Jimmy Akin Outlines Catholic Teaching on Protestants, Salvation and Mixed Marriages

A caller to Immaculate Heart Radio, a Catholic station in Las Vegas, asked Jimmy Akin on a program posted November 19, 2018, how the Catholic Church understands salvation for Protestants. The caller said some remarks on the station discouraged Catholics from dating Protestants, while other remarks suggested Protestants “may be okay.” Akin said the program’s positive language about Protestants reflects the Church’s view that Protestants are brothers and sisters in Christ.

Akin said that all Christians who profess faith in Christ and are properly baptized belong to Christ in a real but incomplete way. He said the goal is full incorporation into Christ, which includes the fullness of Christian faith, all the sacraments (which he noted are seven in the Catholic view), and full union with the Church that Jesus founded. He identified that Church as visible and continuous from the first century, with Saint Peter and the Apostles as its first leaders. He said other churches, including Protestant communities, honor Scripture, believe in Jesus and the Holy Trinity, have a valid Baptism, and possess many elements of grace, but do not fit that description of the visible Church.

Akin acknowledged that differences between Catholics and Protestants are not, from a Catholic perspective, a good thing, because Jesus wants his followers to be united. He said the key question is whether a person knowingly refuses something Jesus willed. Someone who knows the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus and still declines to join it, he said, would have to be questioned about whether they have a saving relationship with God and would be in “spiritual jeopardy.” This is an allegation-free doctrinal position, and Akin presented it as Catholic teaching.

By contrast, Akin said a person raised outside the Catholic Church who has not been convinced that it was founded by Jesus, and who has not seen sufficient evidence of that, is not deliberately refusing God’s will. He said such a person, “through no fault of their own,” who is otherwise responding to God’s grace, will be saved. He added that the same reasoning applies to Catholics who deliberately defy Christ in grave matters, which he said could result in loss “unless you repent.” He said everyone, Protestant and Catholic, needs to be open to God’s grace.

On the question of dating and marriage, Akin said he did not know what the caller had heard on the other program. He said the Catholic Church recognizes that Catholics and non-Catholics can date and marry, a situation called a mixed marriage, and that the Church has special provisions for such marriages. He said these marriages can be successful but may involve practical difficulties and a “spiritual barrier” when spouses do not fully agree on religion. Akin said he spoke from experience, having been in a mixed marriage before he became Catholic, and that after his wife died he decided he would marry only a Catholic if he married again, because of the pain he had experienced. He said he understood why parents might advise their children to date someone of their own faith “so that you can be spared these issues” (John 17:21).

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