Do you really think all non-Catholics go to Hell?
Short Answer: Yes
Better Answer: The logic is very simple to understand:
- Catholicism is true
- Any deviation from Catholicism risks eternal damnation
- There are two ways that a person is either Catholic or not, an external forum, and an internal forum.
- An External Forum can be observed, evaluated, judged and acted upon by both the clergy and faithful Catholics. Most denunciations of heresy (abandoning the Catholic faith for some false religion or ideals) makes you fall outside of the Catholic Church a far as anyone in it believes. Almost all declarations of a person having defected from the faith require a judgement and usually a process of investigation to be arrived at, but not all. Canon 188 part 4 of the Code of Catholic Canon Law of 1917 explicitly states that anyone publicly defecting from the faith (in action, deed or intent) and doing so notoriously (that is repeatedly and publicly, and thus not just as a one off error of some sort) is automatically considered a heretic and should be treated as such by everyone concerned. This is not rocket science after all. If a supposed Catholic priest starts sacrificing babies on the altar it is clear he is not a Catholic. Astonishingly, there are Satanists pretending to be “Catholic” Priests, that will try to argue exactly this point and would try to suggest that no matter what a (fake) Catholic does he can’t just be assumed to be a heretic, or never-was Catholic and so on. This is, of course, utter nonsense and completely illogical. In fact, it is a dogmatic principle of Catholicism that even a child should be able and willing to call out heresy and heretics. Each man is absolutely free, and duty-bound, as a Catholic to judge anyone falling foul of Canon 188.4 as a Heretic (at best).
- The Internal Forum can only be known to the person in question, and to God. There may be cases where some deranged schizophrenic, or someone in some other state of mind, invisible ignorance, or mental issues and so on, could, theoretically, genuinely believe in Catholicism and to the best of his or her ability be doing his utmost to be a model Catholic, while being a horrible actual example. In such an instance, everyone can (and should) judge the person according to the external forum (that is the only one we can comment on, or see. But only God really knows a person’s true intent, so, even if the person acted as a disgusting heretic that caused crimes deserving of (for argument’s sake) being burnt at the stake, and was officially declared a vicious beast and refused any kind of recognition as a Catholic, only God, in His infinite Wisdom and Mercy, is the ultimate arbiter of where such a soul ends up. Nevertheless, we as mere mortals must act according to the principles of what we can know and see, and thus according to the external forum only.
- There are a number of “exceptions” (not really) in that a person who is “technically” outside of Catholicism could actually still be inside Catholicism and thus would be saved even if apparently he is not Catholic (yet). These situations are limited and very rare and are the following:
- Baptism of Desire – Let’s assume you have read this blog, or been struck by some sudden revelation, or whatever, and you absolutely are now convinced that Catholicism (Sedevacantism) is the one True religion, and are absolutely wanting and ready to get properly baptised, but, despite all your best efforts to go and get this done as soon as possible, you are struck down by the proverbial bus and die when as yet unbaptised. In such a case, The Church teaches that because God is merciful, and also not a lawyer with a spreadsheet you need to have checked all the right boxes on, He would not send you to eternal Hell for simply not having been baptised. Of course, if you think that Catholicism is true but then you dilly-dally, and not bother to get properly baptised because you think “baptism of desire will save me”, well… you’re most probably going to Hell. This “option” is literally for the rare case of someone getting killed or dying before he can honestly get baptised, without him or her having wasted time thinking they are okay in the meantime.
- Baptism of Blood – In a similar fashion to the above, if an unbaptised person dies in battle while actively defending the faith, or is martyred for/while doing the same, he is considered as a similar situation to a baptism of desire. He clearly was on the side of God and remained faithfully so even when facing death, so from an external forum, we would tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.
- Invincible Ignorance – Depending on “interpretation” some Protestants might think that if they are too dumb, lazy, or both, to bother figuring out Catholicism, it’s all-right, because a merciful god will put it down to “invincible ignorance” and they will be saved anyway. Sorry, but that’s not how it works. Your pig-headed stubbornness is not a good enough reason to claim invincible ignorance. That’s just your pigheaded, wilful, prideful, lazy self making a bad choice. Invincible ignorance might apply to say that tribe of people on Sentinel Island that kill anyone trying to land on it or communicate with them. They have clearly never had any opportunity to be told the Gospels or even know who Jesus Christ was nor that He existed. Such people, it is reasoned that God will judge based on their conscience and actions relating to sin. The chances of one of these people making it to purgatory instead of permanent Hell are not great. I make the analogy that if you throw a million babies into a lake, maybe, by some freak turn of events, one, might make it alive to the other side, but the absolute likelihood is that every one of them will drown and die. I think the chances of getting into Heaven as a result of this are probably very similar to that and I would say almost absolutely impossible to apply to literally anyone that can read this. And overall probably far less likely than a current day baptism of desire or blood too, by a wide margin.
That’s about it. The logical, and really quite obvious point, is that if one way is the truth, any other way, necessarily cannot be the truth, and as such, can never guarantee correctness. This applies to reality at every level. Sure, a stopped clock might be right twice a day, but it really isn’t of any real use, is it? Similarly, if you think 2+2=4.00000000000000000000001 I assure you, in due course, your entire civilisation will collapse at some point, because tiny as that error is, it multiplies and resonates through every single calculation and approximation you do, and those errors compound over time. So, if you accept that Catholicism is correct, any deviation from it, obviously imperils your immortal soul. That’s just basic logic. You can get upset at how non-inclusive Catholics are all you want, but it doesn’t change the facts.
