Pope: Salvation occurring in Protestant churches


The headline writing function is still down though the problem has morphed somewhat, so I am improvising. See posts below for more details.

The New York Times and Associated Press reports on the pope's statement about Catholic church primacy omitted an important detail. I don't suspect the writers of being unprofessional. I suspect that they simply did not see the meaningfulness and news value of the overlooked point.

The Pope's assessment of Protestant churches as "defective" is pretty much a technicality of a type common to many religious establishments: our church/way etc. is the "authorized" version. Yet, here's the important point: the pope explicitly stated that God is using Protestant churches to effect individual salvation.

This makes sense, in that Jesus said that he had not lost anyone given him by the Father, in that Jesus said he would be with "you always, even until the end of the age," in that Paul the apostle said that "all who call upon the name of the LORD shall be saved" and he clearly meant Jesus, which means "The LORD (Yahweh) saves."

Wouldn't it be nice if the Shia and the Sunni could see that real Christianity is long past the stage of putting people to death for divergent views (though many nominal/cultural Christians have not absorbed that idea)?

You can read the actual statement at

http://212.77.1.245/news/press/vis/dinamiche/a0-en.htm

If link is uncooperative, Google Holy See news and proceed from there.