that most "traditional" Catholics are only concerned with the Mass.  It is obvious, to me anyway, that when speaking with most of these folks they lack an understanding of basic catechism.  Most "trads" don't even have the slightest clue who Father Feeney is/was.  If you happen to find a "trad" who has heard of Father Feeney, they automatically regurgitate the nonsense that they've heard from others (including priests, yes-even SSPX priests).

I think that there is a lot of good content and a good discussion being had here, but for most "trads", it's too far over their head, which is a shame.  

I completely agree with this.  Most Traditional Catholics were turned off by the Novus Ordo liturgical abuses.  Perhaps they'll go as far as to have a correct aversion to the Novus Ordo heteropraxis (such as the Assissi meeting or whatnot) ... based on their sensus fidei.  But they couldn't articulate the theological reasons for dissent.  And, you know what, Catholic lay people have NEVER been expected to be theologians or to understand distinctions and whatnot.  So the fault lies with the Bishops and priests.  God will be less severe in judging confused lay people.

That's another problem I have with the modernist approach to EENS prevalent today.  When the Church teaches "There's absolutely no salvation outside the Church.", people simply need to take that at face value, with the disposition of children.  I teach my children that only Catholics can be saved, and they take that at face value, as meaning exactly what it says.  For the "anti-Feeneyites" to claim that in order to "properly understand" the dogma one needs to be able to regurgitate five pages of distinctions and qualifications is absolutely repugnant to me, especially when the distinctions involve turning EENS into the OPPOSITE OF EENS, and they accuse US of "heresy" for not understanding that the Church meant to define the exact opposite of what it said.  So if you believe that Muslims, Jєωs, pagans, heretics, and schismatics CANNOT be saved, then they consider you a "heretic", despite the fact that one of the dogmatic definitions SAID EXACTLY THAT.  So when Traditional Bishops (Lefebvre and Fellay) talk about how Jєωs and Muslims CAN be saved, how is that not a SCANDAL against the faith and a source of confusion to Catholics?  Archbishop Lefebvre made his comments in a book "Letter to Confused Catholics".  So it doesn't confuse Catholics when the Church dogma reads "Jєωs/Muslims CANNOT be saved" to teach that Jєωs/Muslims CAN be saved?  This confusion is completely diabolical.  Our speech here needs to be "Yes, yes." and "No, no."  When asked whether anyone other than a Catholic can be saved, the answer must be a simple, direct, unwavering, unqualified "NO"; not, "well, what this really means is, yes and no, and actually in the end yes."  Holy Office under St. Pius X affirmed that when asked Catholics MUST respond that infidels cannot be saved.  How many Traditional Catholics today obey this directive?

I've followed your other thread on Vatican II, there we will discuss whether a Protestant or Orthodox can be a "material heretic or schismatic". The question is what is the minimum necessary for justification, and so to enter, or remain in the Church, if baptized.

Where is this?

Glad that one of your professors upheld it. As for short-hand, Ladislaus, we can call it Thomism. Both proponents and detractors typically style it such, even though it is nothing other than the consecrated Tradition of the Fathers that St. Thomas merely collected and reaffirmed. It is also upheld in various Creeds taken by the Popes, that without the Catholic Faith no one is saved, and the Catholic Faith includes explicit faith at least in Jesus and His divinity.

“Some theologians hold that the belief of the two other articles - the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Trinity of Persons - is strictly commanded but not necessary, as a means without which salvation is impossible; so that a person inculpably ignorant of them may be saved. But according to the more common and truer opinion, the explicit belief of these articles is necessary as a means without which no adult can be saved."

That Pope St. Pius X was a Thomist should in my opinion be sufficient for all informed traditional Catholics to be one. It is also taught by some manuals, as mentioned above. You criticize traditional priests for not teaching it today, but I think you forget this doctrine has fallen into confusion over the course of the last century, one reason for which is that many people think Suprema Haec favored the minority opinion, and others, such as Fenton, who gave it up not after Suprema Haec but after Vatican II. Today, there are only few priests, like your professor, who still read and learn entirely from the old manuals, and adhere strictly to Thomism. Some recent manuals also expressly favored the minority opinion, especially after Quanto Conficiamur Moerore.

But I've never known anyone who favors the minority opinion answer the proofs offered by St. Alphonsus, Fenton and Mueller, including the passages we've seen from Tradition, Pope Benedict XIV and Pope St. Pius X. They are a sufficient proof of Thomism, it is Tradition, it is tried and tested, and has good fruits.

we answer the Semipelagians, and say, that infidels who arrive at the use of reason, and are not converted to the Faith, cannot be excused ...  St. Thomas explains it, when he says, that if anyone was brought up in the wilds, or even among brute beasts, and if he followed the law of natural reason, to desire what is good, and to avoid what is wicked, we should certainly believe either that God, by an internal inspiration, would reveal to him what he should believe, or would send someone to preach the Faith to him, as he sent Peter to Cornelius.  Thus, then, according to the Angelic Doctor, God, at least remotely, gives to infidels, who have the use of reason, sufficient grace to obtain salvation, and this grace consists in a certain instruction of the mind, and in a movement of the will, to observe the natural law; and if the infidel cooperates with this movement, observing the precepts of the law of nature, and abstaining from grievous sins, he will certainly receive, through the merits of Jesus Christ, the grace proximately sufficient to embrace the Faith, and save his soul.”

There are many known examples where God has done extraordinary things to bring infidels to Christ, that have always surprised Christian missionaries.

Claude-Charles Dallet wrote of Caius of Korea in A history of the church in Korea, "His history proves, in a dazzling way, that God would rather make a miracle than abandon an infidel who follows the lights of his conscience, and seeks the truth with an upright and docile heart.

In The Victories of the Martyrs by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, it is said that "One day during sleep it seemed to him that the house was on fire: a little while afterwards a young child of ravishing beauty appeared to him, and announced to him that he would soon meet what he desired; at the same time he felt himself quite well, though he had been sick. Despairing of seeing among the bonzes the light for which he was longing, he resolved to leave them." ...

While he was instructed, one of the priests showed him a tableau representing Jesus Christ, at which Caius is said to have exclaimed,

    "Oh! Voila! Here is who appeared to me in my cave, and who foretold all that happened to me."

As far as the possibility of material heresy in one who believes in Christ is concerned, almost all authorities admit it. Fr. Mueller writes, “Unquestionably, authorities in any number may be cited to prove – what nobody disputes – that pertinacity in rejecting the authority of the Church is essential to formal or culpable heresy" citing among others, St. Augustine who writes, "But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics. Were it not that I believe you to be such, perhaps I would not write to you."

So, the case of a person who believes in Jesus (Trinity and Incarnation) and does not yet cling to any heresy is slightly different. He can for a short time be in a heresy that is purely material, which is not heresy properly so called, but only error. However, there is a great danger of him clinging obstinately to some heresy shortly after adulthood, or of otherwise falling into mortal sin and being unable to recover grace after that. Most theologians taught that a child coming to the age of reason in a non-Catholic sect can only remain for a short time within the Church. After that, he will likely formally become a heretic.

See also Fr. Arnold Damen, a friend of Fr. Mueller, who personally received some 13,000 Protestant converts into the Church, say something similar below.

http://www.olrl.org/apologetics/one_church.shtml

bump due to relevance

Quote from: Ladislaus

Traditional Catholics have had their minds and their faith poisoned by the very Pelagian subjectivism which led to most of the problems with Vatican II.  Yet the reject the errors and heresies of Vatican II.  But these "errors and heresies" are NONE OTHER than the same ones that they themselves hold.

Just my opinion...

I think that most "traditional" Catholics are only concerned with the Mass.  

Again, I don't know that I agree about "most."  But I do think that too many trads do not understand how integral the Mass is to everything else, including dogma and spirituality, and that artificial (or ignorant) separation makes it appear that they are "only concerned with the Mass."

Quote from: MMagdala

Quote from: Ladislaus

It was the UNANIMOUS TEACHING OF THE CHURCH FATHERS that faith in Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary for salvation.  Consequently, this was clearly part of the Deposit of Revelation and a DOGMA.  To say otherwise is HERESY.  Anyone who says that Muslims, Jєωs, pagans, or any manner of infidel can be saved DENY CATHOLIC DOGMA.  Tragically, most "Traditional Catholics" believe this today.  

Apparently I know the only Trads whom you've never met.  The idea that idolizing substitutes for Christ or eliminating Him from belief is harmonious with salvation is not something I have run across in trad circles, so I don't know what you mean by "most."   Do you mean most you have personally encountered?

The SSPX and sede groups ALL teach/defend in their seminaries and articles that non-Catholics can be saved via this Rewarder God route. Like the poster said before, this subject is too deep for most trads. However, for those that label the believers of a strict EENS,  as Feeneyites, it is a different story. If you press them, you will find that they all believe that Buddhists, Muslim, Jєωs can be saved without explicit belief in Christ and the Trinity.

P.S.- This belief/response takes a long time to get them to admit, therefore, you will only get to it on a forum debate and over a long time. The reason being that they are averse to revealing it.

I don't know where you get your idea from, since all my life including today in CMRI, the way it is explained to me, is someone professing a man-made religion can only be saved if they convert to the True religion, meaning only God can judge the soul because of this.  To say otherwise about MOST is an outright lie, unless of course, you count the Modernist who believes ALL are saved.  The difference is the  way it is interpreted, the Feeneyites mind-set is; they want  to judge the soul and if they do not see with their own eyes this conversion, it pleases them to send the person to Hell, by their noise they seem to glory in this thinking.  In so doing they forget they will be judged more harshly themselves, I fear, without mercy.  

You might want to read the book of Romans, concerning the Jєωs and how God will graft them back. On second thought you better not it will anger the Feeneyite if you consider yourself one.