In brief…

There is the entire body of Christians (including all denominations) however the fullness of Christianity is expressed in the Catholic tradition.

God holds people accountable only within reasonable limits (this is in Matthew somewhere). Non-Christians can be saved if, through no fault of their own, they never knew Christ or had a chance to know Christ. However, if one rejects Christ then there is less of a chance that person will go to heaven.

Now, the Catholic faith was the first Christian faith and is the one handed down from the apostles and disciples. Jesus told his Apostles “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me. Whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.”

What Jesus is saying is that if we reject the teaching of Christ, handed down to us from the Apostles, we reject Jesus himself and in so doing we reject God.

I am not trying to say that your son has rejected Jesus completely or rejected God, but there is clearly some rejection of the truth.

However, if your son was not well formed in his Catholic faith prior to leaving it then he will probably not be held as accountable. In other words, he did not know the truth that he was rejecting.

Your son still has the possibility of going to heaven when he dies. I do not know all the factors involved, only God can decide what the final outcome will be.

Here is a related link on this topic just in case you hadn’t seen it yet: http://www.aboutcatholics.com/community … c.php?t=42