@Simon North I cannot give a reference to St. Augustine about what I claimed what he would have written about belonging to the Mystical Body of Christ. I was ill-informed in a theological conversation on the subject. What I was basing on (and wrongly invoking St. Augustine as an affirmation) was a text from Lumen Gentium (sec. 19) of the Second Vatican Council. This text reads as follows:

"The Catholic Church teaches that a person may be saved outside the visible boundaries of the Church, (LG, sec. 19) provided the following conditions are met:

A person who, through no fault of his own, is ignorant of the truth that Christ established the Catholic Church and desires all men to obtain salvation through it (invincible ignorance).
A person lives according to the truth that he is capable of discerning.
A person responds to the graces that he has been given.
Or, re-formulated positively, the doctrine my be expressed as: "All salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body". According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

[846] "Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it."

[847] "This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."

@Simon North I immediately received, after my response, a reference to an article by Stanislaus J. Grabouski on the role of charity in the Mystical Body according to Augustine (brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/J.REA.5.103939). This article contains all the references to works by Augustine himself. One quote from this article is the following:

Charity is the unitive bond which unites many to form not only the Body of Christ but also the Church. The Mystical Body of Christ is at the same time the visible Church of Christ, that is to say the Catholic Church, the Catholica. Augustine knows one only such Church. Those who are members of the visible and sacramental Church are members of Christ’s Mystical Body. Moreover, charity is the mark distinguishing between those who inwardly, truly and really are members of Christ’s Body and those who apparently are members of it but who, devoid of charity, in truth do not inwardly constitutute it. All members of the Church are united in one visible society, all are bound by a common faith, all participate in the same sacraments, all eat of the eucharistic body and blood of Christ, yet they are inwardly divided into those who have charity and those who have it not.

@Simon North The quote"All members of the Church are united in one visible society, all are bound by a common faith, all participate in the same sacraments, all eat of the eucharistic body and blood of Christ, yet they are inwardly divided into those who have charity and those who have it not." implies, in my opinion, that there are members of the R.C. Church who are not united with Christ because they do not have charity (divine love) in them. Conversely, seems to me to be the conclusion, there may be people outside the R.C. Church who do have divine love (charity) in them and thus are united with Christ. People who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ or have been raised with a false image of Him. I think that is what Lumen Gentium also says. We may differ on Vat. II. There are documents, such as on religious freedom and on the liturgy, that are controversial or even rejected by many. But there are also documents, such as Dei Verbum and Lumen Gentium, which are nevertheless generally accepted. I cannot (and will not) label the entire Second Vatican Council as unsound.

@petrus100452 I'll not engage in a general debate about the faux Vatican II. But your converse conclusion, via St. Augustine, is simply incorrect. Here is what St. Augustine really thinks: “No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honor, one can have the sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer amen, one can have faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach it too, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church.” (Sermo ad Caesariensis Ecclesia plebem)"

@Simon North I agree with you that we should not start a discussion about Vat. II. But about the statement "outside the church no salvation," I would like a clarification from you to better understand how you see it. I think Augustine and other doctors of the church mean by this statement that when someone is fully aware of the truth of Catholic doctrine and sacraments and then deliberately chooses to seek salvation elsewhere, that for such a person there is no salvation to be found outside the church. But I do not understand the interpretation that anyone who is not a member of the Catholic Church would be lost. That contradicts the Gospel, in which the "good murderer" is immediately saved, while the Catholic Church did not even exist yet. And where Jesus says that "prostitutes will sit at the Heavenly banquet." And the "Last Judgment" in the Gospel is about charity, not which church one belongs to. Mystics like St. John of the Cross say that the criterion for being saved is Love. And there is no denying that people from other denominations receive sanctifying graces. My question to you is: how do you reconcile all this with an interpretation of "outside the Church no salvation" in the sense that one must be a member of the visible Catholic Church to be saved? Thanks for your explanation of how you see this.

@petrus100452 I sincerely believe that you are of good will. But your understanding of "extra ecclesial null sallus" is the one taught to you by the post-conciliar counterfeit crew. There is NO evidence that the Church Fathers ever even entertained the notion about which you've been taught. Jesus taught one criteria of evidence that you love Him: "If you love me, keep my commandments." Among those commandments are the need of the Sacraments as the source of sanctifying grace - without which human acts cannot please God. People of other denominations (I suppose you mean Protestants) receive sanctifying grace at Baptism (everyone who is baptized begins as a Roman Catholic). But if they do not continue to adhere to the Catholic Faith, they are heretics. Sanctifying grace is lost - and will not be renewed until they return to the One True Faith and make a good Confession in the Sacrament of Penance. THIS is the Faith of the Church that was taught and believed for 20 centuries before Vatican II.

@Simon North Besides not answering my question (for example, the "good murderer "received no sacrament at all and yet was immediately saved by Jesus when he prayed for mercy), you are also mistaken. It is not the "post conciliar counterfeit crew" (contempt is never a characteristic of the Holy Spirit) that teaches that people can also find salvation outside the visible Church. I quote Pope Pius IX ( 1846–1878). He wrote in Quanto conficiamur moerore, 7: "There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light and grace since God who clearly beholds, searches, and knows the minds, souls, thoughts, and habits of all men, because of His great goodness and mercy, will by no means suffer anyone to be punished with eternal torment who has not the guilt of deliberate sin."
I think you interpret the "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" a bit too narrowly. The Mystical Body of Christ (outside of which there is no salvation) is greater than the visible Church, as I wrote in my first comment.

@petrus100452 The remarks of Pius IX are not inconsistent with what I said above. It is a given that God is not bound to the means of salvation that He has established - but no one enters Heaven who is not justified. Pius IX's comment that no one suffers eternal torment who is not guilty of deliberate sin is true enough - but: how many people in world history would fit that bill? Enunciating a principle makes no conclusion about how often the principle applies. Again, Pius IX would absolutely repudiate what Modernists have done with his doctrine. The post-conciliar establishment actually has a name for it: "the Anonymous Christian." It has absolutely no pedigree in the spiritual and theological history of the Church - as do not a few statements in Vatican II documents.

@Simon North To make the statement that people can be saved outside the Church (as Pius IX does) is incompatible with the statement "Extra ecclesia nulla salus," when that is understood to mean that one can only be saved if one is Roman Catholic. It does not matter at all whether only one or millions of souls are saved "outside the Church." What matters is that the very principle of "extra ecclesia nulla salus" (in the sense that one can find salvation only within the R.C. Church) is untenable.

@Simon North You are right. Here we cannot discuss theological topics. I know Bishop Fenton a little bit. I don't think it makes sense for me to read his book. I grew up as a Catholic (and priest) under John Paul II. I had and have a tremendous love for this pope and found all his encyclicals to be masterpieces. Therefore, I cannot imagine Vat. II is a "faux council." John Paul II was a Council Father and co-designer of Gaudium et Spes. While theologically I do not come to the ankles of both Bishop Fenton and John Paul II, it is inconceivable to me and against all reason, logic and faith that God would allow His people to be derailed by a faux council. That being said, I do see that the devil has gotten hold of the council texts and currently Satan's smoke is virtually obscuring the Church. But a return to pre-Vatican II is in my view impossible and also undesirable. The Holy Spirit will renew the Church and dispel all darkness. The Church will be more beautiful than ever before. That is my hope and confidence. Peace be with you.

@petrus100452 The Pope who summoned the Council and the Pope who reconvened it expressly stated that Council would be defining neither new dogma nor doctrine. Therefore, I'm bound by nothing the Council says - except when it refers to dogma and doctrine already binding on Catholics due to the teachings of 20 centuries of Catholic history. BUT: the hierarchs for the past 60 years have acted as if Vatican II is binding unto every jot and tittle of the Conciliar documents. The fact that you won't even read Fenton tells me that you're not interested in what one of the foremost theologians (a perilous at the Council) of the 20th century writes about the very subject we have been discussing - which means you believe it is outdated. Sadly, that means we possess different ecclesiologies and we belong to different churches. Either yours or mine is the Roman Catholic Church. Both cannot be.