Catholic Salvation (Heaven)
Note: The primary purpose of this website is to guide you to heaven. It was written to provide evidence that there is a God interested in the salvation of your soul. Jesus Christ is that God and he established the Catholic Church to lead you to a moral life and heaven. This section brings all the previous sections together. It describes the only reliable way to eternal life in heaven.
Posted: 2/9/2020 Updated: 12/9/2020
Table of Contents for this Section
Childish Morality
The Afterlife
Hell
Heaven
Moral Theology
Requirements for Holiness
Natural Law
Revelation
Personal Liberty Principle
Conscience
The Odds of Salvation – Supplemental
Salvation Diagrams
In the previous pages, the proposition that Catholicism is the one true faith was demonstrated. Historically, there is a Latin phrase that builds on this fact: extra ecclesiam nulla salus. It means that “outside the [Catholic] Church there is no salvation.” While several other Christian churches claim this phrase, only the Catholic Church has the right to do so, because it’s the only one directly founded by Jesus Christ.
However, as mentioned in the previous section, a false Catholic Church has emerged in recent decades. That false church appears oblivious to the life-and-death spiritual battle going on around it. Although that false church is dying, the one true church, based on unchanging doctrines, has yet to re-emerge.
While the re-emergence of the true Catholic Church may not occur in your lifetime, you and your loved ones can attain salvation by following its teachings, which are detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC). This section reveals how to understand the moral teaching of the Church, which is the only known way to salvation. The essay on the homepage of this website summarizes that teaching.
Childish Morality
“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” Saint Paul, 1 Cor 13:11
Prior to presenting the true Catholic teaching on salvation, I want to describe the present childish approach to morality believed by most Catholic clergy and laity in the West today. In effect, it states that one’s conscience determines the truth (cafeteria Catholicism) and everyone goes to heaven (universalism). It is encapsulated in these excerpts from the popular TV show Everybody Loves Raymond.
Cafeteria Catholicism
In the episode “Meeting the Parents” aired February 2003, Hank (H) & Pat (P) are talking to their adult unmarried daughter Amy (A).
H: Amy, please. I think you’re getting a little wound up.
P: I agree Sweetie. This could possibly be because you missed church today.
A: Mother, I did not miss church today. I chose not to go.
P: Oh.
A: You know why? Because Robert and I wanted to sleep in. He sleeps over many nights. And you know what? I’ve decided that it’s not a sin.
Universalism
In the episode “Talk to Your Daughter” aired March 2002, Raymond(R) is prepared to talk to his pre-teen daughter Ally(A) about the facts of life … how babies are made.
A: Why are there babies?
R: Right. Right. I’m going to get to that. Okay. What a man and a woman do is …
A: No, I mean, I know that the man and the woman have to do something, but why are we born? Why does God put us here?
R: Because … that’s … what?
A: If we all go to heaven when we die, then why does God want us here first?
These fictional episodes illustrate how most post-Modern Catholics and other Christians approach the question of salvation. Each individual decides which sins, if any, are serious enough to merit damnation, by “following his conscience.” This is called cafeteria Catholicism, but it’s not limited to Catholics. Next, there is the presumption that “God loves you,” which is interpreted to mean that hell is empty. When there are no consequences to sin, the risk of being wrong about moral choices is eliminated. This is Universalism.
This quote from Genesis presents the original model for Post-Modern morality.
Gn 3:1-5. Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree [of the knowledge of good & evil] which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die.” For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil represents moral truths determined only by God. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of that tree, they were attempting to usurp God’s prerogative and dictate morality for themselves. Even that temptation wasn’t enough to make them act until they were reassured by the serpent, “You will not die.”
There, in a nutshell, is the epitome of childish notions. Namely, that you are God, determining for yourself what is good and evil, and that there are no consequences for your choices.
I pray that as you learn more of the truth here and elsewhere, you will gain a mature understanding of who is in charge – “I am the Lord your God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”
The Afterlife
At the time of physical death, each individual soul separates from the body and is immediately judged by Jesus. This is the particular judgment. If judged to be holy, the soul either enters purgatory for final purification or enters heaven, where he sees the “beatific vision.” If the soul dies in mortal sin without repenting, he is judged unworthy to enter heaven. He remains separated from God for eternity by his own free choice. This is called hell.
At the end of time, there is the last judgment, the Second Coming of Christ, when everyone will be judged again. The resurrection of the dead occurs just prior to the second or last judgment. The souls of all humans who ever existed will be united with their bodies, both the saved and the damned. The saved will have glorified bodies, similar to that Jesus had after his resurrection. According to Thomas Aquinas, their bodies will be free from suffering & death, capable of effortless & unconstrained movement, and have spectacular beauty and brightness. The bodies of the damned will have none of these attributes.
At the last judgment, Jesus will “reveal [to all], even to the furthest consequences, the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life.” (CCC 1039) Then creation will be renewed, free from corruption and illumined by God’s glory, described as “a new heaven and a new earth.” (Rev 21:1)
Hell
The concept of hell is a joke to secularists and a taboo subject to most Christians. Nevertheless, it is a fact that Jesus, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, declared many would enter its wide gate. In fact, hell is the default destination for man because original sin wounds the intellect, weakens the will and fosters an inclination towards evil.
Based on the words of Jesus, hell is a place of everlasting torment.
• “outer darkness” Mt 22:13
• “unquenchable fire” Mk 9:43
• “furnace of fire” Mt 13:42
• “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” Mk 9:47-48
• “If a man does not abide in me, he is cast … into the fire and burned.” Jn 15:6
• “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Mt 25:41
Jesus used parables to describe eternal truths. Of the 37 parables in the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke), there are 20 that tell of the necessity to be ready for the day of judgement. They remind us that “that our decisions can bring blessing or curse, rise or ruin, salvation or condemnation.”
St. Paul, who witnessed the risen Christ, was the greatest Christian evangelist of all time. He listed the sins of those who are damned.
• Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Cor 6:9-10
• Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Gal 5:19-21
• Be sure of this, that no immoral or impure man, or one who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Eph 5:5
Many saints throughout history have spoken in stark terms about the reality of hell. It is only in recent decades that it is never spoken of. Universalism, a heresy condemned by the Church at the Council of Constantinople in 543 AD, now seems to be tacitly accepted by the great majority.
| Saint* | Died | Quote |
|---|---|---|
| Justin the Martyr | 165 | The majority of men shall not see God. |
| Basil the Great | 379 | … it is not the multitude who are being saved, but the elect of God. |
| John Chrysostom | 407 | … not 100 people will be saved [out of this city of thousands.] |
| Jerome | 420 | Many will begin well, but there are few who persevere. |
| Augustine | 430 | If you wish to imitate the multitude, then you shall not be among the few who shall enter in by the narrow gate. |
| Gregory the Great | 604 | There are many who arrive at the Faith, but few who are led into the heavenly kingdom. |
| Francis of Assisi | 1226 | But woe to those who are not converted, for these children of the devil will go with their father into everlasting fire. |
| Thomas Aquinas | 1274 | [God] has chosen some for that salvation, from which very many, in accordance with the common course and tendency of nature, fall short. |
| Francis Xavier | 1552 | Ah, how many souls lose Heaven and are cast into Hell. |
| Teresa of Avila | 1582 | Bad confessions damn the majority of Christians. |
| John of the Cross | 1591 | … if you have no care for yourself, your perdition is more certain … especially since the way that leads to eternal life is so narrow. |
| Philip Neri | 1595 | So vast a number of miserable souls perish, and so comparatively few are saved! |
| Robert Bellarmine | 1621 | It is granted to few to recognize the true Church …and to fewer still so to love the truth which they have seen as to fly to its embrace. |
| Vincent de Paul | 1660 | A great many persons live constantly in the state of damnation! |
| Louis de Monfort | 1716 | The number of the elect is so small — so small — that, were we to know how small it is, we would faint away with grief. |
| Alphonsus Liguori | 1787 | In our days a deluge, not of water but of sins, continually inundates the earth, and out of this deluge very few escape. Scarcely anyone is saved. |
| Jean Vianney | 1859 | Nothing afflicts the heart of Jesus so much as to see all His sufferings of no avail to so many. |
| Jacinta of Fatima | 1920 | So many people are going to die, and almost all of them are going to Hell! |
| Faustina Kowalska | 1938 | One day, I saw two roads. … And at the end of the [broad] road there was a horrible precipice; that is, the abyss of hell. The souls fell blindly into it [in numbers] so great that it was impossible to count them. |
| Lucia of Fatima | 2005 | Taking into account the behavior of mankind, only a small part of the human race will be saved. |
* Sr. Lucia of Fatima, a Servant of God, is well on her way to sainthood.
Heaven
[The new heaven and new earth mentioned above] “involves us being embodied and living in a new universe where the [new] earth and heaven are united. … The division we experience now between the physical world and the world where God exists won’t be there. It will be like the condition of the resurrected Jesus where we’re able to be in the physical world and simultaneously have full union with God the way Christ did.
According to Frank Sheed, in his book The Map of Life, this union with God is often anticipated, at first, as unsatisfying in that it may seem too spiritual and disconnected from the happiness we experience on earth. On the contrary, earthly happiness, with the exception of the satisfaction of physical desires, is related to the five transcendental desires everyone has, that were identified by the ancient pagan philosopher Plato. These desires are truth, love, justice or goodness, beauty and home.
Using the example of beauty, Sheed states:
“In looking at a sunset or listening to a piece of music, the soul of man may be lifted, if only for a moment, to an absolute ecstasy of happiness. Yet no man can go on endlessly looking at the same sunset, and an endless repetition of the same piece of music might very easily lead to madness. Both these effects, the original joy and the too rapid fatigue, come from the same source [i.e., God]. … And whereas he grew weary of the sunset – which was not the beauty of God himself, but only a created reflection of it – of the infinite beauty of God himself he will never grow weary.”
This heaven on earth is therefore called “the fulfillment of all desire.”
Moral Theology
Given that either the rewards of heaven or the pains of hell await everyone, it is imperative that you understand how to get to heaven. This is where Catholic moral theology enters into the salvation equation.
Moral theology is a term used to describe the study of God from the perspective of how man must live in order to attain holiness and eternal salvation. It is the most useful knowledge anyone can have. Therefore, your life is a failure unless you learn the basics of Catholic moral theology and apply them to your life.
This entire website, including the detailed background material leading to this section, is built around the question, “How do I get to heaven?” The answer is presented on the home page of this website and takes only ten minutes to read; ten minutes to eternal life! It is based on 2000 years of Catholic teaching, detailed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It has sufficient detail so that adherence to its prescriptions would make salvation highly likely. Conversely, it is succinct so that people will read it (one printed page, both sides).
Since the Catholic Church has existed for two millennia, one might think that such a document already exists but, if it does, I can’t locate it. I’ve seen an online video by Catholic evangelist Jimmy Akin. He says, “To come to God and be saved, you need to repent, have faith and be baptized. If you commit mortal sin, you need to repent, have faith and go to confession.” These words are faithful to magisterial teaching, but are deficient in providing the detail that is needed. Conversely, the Catholic Catechism has sufficient detail, but goes unread by most due to its size and theological complexity. So, there is an urgent need for this information, on which millions of souls depend.
Requirements for Holiness
Holiness (or sanctity) is essential if you are to attain eternal life. This requires sanctifying grace in the soul, first through baptism and then through repentance, which is most reliably obtained by confessing to a Catholic priest. Repentance is required when you commit (1) a grave or mortal sin with (2) full knowledge and (3) complete consent. Although unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove responsibility for a grave offense, “no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man.” Furthermore, “Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.” (CCC 1860 & 1859, respectively)
With the advent of the Catechism, the Internet and computer search techniques, it is easy to identify the serious sins that can destroy sanctity. Using the keywords grave or gravely, mortal, and “intrinsically evil,” I was able to identify thirty-three serious sins in the online Catechism. These are listed in the chart with the Catechism paragraph number, and matched to the Ten Commandments in Dt 5:6-21. The most common of these are highlighted in the short essay on the homepage of this website.
List of Serious Sins from the Catechism of the Catholic Church* (CCC)
| Commandment | CCC# | Serious sins |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – I am the Lord your God | 1447 | Idolatry |
| 2120 | Sacrilege | |
| 2117 | Magic & sorcery | |
| 2 – The Lord’s name is holy | 2163 | Perjury |
| 2148 | Blasphemy | |
| 3 – Keep holy the Lord’s day | 2181 | Missing mass on Sundays & holy days |
| 4 – Honor your father/mother | ||
| 5 – Do not murder; treat others as children of God | 2291 | Use of drugs |
| 2284 | Scandal; leading others to sin | |
| 2272 | Abortion | |
| 2268 | Murder | |
| 2303 | Hatred with a desire to do grave harm | |
| 2073 | Abusive language (under some circumstances) | |
| 2268 | Infanticide, fratricide, parricide & murder of a spouse | |
| 2277 | Euthanasia | |
| 2281 | Suicide | |
| 2290 | Alcohol abuse (esp. endangerment of others’ safety) | |
| 2313 | Genocide | |
| 2302 | Anger (to the point of desiring to kill or wound another) | |
| 6 – Do not commit adultery & be pure of heart | 2384 | Divorce |
| 2400 | Adultery, divorce, polygamy & free union | |
| 2388 | Incest | |
| 2354 | Pornography (production & distribution) | |
| 2353 | Fornication | |
| 2357 | Homosexual acts | |
| 2390 | Free union (e.g., cohabitation) | |
| 2355 | Prostitution | |
| 2352 | Masturbation | |
| 2356 | Rape | |
| 2370 | Contraception (birth control, except NFP) | |
| 7 – Do not steal | 2413 | Unfair gambling with major impact |
| 8 – Live in truth | 2480 | Adulation (being an accomplice in another’s grave sin) |
| 2484 | Lie (with grave injury to the virtues of justice & charity) | |
| 9 – Avoid lust | ||
| 10 - Be detached from riches/power | 2539 | Envy (when one wishes grave harm to another) |
* This is not an exhaustive list of serious sins; it includes only those that are identified by the keywords.
Natural Law
Examining the list of serious sins in the previous section, you will notice that there are only 10 commandments, but at least 33 serious sins against God’s law. The reason is that the commandments are a subset of what is called natural law, “a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct.” This law was described by Jeremiah (Jer 31:33) and Paul (Rom 2:15) as “written on [our] hearts.” Therefore, it is accessible to Christians and non-Christians alike.
These are the basic ideas of natural law, based on the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas:
1. Natural law, a subset of divine law, provides God’s minimal moral expectations for all humans.
2. Natural law is based on the natural ends that we have, because of the kind of creature we are.
3. We must pursue these natural ends, and do nothing to frustrate them.
4. We can know our natural ends by looking at our natural inclinations.
5. These inclinations include self-preservation, reproduction & care of offspring, and use of reason.
6. Self-preservation has priority over the others and reproduction has priority over use of reason.
Aquinas also shows how the natural law is an expanded version of the last seven commandments.
1. The duty of self-preservation, which we extend to others as the right of self-preservation, coincides with the commands to avoid stealing, killing, or envying the possessions of others. [Nos. 7, 5 & 10]
2. The duty of propagating and caring for offspring is extended to others as the right to reproduce, and is spelled out in the commands for children to honor parents, and for parents to avoid adultery, or even envying someone else’s spouse. [Nos. 4, 6 & 9]
3. The duty of always seeking the truth, which we extend to others by avoiding lies, is inscribed in the commandment against “bearing false witness.” [No. 8]
The natural law is fundamental not only to salvation, but also to civilization. Defiance of natural law, a process we are observing in our post-Modern society, will eventually lead to anarchy and barbarism. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton: When a man stops believing the natural law of God, he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes in anything.
Revelation
God also gave us his laws through revelation (direct interventions of God in history). He gave Moses and the ancient Israelites the 10 commandments and many other precepts totaling 613 laws (the Laws of Moses or the Old Law), which some have sub-classified into three categories – moral, ceremonial and judicial. This set of laws applied only to the Old Testament Jews.
Revelation continued with Christ’s life, death and resurrection. He abrogated the Old Law, replacing it with the New Law (or the Law of Love or Law of Christ). However, the natural law and the 10 Commandments still remain in force, because human nature never changes. “The New Law also provides something that the Old Law did not: the grace of the Holy Spirit, who empowers individuals to keep the New Law in a way that those under the Law of Moses were not able to keep it.”
In addition to the revealed laws, we are also fortunate to have the teachings of the church that Jesus established – the Catholic Church. Since the Catholic Church is protected from error in faith and morals, its interpretation of Scripture and Tradition is the gold standard for understanding what you must do to attain eternal life. The existence of hundreds or even thousands of Christian churches, each interpreting the bible differently, clearly illustrates the need for the magisterial teaching authority handed down through apostolic succession.
Personal Liberty Principle
The natural moral law, supplemented and reinforced by the revelation of Christ, is now competing against the Personal Liberty Principle (PLP). The PLP was originally popularized by John Stuart Mill in his book On Liberty (1859). According to sociologist and author David Carlin, the PLP is composed of two parts:
• Autonomy Principle – Any conduct is moral if it does no harm to others.
• Tolerance Principle – Tolerate conduct if it does no harm to others.
The Autonomy Principle sounds perfectly reasonable to 21st-century ears. It sounds reasonable because Western society has been conditioned to believe it by the schools, the media and even the clergy since at least the 1960s. This belief has infected us, our families and our friends. Despite the pervasiveness of this idea, it is wrong, dead wrong because its premise, “no harm to others,” is violated. It eats away at the moral fabric of the society through pleasure-seeking through sex, drugs and other self-absorbed activities.
An example of this is the contraceptive mentality – the attitude that the natural outcome of intercourse, a child, is to be separated from the sexual union of two persons. This selfish and prideful attitude declares to God that the individual will determine whether or not he/she will bring another soul into the world, not the Almighty. This attitude is what once was called “playing God.”
This War on Children not only prevents their conception, but it also kills them in abortion, creates fatherless households through out-of-wedlock births and divorce, and perpetuates poverty. It teaches children that the gift of sexuality is not about love at all, but rather about the use of another for one’s own pleasure.
The Tolerance Principle also seems reasonable, given the natural law principle of fairness “written on our hearts.” Indeed, the previous understanding of tolerance is one that all people of good will still believe in. It once meant “to be patient and fair toward those whose opinions or practices are different from one’s own.” (1957)
However, the new definition of tolerance from the Urban Dictionary (2019) states that tolerance is “patience with and acceptance of other people’s beliefs.” The change from fairness to acceptance is based on the post-modern ideas of relativism and moral autonomy, famously codified in the “mystery passage” from the 1992 supreme court Casey decision:
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
The change is subtle but profound. The old definition assumes both parties are searching for the objective truth, and treat each other with respect when they differ. The new definition assumes that each individual defines his/her own truth, and everyone else is obliged to accept it. If not, you will be persecuted until you do.
But Jesus requires agape (self-sacrificing) love from His followers, a love based on objective truth. The hallmark of those who proclaim God’s Truth can be found in the Eighth Beatitude: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for holiness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (salvation).” One might say that Christians who have not been persecuted for their beliefs have been absorbed into the post-modern worldview of the new tolerance.
The Autonomy and Tolerance Principles that make up the PLP are opposed to objective truth and God’s unchanging natural law. They destroy the soul, because humans must obey the natural law to attain salvation. God designed us and knows what we need to flourish.
Conscience
This is the most important fact to know about conscience: “Conscience is reason making right decisions and not a voice giving us commands” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I-II, Q19 A 5 &6).
This is how the conscience, natural law and Catholic magisterial teaching work together to correctly discern God’s moral requirements and apply them in our lives.
1. God has placed in every human heart a set of principles (synderesis) that act as a starting point for moral discernment. Examples include “Do good & avoid evil” and “Obey God.”
2. God has also imbued us with a sense of what it is to be human – the natural law.
3. Furthermore, God has elaborated his will by revelation, through direct intervention in history – ancient Judaism, early Christianity and establishment of his Catholic Church.
4. Conscience is the application of knowledge to moral decision-making. It takes the inputs of synderesis, natural law and revelation, and generates an output. This is analogous to how a calculator takes numerical inputs and calculates an output.
5. The conscience is a syllogism (major, minor & conclusion), an exercise in logic, applied to a specific case:
• Major – Do good and avoid evil. (synderesis)
• Minor – Fornication (unmarried sex) is evil, based on natural law, revelation & Catholic teaching.
• Conclusion – I must not fornicate.
When conscience is in accord with Church teaching, it is a well-formed conscience, which prepares us to serve the Lord and do His will. In contrast, an erroneous conscience is one that serves only the Evil One and must be corrected. Even an erroneous conscience must be obeyed. However, obeying an erroneous conscience doesn’t excuse us. Aquinas, a doctor of the Church, reasoned as follows:
• Even an erroneous conscience must be obeyed if you perceive that it is speaking with the authority of God.
• However, if you follow an erroneous conscience you commit a sin, because you act against Truth itself.
• If you act against an erroneous conscience you also commit a sin, because you act against what you perceive God’s Truth to be.
• You can avoid sin only by seeking further information and changing your conscience, since “the conscience is a pupil and not a teacher.”
• If conscience can be changed, it must be changed. If it is possible for you to know the truth, then you have a moral obligation to seek the truth and change your understanding of the truth accordingly.
The application of this teaching has become especially important since Vatican II (1962-1965), when the laity was often told that we could disagree with Church teaching “in good conscience.” We knew this meant we could contracept, divorce and abort without guilt and risk, no matter the effect on the innocent. Failure to form your conscience in union with the Church places you out of conformity with divine truth and leads to rejection of God’s will.
If it is not possible to know the truth, then the person is not held responsible for his action, even though it is wrong. This is termed “invincible ignorance.” Many Catholics and others are quick to grab onto this, citing the case of a person (e.g., an aborigine) who is unaware of the teachings of Christ. Invincible ignorance may be applied to such a person, but is not likely applicable to those of us who live in the modern world, with easy access to the necessary information for attaining salvation.
The Odds of Salvation – Supplemental
This topic is so important, there are two sections on the website dedicated to it. The first section describes the difference between redemption and salvation, analyzes the risk of eternal loss and gives Jesus’ direct answer to the question, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” (Answer: Yes) This supplemental section provides additional information, based on a correct understanding of Catholic moral theology, as described in detail above.
It has been said, “the possibility of hell is a direct result of the fact that God loves us.” How are we to understand this difficult teaching?
God has shown his love for us in two profound ways that allow us to participate in the divine life even here on earth. The first is being mystically incorporated into the Godhead through the worthy partaking of the body and blood of Jesus Christ during the unbloody sacrifice of holy mass. The second is to participate in the marital act in a way that mirrors the unencumbered exchange of love between the Father and the Son, from which the Holy Spirit proceeds. Those who avoid the opportunity to attend weekly mass on the Lord’s day (formerly, the sabbath) and those who frustrate the will of God through contraception would unlikely be happy in a place where there is perpetual communion with God in prayer and a celebration of the openness to life.
Unfortunately, those who reject Church teaching on mass attendance and contraception are numerous. Taking Catholics as an example, headcounts indicate that less than 20% of registered Catholics attend Sunday mass on a weekly basis. Furthermore, polling indicates that less than 25% of regular mass goers believe contraception is sinful, presumably use birth control and are unrepentant. Therefore, 95% of all registered Catholics are objectively committing at least one of these grave offenses. If we consider lapsed Catholics and non-Catholics, and include the additional serious sins in the list thirty-three, the fraction of those in an objective state of grace, a holy remnant, is minuscule.
We can’t know for certain if these Catholics and non-Catholics will be judged to be “invincibly ignorant” and not responsible for their sins, or have “culpable ignorance” because they should have made a responsible effort to know the truth. Therefore, it is incumbent on the faithful to pass on this information with precision and persistence. Whatever God’s judgment is on each of those in serious sin, we who do know better will almost certainly be judged severely if we know the truth and are afraid to speak it.
The following two tests are based on the application of logical thought to Catholic teaching. If you fail the preliminary test, it demonstrates that you are either a non-Catholic or a Catholic that was subjected to inadequate instruction. If you fail the final exam, you need to pray fervently that God’s actual grace will change your heart, and bring you into sanctifying grace. If you pass the exam, you too must continue to pray and advance through the three stages of progress to sanctity – the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways.
Preliminary Test, Questions (Q) and Answers (A); numbers in parentheses refer to Catechism enumeration.
Q1: What is the one sure source of information on how to gain salvation?
Q2: What are the three requirements for a sin to be mortal (or grave)?
Q3: How many unrepented mortal sins are necessary to make one liable to damnation?
Q4: What is “invincible ignorance?”
Q5: True or false – Conscience is a feeling one has that determines whether or not an act is moral.
Q6: What are the 3 “laws” referred to in the bible? Which of these doesn’t apply today?
A1: The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), part of the Deposit of Faith, prepared following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.
A2: Grave matter (CCC 1037, 1857, 1861); knowledge that the act is seriously wrong (CCC 1857); and consent of the will (CCC 1857).
A3: One (CCC 161, 1037)
A4: The state of persons (such as pagans and young children) who are ignorant of the Christian message because they have not yet had an opportunity to hear or understand it (Summa Theologiae).
A5: False. Conscience is a “judgment of the intellect.” Feelings are no substitute for right judgment.
A6: The Law of Love, which includes the Ten Commandments & “social justice” (Matthew 25:35); The 613 Laws of Moses from the Old Covenant applied only to the ancient Hebrews.
The main reason Catholics and other Christians score poorly in this test is an incorrect response to the first question. The Bible is an inerrant source of Truth, but its differing interpretations have led to great confusion and a multiplicity of Christian churches. The only authentic interpreter is the Catholic Church, founded by Christ on the rock (Peter). The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is an essential guide.
The “Final Exam” is given at the last judgment. You and I must be able to answer ‘yes’ to all questions (with partial credit for question #5), for a passing grade. The score for question 5 is based on the zeal with which you love God & neighbor, bearing fruit for the kingdom, according to your ability (Parable of the Talents). Note that you cannot make up your own list. That would be the idolatry of self (#1 on the list).
#1: Have you loved as God loves (agape)? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Lk 10:27
#2: Have you kept the Commandments? “If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” Mt 19:17
#3: “Have you forgiven others? For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; but if you do not …, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Mt 6:14-15
#4: “Have you repented of your sins? Unless you repent you will all likewise perish.” Lk 13:3
#5: Have you been fruitful in serving God? “Well done, good and faithful servant; … enter into the joy of your master.” Mt 25:21
Or not? “You wicked and slothful servant! … take the talent from him, and give it to him who has [been fruitful]. … And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” Mt 25:26-30
In response to the harshness of Jesus’ judgment, echoed by the judgments of the saints throughout history, you may say, “I haven’t killed anyone, so God will be merciful when I die.” Actually, that is true, but not in the way you may think. God will judge you according to the process outlined in this section, with holiness as the criterion for heaven. Whatever your final destination, God is just and he will reward or punish you in proportion to your deeds. Hell, then, may not be so bad for some as it will be for others.
[Jesus said, I will come with my angels in the glory of my father and] “repay every man for what he has done.” Mt 16:27
[Paul said], “For he will render to every man according to his works.” Rom 2:6
CCC 1021: … “each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith.”
You may hope that hell might not be the “fire and brimstone” of the Hebrew Bible, but a much better alternative is to live a life obedient to God’s will, as taught by his Catholic Church.
Remember, “This life is not only a test that a man must pass in order to obtain the reward of heaven, it is also a preparation a man must successfully undergo in order to live the life of heaven. It follows that whatever is necessary to enable a man to live the life of heaven must, in some way or other, be acquired by man in this life.” (The Map of Life by Frank Sheed)
Salvation Diagrams
“To come to God and be saved, you need to repent, have faith and be baptized. If you commit mortal sin, you need to repent, have faith and go to confession.” Catholic evangelist Jimmy Akin
Sometimes it’s easier to understand complex ideas visually. So, I created this diagram, and found two similar diagrams online (here and here), that shows the pathway to salvation contained in the concise statements above.
I also found this somewhat humorous diagram that illustrates the immense divisions among Catholics. This unholy diversity is due to the infiltration of Modernist and Post-Modernist thought, instigated by subversive elements in what was once a unified Church.
