Catholic Doctrine is from Christ

Rk May 8, 2013 at 4:59 pm
So far, only having glanced over this, I spotted one thing very new

Very new TO YOU. Catholic Doctrine has been around from the time of the Apostles. It is Christ who taught Catholic Doctrine.

– that Catholics believe in initial justification and then increasing ‘justification’ (I suppose ‘sanctification’ is yet another thing)

You would be wrong. There is no such term as “initial justification” in the Catholic soteriology. Conversion is the beginning of Justification. Perhaps that is what you are confusing with the so-called “initial justification”. After conversion, one requests Baptism and is completely justified for the first time. If (or should I say, when) one commits sins after Baptism, then one must repent and ask forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and one is justified once more. This process of repeated washings by the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Sacraments continues throughout our life.

Sanctification is the process of adopting holy habits and becoming a more righteous individual and goes hand in hand with the process of justification.

This definitive and progressive justification (akin to protestant definitive and progressive sanctification?)

I don’t know anything about Protestant sanctification. But the Catholic Church teaches that we adopt holy habits and become holy as God is holy. As we add to our faith, knowledge and all good virtues, we make our election sure and attain to the heights of righteousness without which one will not see God.
Revelation 22:12-15
King James Version (KJV)
12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. 13 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. 14 Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. 15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

However, I have heard that the Protestants consider Justification only a forensic or legal thing where the creature is not truly changed.

But for the Catholic, we believe that the creature is new born when God washes Him in the waters of regeneration. And we believe our souls are truly cleansed in the fount of Sacramental confession. And that we become united to God in the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist.

does explain to me why my Catholic friends are so relaxed about their own salvation when I had thought that catholic teaching would permit no such grounds.

I’m not sure what you mean by that? Perhaps you are comparing the Protestant preoccupation with salvation to the Catholic knowledge that God is our Judge. We are not preoccupied with judging our souls nor those of others because we trust in God and hope in Him. The Scripture says:

1 Corinthians 4:2-5
King James Version (KJV)
2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self. 4 For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. 5 Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.

It seems a bit like ‘now you see it; now you don’t’ carrot and stick. To the wayward, the Church can say they will be judged on final works (other than as covered by confession/penance which will be sorted out in purgatory). For the nervous, Mother Church can remind them of their baptism and their initial but adequate justification.
I have put it crudely and I apologise, but the danger of this is that it produces ‘tightrope’ salvation based on a ‘tightrope’ state of mind of supplicant. It is not so much that God’s mercy overwhelms his justice, but that both hang in the balance and the supplicant must walk warily between Scylla and Charybdis.
In the case of my friends, perhaps they are nervous when with the priest and wayward out of church??? possible, surely

More likely, you don’t understand either Catholic soteriology nor Protestant. As for your friends, I don’t know them. If you don’t think they understand Catholic Doctrine, send them to the Catholic Church. But please don’t try to teach them anything about the Catholic Church yourself. Because it is obvious that you don’t understand the Catholic Teaching.

Sincerely,

De Maria