re: Actor Shia LeBeouf converts to Catholicism

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Holy mother of hair splitting Batman…upon the criminal’s faith, he confessed his belief.

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So, yes then. You're saying he had to do something. Which contradicts the notion that - once Christ has made his sacrifice - there is nothing left for us to do.

Without our acknowledgement of that loving sacrifice and our assent to God's will for us, the sacrifice is - in some sense - not enough. This is what me and Foo were going back and forth about.

Yes, it goes without question that Jesus' sacrifice is fully sufficient for our justification. The Catholic Church teaches that exact thing.

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1992 Justification has been merited for us by the Passion of Christ who offered himself on the cross as a living victim, holy and pleasing to God, and whose blood has become the instrument of atonement for the sins of all men. Justification is conferred in Baptism, the sacrament of faith. It conforms us to the righteousness of God, who makes us inwardly just by the power of his mercy. Its purpose is the glory of God and of Christ, and the gift of eternal life:40

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus.41

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The part where there seems to be confusion and disagreement is "what comes next?"

God has made his loving sacrifice. Jesus has performed his work of redemption. The path to salvation has been opened to us. Therefore....what? Basic Christian theology and logic suggests that we've been called to do something, and we have an entire New Testament of what that is. Do you deny that? Do you disagree with that? Surely, as a Christian, you do not. This is why I said in an earlier post that I find the "faith vs. works" debate to be so inanely ludicrous. It's basically us chasing our tails.

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That’s not quite what I would call “doing good works”

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Then you misunderstand the whole notion of "good works."

From the Catechism (emphasis is mine):

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2013 "All Christians in any state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity."65 All are called to holiness: "Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."66

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The point isn't that we have to rack up some predetermined number of good deeds by the time we die, that are being tracked by some celestial ledger, always under the obligation to "add to Christ's sacrifice" because his sacrifice "wasn't enough to save us."

That's a distortion of Catholic belief that borders on outright falsehood. Once again, of course Christ's sacrifice was sufficient.

The point is that we must cooperate with God and his will for us, which the criminal - nailed to the cross, using his dying breath - most certainly did. He did everything he could, given his unique set of circumstances, which, I would hope any Christian believes, an almighty God has the wisdom and authority to judge on a person-by-person basis.

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Sure if you want to say uttering his convictions to Jesus was an action, fine…the point is when he believed and in turn spoke his faith filled words, that’s all it took.

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Ah, so after all, it turns out that we do have to do some sort of work, don't we?

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? If a company calls you and offers you a job, you have to actually accept the offer to bring the offer to its fruition. You have to do something. You can't just hang up without responding, content in knowing that they offered you the job. I believe that's what Foo would call a "dead, unsaving faith."

From the Catechism:

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Justification establishes cooperation between God's grace and man's freedom. On man's part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent:

When God touches man's heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God's grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God's sight.42

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Once we've accepted God's free offer of grace, only then can we hope to work towards good, such as the criminal's proclamation and request to Jesus which then prompted his response of "“Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Even then, our work is merely the fruits of God's grace, and we could never hope to expect that our actions in this life will "be enough" to get into Heaven.

From the Catechism:

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1996 Our justification comes from the grace of God. Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life.46

1997 Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life: by Baptism the Christian participates in the grace of Christ, the Head of his Body. As an "adopted son" he can henceforth call God "Father," in union with the only Son. He receives the life of the Spirit who breathes charity into him and who forms the Church.

1998 This vocation to eternal life is supernatural. It depends entirely on God's gratuitous initiative, for he alone can reveal and give himself. It surpasses the power of human intellect and will, as that of every other creature.47

1999 The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification:48

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.49

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2011 The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men. The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.

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2005 Since it belongs to the supernatural order, grace escapes our experience and cannot be known except by faith. We cannot therefore rely on our feelings or our works to conclude that we are justified and saved.56 However, according to the Lord's words "Thus you will know them by their fruits"57 - reflection on God's blessings in our life and in the lives of the saints offers us a guarantee that grace is at work in us and spurs us on to an ever greater faith and an attitude of trustful poverty.

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Now if you want to talk about how Catholics believe that good works are necessary for sanctification, that's a different - albeit closely related - discussion. But I'm honestly not sure how anyone could have a problem with that belief.