Ralph Martin fails to notice that Lumen Gentium 16 is not an exception to Ad Gentes 7 and Lumen Gentium 14 which says all need faith and baptism for salvation. He also assumes that we can see the dead saved in invincible ignorance and a good conscience and so LG 16 is an exception to all needing to enter the Catholic Church to avoid Hell, with no known exceptions on earth.
14. This Sacred Council wishes to turn its attention firstly to the Catholic faithful. Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture and Tradition, it teaches that the Church, now sojourning on earth as an exile, is necessary for salvation. Christ, present to us in His Body, which is the Church, is the one Mediator and the unique way of salvation. In explicit terms He Himself affirmed the necessity of faith and baptism and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. -Lumen Gentium 14
Therefore, all must be converted to Him, made known by the Church's preaching, and all must be incorporated into Him by baptism and into the Church which is His body. For Christ Himself "by stressing in express language the necessity of faith and baptism (cf. Mark 16:16; John 3:5), at the same time confirmed the necessity of the Church, into which men enter by baptism, as by a door. -Ad Gentes 7.
Evangelisation is about being saved. The New Evangelisation must recognize doctrinally that all non Catholics are on the way to Hell unless they convert into the Catholic Church and there are no exceptions.
We do not know whosoever knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary would refuse to enter could not be saved.
Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.-Lumen Gentium 14.
So this passage does not contradict the teaching that ALL need to enter the Church for salvation.
When Vatican Council II mentions that a person can be saved with an 'implicit intention' this is known only to God and so is not an exception to ALL needing to enter the Church for salvation.-Lionel Andrades
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