Dear Genny:

It is possible for a non-believer to be saved "through no fault of his own he does not know Christ or his Church." This does not apply to your family members as they are baptized Catholics and were raised in the faith. They are not invincibly ignorant like a Hindu might be or a person in a tribe in the middle of the Amazon who has never heard of Christ.

Non-Catholic Christians can be saved because they have a faith in Christ, and are validly baptized, even though they are not convinced of the Catholic Church. They can have an invincible ignorance of the necessity that Christ gives to be in His Church. In other words, they grew up non-Catholic and do not know any better.

But, when a person is convinced that the Catholic Church is the true Church, he risks his soul if he does not formally join the Catholic Church. This is what happened to me. I became convinced and thus I had a choice to make -- remain Protestant and be a hypocrite and jeopardize my soul, or join the Catholic Church. I joined the Catholic Church.

None of this applies to your family members, however, because they were baptized and grew-up Catholic. They will be held accountable. To leave the Catholic Church, once being Catholic, is a grave sin. Those Catholics who abandon the Church risk their souls to hell.

But, we must remember the Church's teaching on mortal sin. For a sin to be mortal three things must be true.

1) the sin must be grave. (A Catholic leaving the Church completely or going into heresy or schism is grave).

2) the person must know the sin is grave (your family members know this even if they now reject the idea. One cannot feign ignorance and get by with it. In fact, those Catholic who feign ignorance or deliberate choose to remain ignorant are more culpable).

3) the person knowing that the sin is grave must decide to do it anyway. That choice must be unimpaired so that it is truly a free choice, positive volition.

It is in the third criteria that we have hope.  What can impair a person's free choice and thereby reduce culpability? Psychological conditions, psychiatric conditions, failure of parents, priests, and nuns to properly teach the faith when they were children, experiences that have tainted their view of the Catholic Church or of God, or being deluded (conned) into aberrant views, etc.

The family members who are into the New Age have been convinced by someone, but they still had to make choices.

The family member who became Muslim has been blinded by "love", or what she thinks is love.

They are all at risk of damnation. Only God can know where the lines are drawn concerning culpability. Has there been something in these people's lives that has lead them astray to which they are not fully culpable? Only God knows.

In situations like this the nature of our prayers is to pray that they will return to the faith before they die, or that there are mitigating circumstances that only God knows that reduces the grave sin to venial or otherwise reduces the culpability so that they may reach heaven by the skin-of-their-teeth.

It is sad, but we can hope. One thing to keep in mind is that no one goes to hell by mistake. One does not trip into hell. A person must reject God's love and salvation with freedom of volition to choose that course without any hindrance to their freedom.

God is a loving God. He will give them, and each of us, all the chances possible to accept His love and forgiveness. But, God does not force anyone into His heaven. We can choose, if that choice is freely made, to reject God's offer.

We will pray that your family members will come to their senses and return to the Faith that loves them and can save them.

We have a prayer for those who are wayward from the Church that you may wish to pray for your family members. It is called, Hedge Prayer for Return of Wayward Catholics. There is another one called, Proxy Deliverance Prayer for a Friend or Relative. I recommend both of these prayers.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary