To set the stage for understanding the second greatest swindle in salvation history, it is useful to consider which of the following two statements would sound most correct to the ostensible leaders of the Catholic Church today:
- Membership in the Church is necessary for all men for salvation.
- Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.
Which one does Francis appear to believe? Which one do most bishops and priests appear to believe? By all indications, Francis and his favored bishops and priests appear to reject the first statement and promote the second.
The first statement (which must be understood in light of the Church’s teaching on invincible ignorance, described below) is an infallible truth of the Catholic Church. The second statement was condemned as heretical in Blessed Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors, within the grouping of four condemned statements related to indifferentism:
“III. INDIFFERENTISM, LATITUDINARIANISM
15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true. — Allocution ‘Maxima quidem,’ June 9, 1862; Damnatio ‘Multiplices inter,’ June 10, 1851.
16. Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation. — Encyclical ‘Qui pluribus,’ Nov. 9, 1846.
17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ. — Encyclical ‘Quanto conficiamur,’ Aug. 10, 1863, etc.
18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. — Encyclical ‘Noscitis,’ Dec. 8, 1849.”
In different ways, these condemned statements all attack the Catholic Church’s teaching that there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church (absent invincible ignorance). And the ostensible leaders of the Church are more likely to teach each of these heretical statements than the infallible statement they undermine.
If Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, and all other Protestants are “on the way of salvation,” by following their religions, why would anyone want to follow the far more onerous Catholic religion?
As discussed below, Cardinal Augustin Bea orchestrated this revolutionary change at Vatican II, even though Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre warned his fellow Council Fathers against what was happening. Before considering the smoke and mirrors tactics employed by Bea, it is worth recalling the Church’s immutable teaching from Pius IX’s 1854 allocution, Singulari Quadam:
“Certainly we must hold it as of faith that no one can be saved outside the apostolic Roman Church, that this is the only Ark of salvation, and that the one who does not enter it is going to perish in the deluge. But, nevertheless, we must likewise hold it as certain that those who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if that [ignorance] be invincible, will never be charged with any guilt on this account before the eyes of the Lord. Now, who is there who would arrogate to himself the power to indicate the extent of such [invincible] ignorance according to the nature and the variety of peoples, regions, talents, and so many other things? For really when, loosed from these bodily bonds, we see God as He is, we shall certainly understand with what intimate and beautiful a connection the divine mercy and justice are joined together. But, while we live on earth, weighed down by this mortal body that darkens the mind, let us hold most firmly, from Catholic doctrine, that there is one God, one faith, one baptism. It is wrong to push our inquiries further than this.” (quoted in Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton’s The Catholic Church and Salvation, p. 43)
The logic in this passage is important — especially given how it has been attacked by Vatican II and its aftermath:
- There is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church.
- But, those who are truly invincibly ignorant are not, for that reason alone, guilty of not being Catholic.
- However, because we do not know the bounds of God’s mercy in this regard, we must always do all in our power to lead souls to the Catholic Church.
In his commentary on this passage from Singulari Quadam, Msgr. Fenton emphasized the following crucial point:
“Some translations tend to present invincible ignorance of the true religion as a sort of sacrament, since they make it appear that the Sovereign Pontiff taught that persons invincibly ignorant of the true religion are simply not blameworthy in the eyes of the Lord. The fact of the matter is (and this is the gist of the teaching of Pope Pius IX here and in the encyclical Quanto conficiamur moerore) that non-appurtenance to the Catholic Church is by no means the only reason why men are deprived of the Beatific Vision. Ultimately, the only factor that will exclude a man from eternal and supernatural enjoyment of God in heaven is sin, either original or mortal. An infant who dies without having been baptized will not have the Beatific Vision because original sin has rendered him incapable of it. Any man who dies after having attained the use of reason and who is eternally excluded from the Beatific Vision is being punished for actual mortal sin which he has committed. Such a man may be further prevented from enjoying the Beatific Vision because of the original sin which has not been deleted by baptism.” (The Catholic Church and Salvation, pp. 45-46)
Invincible ignorance is not “a sort of sacrament,” like a go-straight-to-heaven ticket. One who might be free from guilt about the need to be Catholic would still have to die in the state of sanctifying grace to go to heaven. Even among validly Baptized non-Catholics who have been freed from the guilt of original sin, it is improbable that they would be successful in avoiding mortal sin if they lived long after reaching the age of reason. Accordingly, it would be a monstrous lack of charity for any Catholic to even remotely suggest that a non-Catholic should not convert to the true Catholic Faith, which is the sole religion established by God to allow people to serve Him and save their souls.
Other than Satan, who stood to benefit from Cardinal Bea’s heretical nonsense? The answer is obvious: the Church’s enemies in general, and the Protestant sects in particular.
Related to this essential consideration, Msgr. Fenton stressed that Singulari quadam opposes the notion that other Christian religions are simply less-good alternatives to the true Catholic Faith:
“In this section of the Singulari quadam Pope Pius IX goes on to urge the Bishops of the Catholic Church to use all of their energies to drive from the minds of men the deadly error that the way of salvation can be found in any religion. To a certain extent this is a mere restatement of the erroneous opinion according to which we may well hope for the salvation of men who have never entered into the Catholic Church, the first misinterpretation of Catholic teaching reproved in this section of the allocution. Yet, in another way, the error that the way of salvation can be found in any religion has its own peculiar and individual malignity. It is based on the false implication that the false religions, those other than the Catholic, are in some measure a partial approach to the fullness of truth which is to be found in Catholicism. According to this doctrinal aberration, the Catholic religion would be distinct from others, not as the true is distinguished from the false, but only as the plentitude is distinct from incomplete participations of itself. It is this notion, the idea that all other religions contain enough of the essence of that completeness, of truth which is to be found in Catholicism, to make them vehicles of eternal salvation, which is thus reproved in the Singulari quadam.” (The Catholic Church and Salvation, p. 47)
Msgr. Fenton wrote these words in 1958. Four years later, Cardinal Augustin Bea, the President of the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity, provided the following answer to the question of how we should understand the “well-known doctrine and saying: outside the Church there is no salvation”:
“Let us confine the answer to Christians, that is, to those who are validly baptized. The expression obviously does not mean that none of those who are separated from the Catholic Church can be saved. Its explanation is to be found in what we have said above about the relationship with the Catholic Church. As they have been baptized and in good faith accept and live the faith in which they were born and brought up, they receive, by virtue of their belonging to Christ, the necessary help for an authentic religious life, for the observance of the law of God and thus, also, for their salvation. Consequently, they are on the way of salvation and that by virtue of this fundamental belonging to the Church of which we have spoken.” (Bea, The Unity of Christians, p. 202)
We can evaluate two components of this statement from Cardinal Bea, who was arguably the most important man at Vatican II: the substance of the statement, and the fact that he was publicly attempting to reshape Catholic thinking. Regarding the substance, this is obviously contrary to what Blessed Pius IX wrote in Singulari Quadam, as we can clearly see from Msgr. Fenton’s explanations. It is, moreover, an echo of the condemned propositions quoted above from the Syllabus of Errors. It is, in other words, pure heresy.
Even beyond this, though, there is something truly wicked about the fact that he was openly trying to change Catholic teaching on this point. If Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, and all other Protestants are “on the way of salvation,” by following their religions, why would anyone want to follow the far more onerous Catholic religion? Other than Satan, who stood to benefit from Cardinal Bea’s heretical nonsense? The answer is obvious: the Church’s enemies in general, and the Protestant sects in particular.
Tragically, Bea was so well-respected, powerful, and clever that he was able to build these heretical ideas (and others like it) into the Council documents.
In another statement from 1962, from Bea showcased how he was able to use his prodigious intellect and learning to maliciously manipulate the truth to promote evil:
“He who knowingly and with full consent accepts heresy and refuses obedience to the Church certainly commits a very grave sin and is not freed from it until he shows he has repented of it. But is this really the case with all our separated brethren? The great majority of them have inherited their religion from their ancestors. They accept this inheritance conscientiously and believe, in good faith, that they are on the right path. Who would dare deny this good faith and set himself up as judge of them and their responsibility? It certainly accords better with the facts, and with justice and Christian charity, to admit their good faith, and in particular cases to leave the judgment to God alone without probing into details or making classifications.” (The Unity of Christians, p. 56)
The translation: because Protestants are probably sincere in their errors, Catholics should not try to convert them. He even layered on the faux moral outrage: how dare Catholics do what Blessed Pius IX said we must absolutely do!
Tragically, Bea was so well-respected, powerful, and clever that he was able to build these heretical ideas (and others like it) into the Council documents. His fellow heterodox Council Fathers aided his efforts, and most of the other Council Fathers had lost their ability or desire to safeguard the Church from errors. However, a few champions of Catholic orthodoxy remained, including Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, whose fifth intervention at Vatican II (filed with the Secretariat of the Council) criticized the draft Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio:
“In Chapters 1, 2, and 3, the principles set out seem to us to promote a false irenicism [promotion of peace among Christian churches in relation to theological differences], both by veiling the truth and by attributing excessive spiritual gifts to our separated brethren. . . . [W]hat is said about the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and of the spiritual benefits that separated brethren enjoy, is not expressed clearly and unambiguously. Page 8, line 33: It is said: ‘The Holy Ghost does not refuse to make use of these churches and communities.’ This statement contains error: a community, insofar as it is a separated community, cannot enjoy any assistance of the Holy Ghost. He can only act directly upon souls or use such means as, of themselves, bear no sign of separation.” (Lefebvre, I Accuse the Council!, pp. 14-15)
Archbishop Lefebvre never forgot the lessons he had learned from the pre-Vatican II popes who had already condemned the errors that Bea, Congar, de Lubac, and Rahner were introducing into the Council documents. This is why Archbishop Lefebvre recognized the dangers of the draft Decree on Ecumenism. Unfortunately, he was far outnumbered and we read the following in the final version of Unitatis Redintegratio:
“The brethren divided from us also use many liturgical actions of the Christian religion. These most certainly can truly engender a life of grace in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community. These liturgical actions must be regarded as capable of giving access to the community of salvation. It follows that the separated Churches and Communities as such, though we believe them to be deficient in some respects, have been by no means deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church.”
Defenders of Vatican II try to find some way in which it is true that the “Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using” Protestant sects “as a means of salvation,” but they invariably miss the obvious point from Pius IX and Msgr. Fenton: it is not the role of Catholic bishops to teach Protestants that they are on the path of salvation in their heretical religions! And yet, thanks to Bea, this is precisely what has happened for over sixty years. In the name of promoting Christian Unity other than through the process of non-Catholics joining the Church, otherwise sincere Catholics were swindled into becoming anti-Catholic missionaries.
We can stop the swindle whenever good Catholics decide to wake up and demand a return to what the Church has always taught. Sixty years of complete theological idiocy is enough: it is time to reject the errors that the father of lies and his faithful Bea spread at Vatican II.
As we know from the fruits of Vatican II, rational Christians got the message: outside of Africa, we have seen sixty years of Catholics leaving the Church in droves, with no compensating influx from Protestantism. Most Catholics still have no idea how this happened, but we can see from the condolences offered after Cardinal Bea’s death that the Protestant leaders understood quite well [all quotations from Fr. Stjepan Schmidt’s Augustin Bea: the Cardinal of Unity, pp. 703-707]:
- “With cautious, patient work, step by step Cardinal Bea opened many doors to the new encounter between confessions in truth and charity.” — Bishop Hermann Dietzfelbinger, President of the Evangelical Church in Germany
- “It is primarily due to him and his collaborators that a new era has been opened up in relations between the Bible Societies and the Catholic Church.” — Dr. Olivier Beguin, Secretary General of the United Bible Societies
- “He was a man of great courage and always prepared to take responsible risks, at times even going beyond the law of prudence, to further the search for unity.” — Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, Secretary General of the World Council of Churches
- “God had given him a heart and spirit large enough to include all of us.” — Fred P. Corson, President of the World Methodist Council
- “Let me state that apart from Pope John XXIII no other Catholic personality of our time has enjoyed such unreserved veneration and gratitude within Protestantism as the deceased Cardinal Bea.” — Dr. G. May, Evangelical Bishop of Vienna
Thus, in the name of a fraudulent unity based on appeasing Protestants, Cardinal Bea managed to deceive the apparent leadership of the Catholic Church into abandoning the Great Commission. It was the greatest swindle in salvation history since Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. But unlike the Fall of Adam, we can stop the swindle whenever good Catholics decide to wake up and demand a return to what the Church has always taught. Sixty years of complete theological idiocy is enough: it is time to reject the errors that the father of lies and his faithful Bea spread at Vatican II. Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
