The Catholic
Church Is The Only Way to
Save Your Soul,
No Exceptions Admitted ---
and Here’s
the Infallible Proof!
A FORWARD:
My wife often pursues the apostolate
(divine calling) of upholding the Catholic Faith in the sight of people on the
Internet. This often involves friends or acquaintances she used to know from
years ago before she was Catholic, but can involve, too, people who she only
meets or converses with on a chat forum or at a website designed to help with a
certain task (like homeschooling, for instance). This is how she encountered
the gentleman to whom the letter below was addressed.
This man called himself
‘catholic’ but was not. Why not? Because he
denied the very simple & plain teaching of the Catholic Church, upheld
infallibly for nearly 2000 years, that no man --- without exception --- can hope to save his immortal soul apart from
visible membership in Jesus’ Roman Catholic Body, which membership comes
from professing the Catholic Faith along with reception of the Sacrament of
Baptism. Prove it, said he, from the infallible statements of the
Catholic Church that no real Catholic can think otherwise.
My wife then turned to me. For while she
has become learned & intelligent about Roman Catholicism, she hasn’t
memorized all of the documents & occasions where the popes or ecumenical
councils of the Catholic Religion have solemnly taught ‘no Salvation
outside the Church’ without exception… i.e., without any loopholes left open for non-Catholics to
‘squeeze through’ into Heaven when dying in the practice of a false
religion (or no religion at all). I thus wrote this text in her name with
her approval of its words as accurately representing her stance. Nothing has
been changed aside from the date of transmission and a very brief explanatory note
added in one place.
Want to call yourself Catholic and be
the real thing, my dear reader? Yet don’t want to admit that all non-Catholics enter Hell
automatically after death & judgment if they don’t become Roman Catholic first, prior to death
& judgment? Then read on! It’s only a few pages, and this is
eternal life & death we’re talking about --- your eternal life or death,
depending on what you choose to believe about this very simple teaching!
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27 May 2009
Dear X,
I’m writing this with the help of my
husband, Paul, to make sure I get these things right.
The infallible declarations, professions
& condemnations of the Roman Catholic Church that uphold Extra Ecclesiam
Nulla Salus [Latin for ‘No Salvation Outside the Church’] --- while
ruling out the possibility of someone being in the state of a so-called
‘invincible ignorance’, and thus ‘invisibly connected’
to the Catholic Church or otherwise an exception to the infallible rule of
‘no Salvation outside the Church’ --- are the following:
“Whoever willeth to be saved,
before all things, it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith: which
Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without
doubt he shall perish everlastingly.”
(Athanasian Creed:
Articles 1 & 2, emphasis added)
The Athanasian Creed’s
infallibility, by the way, if doubted, is proven by the inclusion of its entire
text in the infallible documents of the Council of Florence as part of a
Profession of Faith in order for various eastern schismatics to enter into
communion with the Catholic Church, as, for instance, Session 8 and the Bull of
Union with the Armenians. And the simple, logical question begs be asked:
How can it be doubted that someone not
holding the Catholic Faith can die in this state of unbelief and immediately
goes to Hell --- that there’s an ‘exception’ to the infallible
rule of ‘no Salvation outside the Church’ --- when the
Athanasian Creed infallibly states “...without doubt he shall
perish everlastingly”?
Yet we continue.
“Urged by faith, we are obliged to
believe and to maintain that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and also
apostolic. We believe in her firmly and we confess with simplicity that outside
of her there is neither salvation nor the remission of sins... Therefore,
if the Greeks or others should say that they are not confided to Peter and to
his successors, they must confess not being the sheep of Christ, since
Our Lord says in John ‘there is one sheepfold and one
shepherd.’ ...Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that
it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature
be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” (Pope Boniface VIII’s Unam
Sanctum, emphasis added)
Now, how can a person who is practicing
a non-Catholic religion (or no religion at all) be subject to the
Papacy? And yet Pope Boniface infallibly declares that it is “absolutely
necessary for salvation that every human creature” submit to
the supreme religious authority of a legitimate Bishop of Rome, thus ruling out
all exceptions to this requirement!
Yet we go on.
“The most Holy Roman Catholic
Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those
existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also
Jews, heretics and schismatics, can have a share in life eternal; but that they
will go into the eternal fire which was prepared for the devil and his
angels, unless before death they are joined with Her; and that so
important is the unity of this ecclesiastical body that only those
remaining within this unity can receive an eternal recompense for their fasts,
their almsgivings, their other works of Christian piety and the duties of a
Christian soldier. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no
one, even if he pour out his blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless
he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church.”
(Pope Eugene IV’s Cantate Domino, emphasis added)
Pagans, Jews, heretics &
schismatics... this pretty much covers the gamut. And so I ask another simple,
straightforward & logical question:
How can someone be a practicing pagan,
Jew, heretic or schismatic and escape the scope of this infallible
pronouncement? How can anyone practicing a non-Catholic religion until the
moment he dies hope to enter Heaven after his death when Pope Eugene & the
Council of Florence very clearly (and infallibly) state, “No one...
even if he pour out his blood for the name of Christ, can be saved, unless
he remain within the bosom and the unity of the Catholic Church...”?
If even a heretic who styles himself a
‘christian’ cannot save his soul through martyrdom for the name
of Christ, then how can we reasonably hope that any other non-Catholic will
enter Heaven by means of some sort of an ‘invincible ignorance’?
The loopholes are closed!
Yet we move forward.
“Man may, in the observance of any
religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at
eternal salvation… Good hope at least is to be entertained of
the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true
Many people claim that Pius IX’s
condemnations from his Syllabus are not infallible. This is nonsense.
Because the condemnation of a specific proposition does, by its very nature,
rule out any other option. As a result, how can a pope not exercise
infallibility when he condemns something specific? Either it’s damnable,
or it’s not. Yet if not, then what’s the point of condemning it? It
is a totally useless, as well as misleading, act. Consequently, public
condemnations issuing from the person of a pope are automatically --- of
intrinsic necessity --- infallible and thus irreformable. And so we ask:
How can someone ‘invincibly
ignorant’ die saved “in the observance [practice] of any religion
whatsoever” when this proposition --- idea --- has been infallibly
condemned? And how can we have good hope for the salvation of non-Catholic
souls, how can these non-Catholic persons please God as much as good Catholics
please Him, so much so --- so equally, in fact --- that He will let both
Catholic & non-Catholic enter into Heaven forever, when these propositions
--- ideas --- have been infallibly condemned by the Holy Roman Catholic Church
via Her Visible Head?
X, the shoe is on the other foot. The above infallible statements
& condemnations, which you can confirm for yourself within their full
context, are plain & obvious. Too, a simple but lengthy study of the
writings of early Church fathers, ecclesial history & lives of the saints
reveals that Roman Catholics have never understood the dogma of
‘no Salvation outside the Church’ to mean anything other than what
it says. In other words, Catholics from century one until the last few hundred
years have never understood this dogma to have any exceptions.
Period.
It is only in the last two or three
centuries that people, who call themselves ‘catholic’, have dared
to assert that exceptions exist, and have justified their innovation by
resorting to the notions of ‘invincible ignorance’ or an
‘invisible connection’ to the Church. So here’s the
challenge:
Show me, X, from the infallible
declarations & condemnations of
I appreciate your time and I look
forward to your response. Praying for the salvation of your precious &
immortal soul, yours very sincerely,
-Paula Doughton
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AN AFTERWORD:
Unfortunately --- and as is almost
automatic during the Great Apostasy, when no one wants to believe in the
Catholic Religion --- the gentleman to whom my wife wrote did not respond
intelligently or courteously. Instead, he either refused to read everything
that my wife & I wrote thoroughly, failing to understand it properly, or
else he read everything, understanding it wholly, but ignored what she said
regardless. Whichever, and as far as we can tell, his response was stubborn,
incomplete & nonsensical.
The Athanasian Creed doesn’t
count, said he, since it dealt with the Arian heresy. Therefore, he was
apparently trying to say, the Athanasian Creed only condemns Arianism (a heresy
that denies that Jesus is as fully God as He is fully a Man) and nothing more.
Consequently, he seemed to imply, a person does not have to believe that “Whoever willeth to be saved,
before all things, it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith: which
Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled,
without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.”
(Athanasian Creed:
Articles 1 & 2, emphasis added) Or else he thinks (and it’s difficult to know exactly
what the fellow thinks since he explained himself so briefly) that the Catholic
Faith consists only of belief
in the Trinity & Incarnation, there being nothing required about believing
in Jesus’ Body, which is the Roman Catholic Church, or in the Seven
Sacraments, or etc., etc. As a result, Protestants and ‘bible believing
christians’ are on their way to Heaven, too, because most of them believe
that our Creator is Three Persons in One God and that Jesus Christ is just as
much fully God as He is fully a Man… and
even though they don’t accept a thing about Jesus’ Catholic Church,
about the Sacraments, or about any of the other infallible dogmas that Roman
Catholicism uniquely teaches, and despite them believing lots of stuff that the
Catholic Church blatantly condemns, such as ‘faith alone’ saving
you, or the ‘bible alone’ instructing us.
Make any sense to you, my dear reader?
No, it doesn’t to us, either.
Plainly, the Catholic Church has existed
since the first century. Lots of ancient documents attest this, and the
Catholic Church has steadfastly maintained this. Moreover, ancient Christian
writings show that the Catholic Church has always taught & practiced
the Seven Sacraments, the necessity of being in the Church to save yourself,
the existence of Purgatory, the use of indulgences, the veneration of Saints
& Angels, and so forth and so on. Ergo, why would a reasonable man insist
that the Athanasian Creed, which originated in the fourth century, refers only to the heresy of Arianism, or that
it demands only belief in the Trinity
& Incarnation, when this Creed takes the time to state, “Whoever
willeth to be saved, before all things, it is necessary that he hold the
Catholic Faith: which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without
doubt he shall perish everlastingly”?
Is the Arian heresy the only
heresy that the undefiled whole of the Catholic Faith opposes, or are
the dogmas of the Trinity & Incarnation the only dogmas that the
undefiled whole of the Catholic Faith teaches?
No?
Then how in the world is it that the
infallible Creed of St. Athanasius does not mean what it clearly says it
means, that whoever wants to save his soul must “hold the Catholic
Faith… WHOLE AND UNDEFILED,” and that failure to
do this simple thing means that “WITHOUT DOUBT he shall perish
everlastingly”?
Eh?
No, his position doesn’t make any
real sense. Rather, it’s obvious that he very badly doesn’t want
to believe that “the Catholic Faith… whole and undefiled” is truly necessary to save one’s soul. Contrary to what the
Roman Catholic Church infallibly pronounces through the Athanasian Creed about
the non-Catholic man, that “without
doubt he shall perish everlastingly”, this fellow to whom my wife
wrote very much does have doubts --- and wants to have big, huge & supposedly ‘unanswerable’
doubts! --- that the non-Catholic man dying as a
non-Catholic man goes to Hell forever. In short, he wants to think that there
most certainly is the possibility
of Salvation outside the Roman Catholic Church, for anyone whatsoever.
Period.
What’s more --- and as far as we
can tell --- the gentleman had nothing to say about all of the other infallible
quotes we gave him. Pope Boniface VIII, Pope Eugene IV, Pope Pius IX…
either the infallible statements & condemnations coming from these Roman
Bishops meant nothing to him, or else he never bothered reading the rest of my
wife’s little letter in the first place. Whichever, he denies what
the Catholic Church via Her Papacy solemnly proclaims:
That there is absolutely no possibility of Salvation for any
man outside of membership in Jesus’ Body, the Roman Catholic Church --- which membership consists of profession of
the Catholic Faith “whole and undefiled,” as well as real &
actual submission to the legitimate Bishops of Rome as Jesus’
Representative on Earth & Visible Head of the Catholic Church --- and
that there is positively no exception made to this simple rule, at any
time, anywhere, for anyone.
End of sentence.
Now, is it honest & reasonable of
the gentleman to deny this after having received the infallible proof in my
wife’s letter above?
Not if you’re going to claim to be
Catholic. It’s not even honest or reasonable if you don’t claim to be Catholic! Nevertheless, the so-called
‘catholic’ pretends by the very name of ‘catholic’
(which means ‘universal’) to adhere to the very same religion
that all Roman Catholics adhere to,
in every place throughout the earth and at every time throughout history since
the place & time of Jerusalem in the 1st century, which is where
Catholicism began.
How, then, can it be a real &
unchanging Catholicism, a
truly universal religion
across the miles & years, when this fellow doesn’t actually believe
--- as have all Catholics down through the centuries and everywhere in the
world --- that you have to be
Catholic in order to save your soul? And how can Catholicism be guaranteed to be universal if everyone down through the centuries and
everywhere in the world can make up what he wants to believe and call it
‘catholicism’, despite his personal version of
‘catholicism’ contradicting
what Roman Catholics before him have infallibly believed? And how can the truly
universal nature of a real
& unchanging Catholicism be maintained unless God Almighty chooses to speak infallibly through one man who is the
acknowledged leader of all who are Catholic, thereby representing God and with
whose teachings anyone must agree in
order to be Catholic?
The bottom line is this, my dear soul:
It makes no sense
to say that there’s no Salvation outside the Church when there
actually is Salvation for someone who’s not literally a visible member of this Church, and
it’s useless to say that
there’s no Salvation outside the Church if you can’t actually tell
who’s in the Church or out of the Church to begin with, Her
members literally invisible to the
sight since it’s impossible to know for sure who belongs!
So why bother saying infallibly that there’s ‘no
Salvation outside the Church’ in the first place?
What in the world is the point of this stupidity?
Do you understand?
The Gift of Infallibility is precious
& necessary, given by God to the Popes of the Roman Catholic Church in
order to save men’s souls from believing in religious lies that will damn
them.
Whereas people like the gentleman, to
whom my wife wrote, make the infallible dogma of ‘no Salvation outside
the Catholic Church’ into a stupid & meaningless statement.
Such people are no different from
Protestants who explain away many of the simple & plain words of the Bible
to mean whatever they want them to mean. Because they, like
Protestants, are children of the Devil. As Jesus said to the unbelieving
Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father
you will do.” (John 8:44a-b DRC) And this Devil, as Jesus taught,
“…was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in
him. When he speaketh a lie, he
speaketh of his own [speaks his native language, since he was the first person
to lie and does so all the time]: for he
is a liar, and the father thereof.” (John 8:44c-i
DRC, all emphasis & annotation added)
My dear reader, the truth about saving
your soul in the Catholic Church is easy to see. ‘No Salvation outside
the Church’ says what it means and means what it says. Catholics have
never thought otherwise.
It is also part of the rudiments of the Catholic Faith that are absolutely
necessary to believe at the start of conversion so as to enter the Catholic
Church and have real hope of living in Heaven after your death upon the earth.
That is to say, it is not optional, or
fuzzy, or a ‘deeper dogma’ that you can ignore and still become
Catholic or die in the state of grace while stubbornly contradicting it. The
Infallible Church of Rome has stated this dogma repeatedly, even apart from the
quotes given above to the unbelieving gentleman. For instance:
“By the heart we believe and by
the mouth we confess the
Too:
“One indeed is the
universal Church of the faithful, outside
which no one at all is saved…” (Pope Innocent III via
Lateran Council IV, from Chapter 1 on the Catholic Faith, emphasis added.
Innocent III issued this infallible definition just a few short years following
the previously cited letters for conversion of Waldensian heretics.)
As well:
“This true Catholic Faith, outside of which no one can be saved,
which I now freely profess and to which I truly adhere, inviolate and with firm constancy until the last breath of life,
I do so profess and swear to maintain with the help of God...”
(Tridentine Creed:
Article 14, from Pope Pius IV’s Iniunctum Nobis, emphasis added)
The list could go on. ‘No Salvation outside the Catholic
Church’ is a perpetual teaching held by all Catholics since the beginning
of the Roman Catholic Faith --- and understood by every Catholic since most
ancient times to mean exactly what it says, without qualification or exception
--- as well as infallibly defined again & again, especially in the last one
thousand years as this teaching has come under relentless attack from rebels,
modernists & heretics.
Look again at the three quotes just given above, my dear reader.
The first two make it clear that the
Now, by definition, anyone who calls himself
‘christian’, ‘born again’, ‘a follower of
Jesus’ or ‘a believer in christ’ but who is not
Catholic is one thing, and one thing only --- a heretic.
Period.
He may or may not be baptized validly and thus may or may not be
under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, yet if he claims to
believe what Jesus taught while not
actually doing so, believing instead something different from what Jesus
or His Twelve Apostles taught is necessary to believe to save one’s soul,
then he isn’t actually a
Christian in the original sense of the word since he doesn’t
really follow all of Jesus’ teachings, can’t possibly be a
true Catholic, and, of course, is therefore nothing but a heretic…
someone who opposes the Saving Truth
that Jesus & His Twelve Apostles taught.
Case closed.
Furthermore, the third quote, from the Creed of the Council of Trent
(Tridentine Creed),
and issued under the infallible authority of Pope
Pius IV in 1564, reaffirms both what the Athanasian Creed anciently upheld and
what infallible definitions of the previous four hundred years had proclaimed
over & over again. To wit, that it is “This true Catholic Faith, outside of which no one can be saved…”
that is the sole hope of entrance into Heaven! For without the Catholic Faith “whole and undefiled,” as
the Creed of St. Athanasius infallibly teaches, a man shall die forever in
Hell. And it is the profession of
this Catholic Faith, as other papal proclamations clearly infer, that makes a
man a member of the Catholic Church and hence inside this Church,
which is why the Tridentine Creed has the obedient man say:
“This true Catholic Faith, outside of which no one can be saved…”
Because what does profession of the “true Catholic
Faith” put you inside
of?
The Roman
Catholic Church!
And what is this “true Catholic Faith”?
Read the entire
Tridentine Creed
to find out!
You can see its contents in the Profession & Abjuration
(P&A) section of The Epistemologic Works website.
In the meantime, know that the Creed of the Council of Trent goes
into some extensive detail about the Seven Sacraments, the Supremacy of the
Church of Rome, the Authority of the Papacy, the Holy Mass, indulgences,
veneration of saints, proper interpretation of the Bible, Sacred Tradition, and
etc., etc.
In other words, the Tridentine Creed makes it clear how the
“true Catholic Faith” is nothing except what is very obviously Roman Catholicism.
We say again:
The Roman Catholic Religion is what a man must
believe in order to save his soul, the Roman Catholic Church is to what a man must
belong in order to have hope of escaping from Hell and entering into
Heaven.
Dear reader, there can be no real doubts
in the mind of the person who thinks about this carefully and insists on
calling himself Catholic. To be Catholic, you must know & believe that
there is ‘no Salvation outside the Catholic Church’, which is
Jesus’ One & Only Ecclesial Body. And it is His One & Only
Ecclesial Body because it is the One & Only Church that teaches exactly
what Jesus & His Twelve Apostles taught nearly 2000 years ago was necessary
to save your soul, neither more nor less. Moreover, it is His One & Only Ecclesial
Body because it is the One & Only Church that Jesus has made infallible so
that the Devil can never overcome it with the damnable lies of Hell.
Every other so-called ‘church’, every other so-called
‘christianity’, every other religion, teaches something different
from what Jesus & His Twelve Apostles taught. There is positively no comparison.
The Truth is stark.
And the source of this Truth --- the Singular Truth which saves immortal
human souls --- is Jesus Christ Himself, God Almighty, through His Body,
the Utterly Unique Church of Catholic Rome. This Church is “the pillar
and ground of the truth” as St. Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 3:15. (DRC)
If truly Catholic at this moment, my
dear soul, may you cling to the Dogma of Salvation with unwearied arms in the
face of a mighty tempest that rages with hatred against anyone who dares to
defy its diabolical lies. While if not truly Catholic, may you understand what
I have said, admit the truth of it, and enter into the membership of
Jesus’ Roman Catholic Body by believing & obeying everything that His Church
teaches us is necessary for our salvation. May the Blessed Ever-Virgin Mother
of God win for you by Her prayers the graces needed to do this, and may you
cooperate with a good will by loving the Saving Truth regardless of whatever
prejudices you had prior to knowing & understanding this Truth fully!
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Pilate’s
query met:
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© 2009 by
Paul Doughton.
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