Dan in Las Vegas Nevada, listening on-- Nevada, excuse me--listening on Immaculate
Heart Radio, you are on with Jimmy Akin. Okay, thank you very much. The question I
have today, I listen to your station quite a bit, is, being that you of course
are a Catholic station, I hear things that are kind of a mixed signal to me, from
time to time, and, you know, I want to be saved more than anything else, it's like
if I miss Heaven then I've missed it all. The question I have is, occasionally
statements...well first of all statements will be said in a negative manner, let's
say somebody's got a daughter that wants this Catholic, and they want to start
dating a Protestant boy, and that's really, you know, put down and
said, "Nope, no, you can't do that, and that's wrong," and on and on, but I'll hear
things again at another time regarding Protestants, they'll say well you know
they may be okay. So my question is, I guess, is, if
Protestants may be all right, what is the plan of
salvation that the Catholics believe in that makes it to where Protestants may be
saved? Okay. Just for my own clarity,
and other people in the audience who may be wondering, do you come from a
Protestant background yourself, sir? Yes. Okay.
Well, the Catholic understanding is that Protestants are our brothers and sisters
in Christ. So all Christians who profess faith in Christ and who are properly
baptized are Christians, were put into a relationship with Jesus that
Scripture describes in terms of being members of his Body. Different people
have different degrees of, or forms of, incorporation into His Body, though. And
the goal is for everyone to be fully incorporated into Jesus, so we're united
with Him in the most ways possible. So that includes things like having the
fullness of the Christian faith, understanding and accepting all of
Jesus's teachings. It also includes things like receiving all of the
Sacraments that he would have us receive. Not just baptism, but the other
Sacraments as well, and in the Catholic view there are seven sacraments. It also
includes being fully united with His Church, because Jesus said, "I will build
my Church--" singular, not plural-- "and the gates of Hell will not prevail
against it." So Jesus established a Church in the 1st century, and it's continued
down to the present day. And we also know that that Church is a visible Church,
because he gave it leaders, like Saint Peter and the other Apostles, and the
other ministers that they appointed to lead the Church in their absence, and so
there has been a single visible communion of believers in Jesus that's
existed all the way from the 1st century to today. And if you look around and say,
"Well, ok, who would that be," the Catholic Church fits that description, and other
churches such as those who come from the Protestant community, they don't fit that.
They still share many elements of grace, and have many wonderful aspects about
them; they they honor Scripture, they may have a slight difference about, you know,
what some of the books of the Bible should be, but they still honor God's
Word, they believe in Jesus, they believe in the Holy Trinity, they have a valid
Sacrament of Baptism, and they have a lot of elements of grace and sanctification.
And so that would explain the language that you've heard on this station,
whether on this program or other programs, that, you know, talks about our
Protestant friends in positive terms. At the same time, we have to acknowledge
that, you know, there are some differences between Protestants and Catholics, and
from a Catholic perspective, those differences aren't a good
thing, just like, from a Protestant perspective, the differences between
Protestant Catholics wouldn't be a good thing.
You know, Jesus wants us to all agree, and since we have some different doctrines
and some different practices on some fundamental matters, that obviously isn't
something that's pleasing to Jesus. So the question then becomes, "What if
someone knowingly refuses to accept something that Jesus willed us to have?"
If someone knew that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus and that He wanted
all of his followers to be united to it, and they said, "You know, I'm just not
going to do that. I know Jesus wants me to do it, I know that he prayed for
Christian unity on the night of the Last Supper, I know that's a high on his
priority list but I'm just not going to do that," well, then you'd have to question
whether that person actually has a saving relationship with God, because
he's turning his back on something that's fundamental and very important to
Jesus, and therefore it looks, at least from outward appearances, like he's
cutting himself off from the means of grace that Jesus gave us. And so that
person would be in spiritual jeopardy. But that's a different position than a
person who doesn't say that. You could have someone who, let's say, was
raised in a Protestant community, may have heard that Catholics believed Jesus
founded the Catholic Church, but they don't KNOW that; that hasn't
been proven to them, they haven't seen sufficient evidence for that, and so
through no fault of their own, they've never joined the Catholic Church.
But they would if they knew that this was Jesus's Church. If they knew--I
know a lot of people who are in the Protestant community who would say, "Oh yeah, if I
was convinced the Catholic Church was the one founded by Jesus, I would join it
today." Right. Well, that person is not deliberately cutting himself off from
from what Jesus would have him experience. He's open to what Jesus would
have him experience, and he's already experiencing many elements of grace and
sanctification. But he's not deliberately refusing to do something he knows Jesus
wants him to do. And so that person, even though they haven't been fully
incorporated into the Catholic Church, they're still in a saving relationship
with God. And so, if someone is not Catholic, through no fault of their own,
but they're otherwise responding to God's grace, then they'll be saved. But if
a person, whether they're Catholic or not, refuses to do something of fundamental
importance, like if it could be not joining the Catholic Church, could be
leaving, it could be any number of other grave things, like go out and commit
murder or adultery; well, you're deliberately defying the
will of Christ in a fundamental matter there, and that will result in you being
lost unless you repent. So everybody, both Protestant and Catholic, needs to be
open to the grace that God wants us to have, and needs to be willing to respond
to the call of Christ in all of these very fundamental matters. In terms of the
language that you mentioned about some problems when a Catholic is dating a
non-Catholic, well, the Church actually--I don't know what show you were listening
to, and so I don't know what was said, but the Catholic Church acknowledges it's
quite possible for Catholics and non-Catholics to date and to marry, it's
a situation called a mixed marriage, and there are special provisions in the
Catholic Church for handling mixed marriages. It's something that happens
all the time, and the Church acknowledges that it can be profitable and they can
have successful marriages. But there are also some practical concerns, because--and
this is something I can speak to personally, because before I was a
Catholic, I was in a mixed marriage--and there's a spiritual barrier that's there
between you and your spouse when you're in a mixed marriage, because
you don't agree, at least fully, you don't agree fully on religion, which is the
most important issue in life. And not being united with your spouse on that
most important issue in life--not being fully united--is a source of pain, at
least if you take your religion seriously.
And it can also pose practical difficulties. And so after I became Catholic and after
my wife passed on, I said for myself, for practical reasons and for these reasons,
I'm not going to go into another mixed marriage.
If I marry again, it will be to a Catholic woman. Because I'd experienced
the pain of taking my religion seriously and being in a mixed marriage, and so the
Church acknowledges that there can be successful mixed marriages, it allows for
mixed marriages, but there are also some practical challenges to be met in those
situations that I can understand why parents would, you know, tell their
children, "You know, I'd really rather you date somebody who's of your own faith, so
that you can be spared these issues." Thank you Dan, it's an honor to have you
listening there in Las Vegas, please call anytime.