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Comment by CGMthrowaway | Hacker News Reader

The Church can do that, assuming you are interpreting it correctly, which is questionable. I dont know how someone online can tell me definitely whether I will be saved or not though. And Matthew 18:20

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I'm not speaking to your personal salvation. I'm speaking in context of what the Catholic Church teaches is required for salvation, as that is the context of this comment thread - take that as you will. The Church (big C, as in the Catholic Church) teaches "infallibly," so if you are a Catholic it really is not up for debate, that there is no salvation outside of Christ AND the Church. That includes the 5 precepts of the Catholic Church - or minimum "laws" you must follow as a Catholic, 4 of which are dependent on the Church itself: attending Mass on Sundays/Holy Days, annual confession at a minimum, receiving Eucharist during Easter, observe fasting/abstaining days, and providing for the Church's needs. Therefore, quite simply, if a Catholic makes the statement "I develop my relationship with god in a way that is helped by worship through the church, but is not dependent on it" that is a direct conflict [0].

I'm not even sure from what position you are arguing from, but both of those statements (relationship with God supported by a visible church rather than requiring it, and Matthew 18:20) are fundamental arguments for Protestantism.

[0] https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/is-there-re...

We are probably talking past each other around different understandings of what The Church is. To be clear, the church includes parishioners in full communion, baptized protestants, and non-christians ordered toward the church.. it also has visible (hierarchy, canon law etc) and spiritual (holy spirit..) realities. It also works in mysterious ways

If we can agree on that we are closer than you might think. And when I said "not dependent on the church" i was referring not to what I just defined above, but rather what in my head i figured (perhaps wrongly) you were more narrowly referring to.

To continue, at risk of muddying the waters that might have just cleared a little, the nature of the church (a divine mystery) is such that it can be known experientially while never being fully exhausted by human understanding

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