CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The doctrines the Church will not change lead to religious liberty being put up for debate.  This shows it is not really keen on allowing freedoms to other faiths.  It shows that even if the Church has drifted from its God and theology and got easy going it cannot last. The Church says that truth is the truth and if you hurt it you hurt yourself and are thus prepared to drag others down with you.

The following spells out Catholic doctrine on religious liberty.  Such teaching is still allowed though it is spoken up for less since Vatican II.

We are saved by faith, hope and charity. Faith is believing what God has revealed. Faith involves not just believing what is taught by the teaching authority God set up for us in the Church but living that faith out as well. If you really believe the doctor can save you, you will do what he says. And the Church is the doctor and our mother. Real faith gives hope, hope is trust in God that he will do the things he has promised and it saves us from fear. Because we have faith and hope we will be able to have charity and charity is a gift from God that enables us to love others for God loves them. Faith, hope and charity are different but inseparable. It is not possible to have one without the other. We can only achieve holiness properly in the true Church of God. Whoever is disobedient to the Holy See whether knowingly or not cannot be as good a person as the one who obeys and understands that when Rome speaks it is God who speaks.
 
PROTESTANTS CAN'T BE COUNTED AS CHRISTIANS
 
Protestants are not Christians. They proclaim salvation by faith alone which means that even if they sin after they can still be saved without repenting them for God has paid for their sins on the cross. So they have a religion that rewards sin. They deny this for they say God paid but as far as they are concerned it’s the same as if they were rewarded. They get away with their sins.
 
Protestants believe that everybody does nothing except sin. They say everything you do when you are not “saved” is a serious sin deserving Hell forever. They claim that only the saved can do real good works, everybody else only pretends to do them. They don’t believe in venial sin, sin which is serious but not serious enough to merit Hell and which does not stop one being saved if one who is saved dies. Their doctrine is most uncharitable and harsh. They call us liars for rejecting their salvation and knowing we can do good works with the help of God.
 
Since they say all sin deserves Hell and they admit that they sin a lot every day it follows that their religion is causing them to commit mortal sin for he who intends to commit mortal sin commits it. Their salvation must be impossible unless they convert to belief in venial sin and turn to God.
 
There is nothing wrong with being friendly towards Protestants but to associate with them on any religious level is sinful. It is converting them that counts not praying with them.
 
STATE MAY BE CONTROLLED BY THE CHURCH
 
The state always enforces some philosophy on its subjects. For example, a socialist will impose many unchristian values on the people. Reason says then that the state should enforce only the true philosophy. If you are a Buddhist then this is Buddhism for you. If you are a Roman Catholic then it is the Roman Catholic faith that should be imposed. We are not saying the faith should be forced on the unwilling. We are saying that because the Roman Catholic Church is the one true faith then all the subjects of the state should be forbidden access to contraception or divorce or heretical writings. The state should enforce what is right. To say that the Church should not try to control the state and make the state its subject is to deny that the Church has the truth.
 
Anything that supposes a Church that is separate from the state and denies that Catholic law should be forced on anybody is unCatholic. 
 
THE HERESY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
 
The scripture tells us that the spiritual man is judged by no one but judges all. Only true Christians are spiritual. This statement from the scripture applies to the pope more than anybody. We cannot judge the pope. But it says nothing has the right to judge but the Church therefore the state has no right to be separate from the Church and other religions must be prohibited from propagating themselves by law wherever possible.
 
Vatican II defended religious liberty. They say they still believe that people don’t have the right before God to believe what they want but they say they are just defending the tradition that the Church and the state or anybody must not force any person to believe what the Church teaches. The view that the Church should use the state to prevent heresy being expressed is rejected. None of this has anything to do with forcing people to believe. The state just protects them from error. The state claims the right to persecute anybody who treats its laws with contempt and the Church being taught by Christ has more right to do this than any state. Some philosophy has to be intolerant of dissent so it should be the wisdom of God revealed through the Church not the wisdom of men. In a religion class at school is it right to allow a Muslim to come and indoctrinate Catholic children in Islam in the name of tolerance? Such tolerance is a sin. The religious liberty of Vatican II is just indifferentism disguised as Catholicism.
 
The Catholic Church always taught that ecumenism was a sin and a heresy. We know this is infallible Tradition because it was taught by the Church from the start. But Vatican II changed this tradition. Vatican II was a true council of the Catholic Church but a vague one. It was a Council set up by heretics not Catholics which was why it was able to endanger Catholic doctrine. Though the Church is infallible, its infallible documents are not protected verbally against error. Some Vatican II documents need clarification.

The infallible Second Lateran Council 1139 AD decreed simply:

 Those who, simulating a kind of religiosity, condemn
—1. the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood,
—2. the baptism of children,
—3. the priesthood and other ecclesiastical orders, and
—4. legitimate marriages,
we expel from the church of God and condemn as heretics, and prescribe that they be constrained by the secular powers. We also bind up their defenders in the fetter of the same condemnation.
 
It didn’t give this a context so it must be taken literally. The law only mentions doctrinal aberrations. There is no room for the thought that it is only violent heretics that are meant for violence isn’t mentioned. Laws must be taken literally for else they are not laws and that is how the council meant this law to be taken.
 
It is strange how those who say that the decrees such as this only referred to the rightness of stopping violent heretics and didn’t condemn ecumenism don’t argue that it is right to stop violent heretics today! In the context of a Church that didn’t tolerate ecumenism the decree evidently must be interpreted in the light of that context. The decree cannot be separated from the context so ecumenism is a sin.

LEARNING FROM OTHER RELIGIONS
 
Vatican II rightly declares the Roman Catholic Church to be the one true Church of Jesus Christ. Why is it important to be the one true Church? Because it is important to know what the truth is. Society and life cannot function if we can’t tell anything to be true. If God loves us he will make sure there is one true Church. If he can’t depend on men to run this Church he will come down from Heaven and run it himself. The existence of the one true Church then is as certain as the existence of God himself. The one true Church necessarily must be visible because God doesn’t want us learning a bit from one Church and another bit from another. That is too difficult. To try and learn from another religion implies that the one true faith isn’t enough. It implies that the best guidance from the Holy Spirit isn’t within the one true faith and if the Holy Spirit doesn’t guide the true Church best then there is no true Church. To say that the Church is more than just the visible organisation and that there are people who are unknowingly members of the Church that you can learn from, for they are the Church still denies that the visible Church is the true Church. You cannot be certain that they are in the Church but you can be certain the true visible Church is the Church to go to.
 
The most important truth is the truth for getting us into Heaven. We need to know what to believe and do to be fit for Heaven. Heaven is important because it gives us everlasting joy and because when we go there we cannot go to Hell to burn forever. If the Church being true is important then it follows that it is important because its being true is necessary for salvation. If we can be saved following another religion then what is important is not the Church being true but having enough truth to save. Even if you hold that it is the divine truth that their religions have that saves and not the religions so that the person is saved in them in spite of their errors and not because of them but because of the truth, you are denying that it is important to be the true Church.
 
If it is not important to claim to be the true Church then it is only bigotry and arrogance to make that claim. To accept other religions like the Conciliar Church does looks like love but it cannot be and it denies that God has given the truth to the world. To deny truth is to deny human life and to curse God. It is virtue for the true Church to confess that it is the true Church.
 
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ALONE HAS THE TRUTH
 
The Vatican II Church says that other religions have some of the truth. For example, the Muslims are right that there is a God. Imagine two pupils at school. The teacher asks John what 2 and 2 are and he thinks and sees that it must be 4 and he says 4. John then speaks the truth. Then there is Tom. Tom guesses that it is 4. Tom is right and he also speaks the truth. But though Tom speaks the truth he doesn’t see it as the truth for he is only guessing. Truth that you don’t see as true is no good. The whole point about valuing truth is not just that truth is right but is also seen to be right.
 
Catholic doctrine teaches that faith is a miracle. God works within you to show you the truth and you believe the truth because God has said it. He may say it through your reason and your feelings and the example of others but it is still a miracle. The faith is really his work and not yours and all you did was cooperate with him. Just because something is right doesn’t mean that it has value. Truth perceived apart from God is dangerous because it is not based on God and is worthy of no praise. It is better to be in error. Satan knows this which is why he will preach mostly truth but it is the one per cent of error that is so dangerous. Christ taught as much when he said we must prefer God to all things and that this was more important than loving the neighbour. Christ asks for full commitment and says that whoever is not for him is against him.
 
What is more important? Truth that is right or truth that is seen to be right or are they of equal importance? Seeing truth to be truth is more important for having the truth is no use if you can’t see. Seeing the truth is a gift from God
 
Jesus did not tell us to say we believe we have the truth. He told us to boldly declare that we have the truth. Truth cannot tolerate error. The student who errs in an examination will be penalised for it. And so it is with the Church. Whoever errs in Catholic doctrine cannot demand tolerance from or in the Church. Associating with Protestants and going to their services is wrong.
 
THERE IS SALVATION OUTSIDE THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
 
The Vatican II Church teaches that anybody who is sincere in their faith even if the faith is totally different from the Catholic faith is a member of the Catholic Church without knowing it. That is teaching that people are saved by their errors.
 
True Catholic doctrine teaches that anybody that is saved is saved in so far as they are Catholic because outside the Church there is no salvation. If a pagan senses there is a God of perfect love and turns to that God by desiring to be with that God and dies by violence for holiness that person obtains the baptism of blood. He is saved in spite of his errors not because of them. Only those who know of baptism and desire it but can’t get the chance to get baptised and die receive the baptism of desire. These baptisms are not equal to the sacrament. What happens is that God gives them the grace of baptism without the water. Nobody is ever saved without the grace of baptism.
 
Vatican II popes say that you can be saved by Jesus without knowing who he is or anything about him. When the apostle asked our Lord what the way to salvation was Jesus told him that he himself was the way and the truth and the life and that without this way nobody could come to the Father (John 14:6). That the apostle asked Jesus what the way was shows that sincerity was believed to be insufficient. If it was sufficient then the apostle already knew the way. Our Lord told the Samaritan woman that salvation was from the Jews. The Jews at that time didn’t believe in a saviour. Jews and Samaritans were close in faith and yet Jesus told her that her religion couldn’t save her. She was in the wrong group. Vatican II Catholics say that all who are sincere and who abhor sin are saved by Jesus though they don’t know him and are related to his Church because Jesus saves them unknowingly. But here Christ tells the woman that no saviour unknown to her is any good to her religion. He rejected the Vatican II argument that his being saviour means there can be members of the true religion who know nothing about it.
 
St Peter, the first pope, defined the dogma that there is no salvation though any name other than Jesus (Acts 4:12). He says name for he meant you had to know about Jesus to be saved.
 
St Paul said that if the Holy Spirit is guiding you, you will not be able to say Jesus be cursed (1 Corinthians 12:3). Now teaching false doctrine is worse than cursing Jesus. Cursing him, though a grave sin, does him no harm for he is Almighty God. But teaching false doctrine is contrary to the divine plan. The Vatican II notion that God speaks to other religions is heresy and blasphemy. Acts 10 doesn’t say that Cornelius was saved before he was baptised so it doesn’t help the Vatican II cult.
 
Those who wish to believe that there is salvation outside the Church or without knowing of the Church do not have a leg to stand on.