Thanks Gavin for your interesting post - I’m sure that it’s given us all some interesting things to think about.

Just by way of clarification, hopefully I can make a few comments that could be of assistance with respect to your commentary on Catholicism.

Firstly, I think your suggestion that Catholicism teaches that people need the Catholic church to be saved isn’t correct in the sense that you seem to mean. Note particularly paragraph 819 of the Catechism, which reads:

<i>“Furthermore, many elements of sanctification and of truth” <b>are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church:</b> “the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible element,” Christ’s Spirit uses these Churches and eccesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to “Catholic unity.”</i>

That is, the Roman Catholic Church has merely preserved the sacraments - it doesn’t have a monopoly over them. A baptism performed in the name of the Fathher and the Son and the Holy Spirit, for instance, it valid whether performed in a Catholic Church or a “Low” Anglican Church. In this respect, it’s not merely Roman Catholicism that teaches baptismal regeneration, but Martin Luther himself, the very Father of the Reformation.

Secondly, I’d point out that there is a subtle, though very real distinction between “remission for the temporal punishments due to one’s sins” and salvation. While the Catholic Church teaches the former, only God is the judge of the latter. In both cases, it is God who ultimately forgives. Also note that as I pointed out before, the Catholic Church extends beyond it’s institutional dimensions.