The “You Can’t Judge” Heresy

OBJECTION- You can’t judge if all non-Catholics go to Hell.  You are not God.  You must leave such judgments to Him.

ANSWER- God has already revealed His judgment to us.  To say that one cannot be sure or “cannot judge” if all who die as non-Catholics go to hell is simply to reject God’s judgment as possibly untrue, which is heresy and blasphemy and pride of the worst kind.  It is to sinfully judge as possibly worthy of Heaven those whom God has explicitly revealed He will not save.  To put it simply: to say that one cannot judge that all who die as non-Catholics go to Hell (when God has revealed this) is to judge in the most gravely sinful way – in a way directly contrary to God’s revealed truth and revealed judgment.

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…”[1]

And the “You Can’t Judge” heresy is incredibly widespread today.  On Dec. 15, 2003 I had a conversation with a “traditionalist monk” named Fr. Giardina of Christ the King Monastery in Alabama.  I asked him if he believes that all who die as non-Catholics cannot be saved.  He said that he didn’t know and couldn’t judge.  I then asked him if he believes that it’s possible that rabbis who reject Christ can be saved, and he told me that it’s possible because he can’t judge.  By refusing to assent to what God has revealed under the pretext of the “You Can’t Judge” heresy, this person fell into a rejection of the Gospel and of the necessity of Christ Himself.  On the contrary, the great St. Francis Xavier shows how a Catholic must affirm that all those who die outside the Church are definitely lost, as he does in regard to a pagan privateer who died on a ship on which he was traveling.

St. Francis Xavier, Nov. 5, 1549: “The corsair who commanded our vessel died here at Cagoxima.  He did his work for us, on the whole, as we wished… He himself chose to die in his own superstitions; he did not even leave us the power of rewarding him by that kindness which we can after death do to other friends who die in the profession of the Christian faith, in commending their souls to God, since the poor fellow by his own hand cast his soul into hell, where there is no redemption.”[2]

Endnotes:

[1] Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 1, p. 578; Denzinger 714.

[2] The Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier by Henry James Coleridge, S.J. (Originally published: London: Burns and Oates, 1874) Second Reprint, New Delhi: Asian Educational Services, 2004, Vol. 2, p. 281.