I may be an idiot, but not only is it false to say the Church teaches that an atheist can get into Heaven, but it should be absurd on its face. Heaven is Heaven because God is there. Well, it's not a place; it's the Beatific Vision, seeing the face of God, and resting in His Divine presence. If you didn't believe He existed, you wouldn't want Heaven, because Heaven presupposes that which you deny. Why I needed to state that blindingly obvious point, Ben Carmack and Tim Dukeman, I have no idea. Even if Pope Francis actually said that atheists could go to Heaven, he'd be obviously incorrect, and we could at least quietly chortle at him, no?
I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
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