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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   9925 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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According to the CCC, they're a little more wishy-washy on that these days:

1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."62 Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"63 allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

So basically, adult non-believers who served God to the best of their ability and who would have hypothetically desired baptism had they known of its necessity get to go to Heaven, and unbaptized children get a big question mark plus a "I really hope God has a way to save these guys."

The way out I see for tradcaths, is simply asserting that Muslims and Jews either did know of the necessity of baptism and rejected it, or that they didn't try to seek truth and do the will of God in accordance with their understanding of it, because if they had, they would have found the Roman Catholic Church and Jesus.

So basically, adult non-believers who served God to the best of their ability and who would have hypothetically desired baptism had they known of its necessity get to go to Heaven, and unbaptized children get a big question mark plus a "I really hope God has a way to save these guys."

Funnily enough that's basically the opposite of the Mormon view. We believe that babies that die are automatically saved, meanwhile we perform proxy baptisms for the dead, and those dead need to accept the baptism from the other side for it to be of any use. I.e. those who would have accepted the gospel and been baptized if they had been given the opportunity can still be saved, but it still requires an actual proxy baptism to be performed for them by the living.

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