Thanks guys!

the Roman Catholic Church has expressed that non-Christians cannot be saved

Depends on what documents you’re looking at. The bull Unam sanctam of Boniface VIII proclaimed (so far as I can judge these things, solemnly and ex cathedra; and hence, under RC teachings, infallibly) that non-Catholics, let alone non-Christians, cannot be saved. And for centuries, that was pretty much that. But that began to change in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; and the decrees of the second Vatican Council and certain papal statements made since then were more eirenic altogether. I think the current Roman party line is (and, though it sounds flippant when compressed like this, it really isn’t) that non-RC Christians and non-Christians can be saved; but the saved non-RCs were catholics without knowing it and the saved non-Christians accepted Christ without knowing it. IOW, there’s still only One True Church, and everybody saved is still saved by Jesus through that Church; but formal submission and membership is no longer the be-all and end-all. (Actually, the Anglican writer CS Lewis anticipated this way of thinking in the figure of the “good Calormene” at the end of the last and least pleasant of his Narnia books; though the direct influence of Lewis’s children’s books on the fathers and periti of the 2nd Vatican Council is SFAIK a topic that still awaits research by historians and sociologists of religion.)

I am not subtle enough to see how the RCC holds Unam sanctam and Vatican II in its head at the same time. If I were a deep thinker like John Henry Newman, I imagine I’d be able to see this as the development of doctrine rather than a contradiction. What I do know is that (and ignoring the inconsistencies in its doctrines), the RC church has to a significant extent softened its centuries-old exclusivism. And when the occasional clerical hardliner these days tries to teach that formal membership in the RCC is the sine qua non of salvation, the RCC excommunicates his ass.

it was paul who wrote to the effect that deliverance was solely through Christ

Well, that was certainly his position. But Paul wasn’t influential for the RC church only—his writings were just as key (and arguably even more so) for the Lutheran and Reformed traditions.

i do believe it to be the case that the Roman Catholic Church has expressed that non-Christians
cannot be saved.

certainly this was the holding when i studied theology at a catholic university in the 50’s and i believe the holding has recently been re- affirmed.

perhaps it was paul who wrote to the effect that deliverance was solely through Christ.

We ask that office-holders take a certain stance toward their religious commitments when they’re behaving as office-holders, not that they spend their whole lives treating those commitments like a dirty little secret to be kept safely in their home with the curtains drawn.

Absolutely. But that raises the question of whether the office-holder stance should embrace the fuzzy ‘people of faith’ formulation that discriminates between a set of tacitly-approved ‘faith’ denominations and everyone else.

Maintaining the faith/non-faith distinction in the political realm, then objecting to the scrutiny of one’s doctrinal beliefs seems like wanting it both ways.

To quote Atrios again:

We disagree about things. We don’t all share a belief in God, or the supernatural, or the spiritual plane, or whatever. Those who believe in these things don’t agree on the details. There are a tremendous variety of belief systems in this country and across the world. The tendency to divide people into “faith” and “non-faith” has, as I wrote, obscured these differences, but the fact is that disagreement within “communities of faith” is no different than disagreement between religious and non-religious people.

other ezra @19: the obvious reason is that the LDP doesn’t want to piss off its own Catholic supporters, hence the decision to target these ads in the north of the state. Welcome to the dirty world of Louisiana politics.

I read that aritcle, too, and seemed pretty close to the Vatican II decree on ecumenism. It’s nothing the church hasn’t been saying, but perhaps not quite phrased that way.

in fact I am not all that far away from the position you describe as extraordinary and unjustifiable. I am intensely committed to secularism in the public sphere. I don’t think religious partisans should serve a secular state; and I don’t think voters who vote for (or against) Candidate X because she belongs to Religion (or Lack-of-religion) Y are good citizens of such polities. You can disagree with that, and fair play to you.

But there’s one thing you are misreading a bit: “Inter alia, it excludes from office…”. No, it doesn’t. I wouldn’t dream of excluding Bobby Jindal or, for that matter, Ian Paisley (a much nastier customer altogether) from public office because of their public stance on religious questions. Indeed, I’d oppose (as I hope we all would) any attempt to exclude them from eligibility on religious grounds. But that is not at all inconsistent with wishing them to fail in their efforts to be elected.

My very strong preference is that one’s religion, if any, be a strictly private matter (perhaps a very important matter, but a private one for all that); and for nobody is this more important than for a politician in a non-confessional state. Of course a politician may think otherwise, and campaign for office with the Authorised Version (or the Koran, or the Bhagavad Gita, etc.) in his hand and the name of his Lord and Saviour (or the Almighty and Merciful, or the Lord Krishna etc.) forever on his lips. And that politician needs to be free to think otherwise. But by the same token, those of us who want a secular state are free to argue he shouldn’t be elected. And that’s why I think the Lousiana Democrats justified, in principle, in attacking Jindal; though I agree with Henry (and, I presume, you) that their chosen method was reprehensible.

BTW, on a pedantic point, I believe that RC priests are “excluded from office” in America—but by the rules of their own church, not by any secular law.

Inter alia, it excludes from office anyone who has ever actually been a man-of-the-cloth-or-equivalent. (As you say: this would have been part of the job description for a priest.) As far as I know that’s farther than even France ever went; it’s certainly not standard practice in secular pluralist democracies. We ask that office-holders take a certain stance toward their religious commitments when they’re behaving as office-holders, not that they spend their whole lives treating those commitments like a dirty little secret to be kept safely in their home with the curtains drawn.