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CCC, 847

Wait, what? Let's define terms, shall we? "through no fault of their own"=their ignorance is not culpable. "Gospel of Christ"=the catholic (or Catholic) and apostolic faith in its entirety, concerning Christ the Savior of all mankind. "or "His Church"=Catholic Church. "nevertheless seek God"--let me humbly suggest that someone who knowingly seeks God is not is in any way an atheist. I don't need to define "atheist" for you, I trust, but just in case...an atheist is a person who denies that God exists. Hebrews 11:6. "sincere heart"=a good disposition of the will, which will be a difficult definition to accept, if one has accepted that contrary proposition that a person prior to justification is capable of having a good will, but there we are. "moved by grace"--I told you we weren't Pelagians. "try in their actions to do his will as they know it"=responding to the promptings of grace. "through the dictates of conscience"=in Catholic moral theology, a certain conscience cannot be disobeyed without incurring sin, even if that conscience is badly misinformed. (One of God's mercies is to sow doubts in the conscience for this reason. When in doubt, do not act.) If you firmly believe the holy day is Tuesday and not Sunday, and you skip Tuesday for a frivolous reason, you're guilty of the grave sin of missing Mass, for example, even though that seems silly.

In other words, the Catholic Church does not teach that an atheist can go to Heaven. Sorry. We do believe that atheists receive and are able to accept graces from God. Try not to die. But they won't be atheists very long, we would think.

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