The Editor of The Remnant Speaks Heresy on the dogma, Outside the Church There is No Salvation

Heresy of the Week, Week of 11/14/03
By Bro. Michael Dimond and Bro. Peter Dimond
For more see: Heresies of the Week Relating to the Salvation Dogma

Michael Matt, The Remnant, “Luther,” October 31, 2003, p. 11: “Perhaps some will protest that we’ve been too hard on Dr. Luther, and that his well meaning spiritual descendants in our day surely mustn’t share his anathemas.  I have no desire, were it somehow within my power, to condemn baptized Lutherans to eternal hellfire.  As the Church has always taught, we must leave such judgments to God.  But, when considering how Protestantism came into being – in protest (protestant) of Christ’s Church and in defiance of His Vicar – it seems foolhardy to presume that all good Lutherans are guaranteed eternal bliss.  If I cannot say as much about myself or my beloved wife, family and friends who are Catholic (and who are, as Christ advocated, trying to ‘work out’ their salvation by the ‘sweat of their brow’), how can I say it of these poor souls who’ve been robbed of the grace of Christ’s sacraments and who languish outside His Mystical Body?
     “Protestants are not ‘pious Hindus’ living on that proverbial desert island.  They know Jesus Christ; reason tells them where His Church is and where it is not.  They cannot stand behind the shield of invincible ignorance.  We must pray for them, then, as we must recognize our own sacred duty before God to commit ourselves entirely to their conversion to the only true and sure means of salvation known to man – the Holy Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.”

Comment: As we’ve pointed out, it is a fact that almost all of those who profess to be “traditional Catholics” today reject the Church’s teaching on the dogma Outside the Church There is No Salvation, no matter how much they claim to hold it.  This week’s heresy proves our point again.  Michael Matt, the editor of The Remnant, actually wrote an article on how the new film Luther (about the arch-heretic Martin Luther) attacks the dogma Outside the Church There is No Salvation, as if Mr. Matt believed in that dogma.  But in his article Mr. Matt shows what he really believes by clearly indicating (see quote above) that both Lutherans and Hindus can be saved without the Catholic faith, and that “we must leave such judgments to God” – a cleverly heretical way of stating that we don’t know if God’s judgment that all who die as non-Catholics will not be saved (already revealed to the Church as infallibly true) is true.  This is totally heretical – a flat out rejection of the divinely revealed truth that all who die without the Catholic Faith cannot be saved.  And Matt is deceiving because he presents himself as one who adheres to and even defends the dogma when in truth he rejects it. 

Mr. Matt is such a heretic, in fact, that he says: “it seems foolhardy to presume that all good Lutherans are guaranteed eternal bliss,” clearly indicating again that he holds that Lutherans can be saved and that the only point of contention is how many can be saved.  Matt then tries to show the reader that the Lutherans are still under some obligation to enter the Church (even though he has already clearly indicated that some if not most can be saved outside of her) by pointing out that the Lutherans are not the “pious Hindus” who are “invincibly ignorant” of Christ.  In other words, while Lutherans can be saved, it would be foolish to assert that they are all saved since they have heard of Christ and should know the Church; the “pious Hindus,” on the other hand, living in “invincible ignorance” have not.  This clearly indicates that, according to Matt, Hindus also can be saved, since they are even less culpable than the Lutherans whom he has already indicated can be saved.  What a bold rejection of Catholic teaching!  And at the end of spewing his heretical explanation, Matt says “the Holy Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation” – in the typical fashion of the dishonest heretics who pretend to believe in this dogma while they obstinately deny it and empty it of its meaning. 

Pope Gregory XVI, Summo Iugiter Studio (# 2), May 27, 1832:“Finally some of these misguided people attempt to persuade themselves and others that men are not saved only in the Catholic religion, but that even heretics may attain eternal life.”

Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos (# 13), Aug. 15, 1832:  “They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that ‘those who are not with Christ are against Him,’ (Lk. 11:23) and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him.  Therefore, ‘without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate” (Athanasian Creed).

Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra: “The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”

For more see: Heresies of the Week Relating to the Salvation Dogma