Trid, you seem still be in tune with the Council of Trent. Other points of view are gaining ground among Christians.
" Pre-Christian and pre-Jewish people already had access to God. This is the ecclesia ab Abel (“the church that existed since Abel”) that has been spoken of so often by the early church Fathers and in the documents of Vatican II. " (Richard Rohr)
According to Paul and John, Christ is the alpha and omega, the here, now everywhere and always. Jesus, the Christ, lived as divine and human among us. It is this oneness with the Divine that we humans need to embrace in order find salvation or heaven (universal belonging and universal connecting).