On Mondays, I answer questions frequently asked by those considering a return to the Catholic Church. How do I know this stuff? I was away for more than 30 years myself, and am the co-author of When They Come Home: Ways to Welcome Returning Catholics, a book for pastors and parish leaders interested in this ministry.
Some of my friends say the Catholic Church thinks Catholics are the only ones who 
can get into heaven. Can that be true?
Pope Francis has said that Jesus desired to save everyone, which isn’t exactly front-page news. The larger challenge, according to the pope, is that regardless of our religious persuasion (or lack thereof), “We must meet one another doing good.”
Note that those baptized in another Christian church who chose to convert to Catholicism aren’t rebaptized; their initial rite is recognized as valid. Note also that Catholics don’t believe that by virtue of baptism or for that matter confirmation that those in the Church have a lock on heaven. It’s more challenging and yet at the same time comprehensible. We don’t exactly know who gets into heaven and who doesn’t; after all, we’re not God. We know what Jesus taught us, and Jesus was all about, to paraphrase the pope, meeting each other doing good.
It might be a better use of time to engage those friends in praying together, helping out at a food pantry, aiding the homeless, or building your mutual religious knowledge through a lecture or book club or some other practice rather than arguing about who’s going to heaven and who’s not.
