So, do I think I am the only person going to Heaven.

I grew up with Protestants.   I used to have close friends in the Protestant Church, a  friend David and two girls Nan and Hetty.  The girls sang in the choir and i once dared to go and listen to them, in their Church.   Amazingly I was not consumed in fire and brimstone.  But then I never thought I would.    I did not believe they were bound for Hell for not being Catholic because I was told repeatedly in my school about the Baptism of Desire.    If course we did disagree about religious things.   Especially the claim that the Catholic Church was the One True Church but we did not find any bitterness because we recognised that we had different belief systems.    Let us say that we were a true Ecumenical Gang.that made no demands that either of us should change our beliefs.

I was therefore completely confused when after Vatican II,which I read, that in some way this Council had ruled that we were all part of the One Church.    I found myself at a Catechetical Course run by a nun appointed by the then bishop where Vatican II apparently had said many things which I had never read and indeed that the Catholic Church was just one of the Churches which had part of the truth and that altogether we were One Church.    I dared to disagree and was asked if I thought I was the only one going to Heaven.   My former Ecumenical Gang would never have been so insulting  but we had entered a new era where running down the Church made you the elite of the parish and being faithful meant you were backward and stupid.    It was a disgraceful mentality.     The highlight of the course was at the end when someone who would soon teach our children stood and shouted  "The Church will have to change her teaching on divorce, contraception, and abortion".   the 'leader' smiled and someone who should have known better turned to me and said "It is the Holly Spirit, John"    I was surrounded by people who were now Protestant in thinking and accepted that we were al,l Protestant and Catholic, members of one Church,  I was also made aware that I was backward, I had not moved on.   Yet as I read Vatican II again, I saw only support for my backward Faith.

Why am I going back to the past?   Because on a notice board I saw that this was the Week of Christian Unity.    A speaker has been found who will speak on the topic "One Church - many congregations"   Sorry, I cannot agree with that.    There is only One True Church and that is the Catholic Church and if my Ecumenical Gang in Scotland all those years ago could agree to differ then why cannot those who call themselves Catholics accept my Faith.    A Catholic at every Mass on Sunday recites  in the Creed "I believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church......"   Do those with what they call an Adult Faith not understand that they are lying to God when they say this.  

I am sorry to have to raise this.   But the people who were shouting in the 70's and 80's about the New Church they were building should really  look at what they have done.   I approached the previous bishop about the falling in numbers from the Church every year revealed in the then Diocesan Year Book.   I pointed out the effect on finances that would fallow if this trend was not stopped.  The only answer given was the removal of these figures from the Year Book.   Thanks to immigration the numbers have returned but there was a  devastating effect of the removal of devotions and  Catholic practices clearly recommended in Vatican II in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church.   Those who brought about such changes were called 'experts'.    They were the people with degrees and learning we should apparently look up to and not contradict.    So I will end with a question.    Why did Jesus choose fishermen?