A small booklet about Fr Casey was floating around my chapel. The author was especially impressed with Fr Casey's "charitable" spirit, and related the "edifying" example of him telling an atheist he didn't need to believe in God to be saved.

Well, I suspect that just as with Padre Pio, there are probably myriad apocryphal stories and "sayings" attributed to Father Casey by people dishonestly trying to promote their own agenda.

If he did say that, then, well, let's just say there's a reason he remained a "simplex" priest ... since he couldn't pass seminary studies, and, having been poisoned by the prevalent EENS-denial being taught almost universally in US seminaries, just because he was holy doesn't mean he was infallible or omniscient, and may even have been rather ignorant about many things.  If not, he wouldn't have been just barely ordained and kept in simplex state for the duration of his priesthood.

Fr Solanus wasn't "slow" - he was just instructed in a German speaking seminary and didn't know the language, so they labeled him stupid. His situation certainly was stupid however.

A small booklet about Fr Casey was floating around my chapel. The author was especially impressed with Fr Casey's "charitable" spirit, and related the "edifying" example of him telling an atheist he didn't need to believe in God to be saved.

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I find it a bit hard to believe this story is true. I doubt any Catholic would have said such a thing before Vatican 2, let alone a religious. This sounds like modernist lies.

If you can find this story in a pamphlet or book about him written before Vatican 2, that contains an Imprimatur, I might give it some credence.

I find it a bit hard to believe this story is true. I doubt any Catholic would have said such a thing before Vatican 2, let alone a religious. This sounds like modernist lies.

If you can find this story in a pamphlet or book about him written before Vatican 2, that contains an Imprimatur, I might give it some credence.

That December Karam recorded into the Center Log some of the statements he had heard Fr. Kelly make.
Among them:


It is possible for any man to be saved outside the Catholic
Church.

Any man who would say that there is no salvation outside
the Church is a heretic.

If you say that there is no salvation outside the Catholic
Church, you are a heretic and cannot save your soul.

The Catholic Church never defined or even suggested that
there is no salvation outside it. No pope, no council, no Doctor
of the Church ever taught that no one can be saved outside the
Catholic Church.

Not only is it possible to be saved outside the Catholic
Church, it is even possible to be saved while being an enemy of
the Church and actively fighting against it.

St. Paul was not sinning while persecuting Christ and
his Church.

The dogma that there is no salvation outside the Church
[this was said after Karam pointed out to Fr. Kelly that it was
a defined dogma] applies exclusively to Catholics who have
personally left the Church.

When a pope or council, or when a Doctor of the Church
says that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, the
meaning of this statement depends on what is meant by the
Catholic Church.

Baptism is not necessary for salvation.

Many people who are totally ignorant of Christ and His
Church can be saved because their ignorance excuses them and
confers on them baptism of desire.

A person can have baptism of desire, even if he is ignorant of
the baptism of water, even if he refuses to be baptized by water.

~Garry Potter, After The Boston Heresy Case, pg.102

If Orestes Brownson and Fr. Michael Muller C.Ss.R needed to fight erroneous EENS interpretations +/-150 years ago it is not hard to believe that, by the mid-20th century, many Catholics held that anyone could be saved..even an atheist, as long as they were a "good person".
Ask any Novus Ordite if an atheist (or any other non-Catholic) can be saved and the answer will invariably be some form of "yes".
Ask any "trad" Catholic if a Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Protestant, etc. can be saved and the answer will, more often than one would like, be some form of "yes".
There are obviously degrees of EENS denial but this sort of thing does not happen overnight. I have read that Fr. Muller's writings on EENS (he does not deny BOD or BOB) came under fire from Catholics when he wrote them in the late 1800s

This is not to say I believe that Fr Casey said such a thing. I don't

So, that was in the Diocesan seminary of Milwaukee, his home town.  That wasn't the case with the Capuchin's in Detroit, but he struggled also with Latin and just couldn't make the grace.  Now, granted, probably half the Traditional priests out there today could not have made it back in his day, since many of the classes were conducted in Latni and were not easy.

German and latin