All Nicene Christians profess that there will be a judgment at the end of the world, so being judged worthy is the final objective. Agreed
Catholic and Orthodox believe that their sacraments are channels for God's gaces, some of which are "actual grace," to help you do things in space and time. Be a good priest, or a good spouse, resist some inclinations to sin, die for the faith if called upon, or kick butt for it if called to do that, die well, however it happens. Apart from personal things, many Catholics are also interested in social justice, and see sinful activities as impediments to that. There is also a complementary theory of affirmative virtue (you can probably guess the virtues), and grace aids in the practice of virtues, which supposedly is ocnducive to personal happiness (there's a goal, right?) and there are those who see widespread virtue as conducive to social good.
OK. So help me out. Why isn't that intuitively obvious? I know that I have read posts from people saying that's the way it should be. Some of those even specifically complain about the injustice of some hypothetical version of the "mass murderer accepts Jesus on his death bed, and has eternal bliss, some good person who helps people all her life, but has never heard of Jesus, burns in hell forever" idea.
That's not a problem, because the Catholic deposit of faith isn't just the Bible, plus the church says what the Bible means, so it really doesn't much matter what it says.
That would be more of a problem, if it were true. I don't think it is. The Pope is talking about an individual's outcome of God's judgment here. I don't see that there ever was any teaching that personal salvation was anything other than a means to an end in the Catholic Western church.
But in the Catholic view, not everybody needs to be personally saved, beyond what Jesus made possible for the species. Those individuals who follow their conscience, for example, need do nothing else, not even acknowledge any debt to Jesus. It never was any different, so far as I can see.
That's not within Francis' gift. He is acknowledging what he thinks God's will is, and always was. All this digging, and we have yet to find a Pope who disagreed with him.
But the baggage is a lot of other stuff that has nothing to do with the question he says he was asked and which he answered in a reasonably expected way.
Fascinating document.
Eh? Whoever else he may proceed from is left out of this version of the creed. Dear me! And none other than Cardinal Ratzinger wrote this. So amended versions of things can be produced for the purpose of conciliating other religious communities. The Filioque can be dispensed with if need be, and in the same way the hallowed doctrine of "no salvation outside the Church" can be redefined (amid a complex tangle of verbiage) into effective non-existence.
Um, Craig, the Latin one with filioque in it is the "amended version." The Greek text, the one that was voted on in Council, doesn't have the filioque.
So there is absolutely no significance in Ratzinger omitting it? See the Catholic Encyclopaedia as published by New Advent on the topic, for a traditional view. That author's "delight" in relating the Greek view is less evident than you claim to be the present sentiment.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06073a.htm. My bold.
it is my contention that the teaching is not being reaffirmed but amended in a more liberal direction, under heavy disguise. I have introduced Ratzinger's omission of the Filioque to indicate that even very profound changes of doctrine are possible in the Roman Church, if circumstances dictate their expediency. But the Church rarely admits that any change has taken place - a bit like the Party in Orwell's 1984. No, I should say, very much like the Party in Orwell's dystopia.
So Francis may well change the unalterable doctrine, and the fact of the change will be disguised by verbiage; or if that is not possible, the church will simply stop talking about the previous doctrine until it is quietly forgotten after the passage of time.
I think I do understand what your position is. So far, I have found no indication that the on-topic idea expressed by Francis was original with Francis.
There was no omission. The cardinal chose one of two lawful versions available to him, the older one, upon which there is wider current agreement among Christians, including those in his own church. That version seems the apt choice for being called "the fundamental contents of the profession of the Christian faith."
Nonsense. The teachers were imparting to their pupils the doctrines of the Church. They were not expounding their own opinions, but the doctrine that was incorporated in the religious curriculum they taught. The children accepted it, and were required to accept it, in the same way as they accepted doctrines about heaven and hell and purgatory.
He won't. He would have to excommunicate himself for discussing it. Unless doctrines can change, that is.
Craig, your testimony was
Children's discussions among themselves are not evidence of Church doctrine. I was generous to accept your recollections of childhood scuttlebutt as evidence of what was being taught. Then again, I am notoriously tolerant of hearsay (and in this case, I personally have observed the idea being even fairly recently popular among middle-aged and older American lay Catholics.)
They were being taught it. I lived in Scotland where the state education system then had, and still has, Catholic denominational schools. They were not told that there was anything more doubtful about Limbo than about Heaven or Hell. They had no better reason to believe in one religious doctrine than in another, since their reason for belief was instruction by teachers and priests. If it was or is a hypothesis, and not a doctrine, this information was not presented to them.
The doctrine regarding Limbo has not been "restated" by Popes, but has been amended by them, to bring it progressively into line with the developing sensitivity of society, and of people in general.