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The Invincibly Ignorant are Damned at least for the Guilt of Original Sin [Click to jump forward to the quotes from the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Saints discussing the reprobation and damnation of the invincibly ignorant, who cannot not know of the Roman Catholic religion or its truth and are therefore certainly damned if they die in that state, for they have died guilty, at least of the original sin, for sins cannot be removed without reception of the Catholic religion.] Summary – The invincibly ignorant are justly deprived of the only means of salvation We have shown in a previous essay, that all are conceived with the guilt of the original sin as their own, which justifies their punishment in body and soul in this life and in eternity. We have shown in another, that there is no middle place, no “limbo” for unbaptised infants, where they might enjoy a happy middle state between the sweet beatitude enjoyed by the innocent in heaven and the painful damnation suffered by the guilty in hell fire. To get to the heart of the matter, the Roman Catholic Church infallibly defined at two doctrinal ecumenical councils, Lyons II and Florence, that the guilt of original sin suffices for damnation in hell. The teachings of these two councils are recognised by all Catholic theologians to be infallible, due to the degree of authority with which popes approved them as rules of the faith. “The souls of those who die in mortal sin or with original sin only, however, immediately descend to hell, to be punished moreover with disparate punishments. […] They will go into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Florence) The Fathers, Doctors, Saints and Popes of the Church have further taught, that accordingly those who die in invincible ignorance are damned to hell fire, at least for the guilt of original sin. They have neither innocence nor excuse in this matter nor any means of salvation. Their ignorance of divine matters is a punishment for the original sin, the guilt of which they have as their own and which suffices for their damnation. As Jesus said, ‘He who does not believe is damned already’ (St. John 3) ‘for all have sinned’ (Romans 3), at least ‘in Adam’ (Romans 5). No one is worthy of the Gospel or has any claim to receive it; rather all are conceived damned for the original sin and are due only punishment. ‘For who has first given to God that he might receive from him in return?’ (Romans 11) For instance, the following Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Saints all taught that those who die invincibly ignorant are certainly damned, because they have died without hearing the Catholic religion, without which their sins cannot be forgiven. o St. Augustine (Doctor of the Church) o St. Jerome (Doctor of the Church) o St. Prosper of Aquitaine o St. Fulgentius of Ruspe o Pope St. Gregory the Great (Doctor of the Church) o St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor of the Church) o Pope Paul III o St. Francis Xavier o St. Charles Borromeo o St. Louis de Montfort o St. John Marie Vianney o St. Peter Julian Eymard o St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori (Doctor of the Church) o Pope Leo XIII o Pope St. Pius X o Pope Benedict XIV The providential designs of God It is a sign of the designs of God, that he has determined that no adult shall be saved without a belief in the Roman Catholic religion. He has left multitudes in the darkness of reprobation, that his holy justice should be manifest and that his mercy might be clearer in its character. The truth is that God does not want all to be saved. He has chosen a relatively very small elect out of the mass of damned humanity, so that his mercy might be manifest as well as the goodness of his justice, for the purpose of the creation is to exalt him, exhibiting his goodness to the utmost in its variety. Thomas Aquinas, in particular taught this. God could save anyone and everyone through his providence, bringing baptism and the Gospel to them through his ministers and converting them through the victorious delight of efficacious grace. ‘The Spirit blows where it will’ (St. John 3). Or he could have created everyone blessed in heaven, free yet confirmed in grace like the saints now, including baptised infants, who never chose God but were chosen by him. ‘You have not chosen me but I have chosen you’ (St. John 15). Jesus ever intended that only a relative few would benefit from his Redemption. ‘I give myself for my sheep’ (St. John 10). Though the sacrifice was of infinite value due to the dignity of the divine person, it makes only the predestined worthy. God has determined that some shall be damned in invincible ignorance, some in belief and some in deliberate unbelief; he has not determined that any should be saved in invincible ignorance. ‘And if our gospel be also hid, it is hid to them that perish’ (II Corinthians 4). It is a revival of the Pelagian heresy to say that the invincibly ignorant can be saved without receiving the Gospel St. Augustine taught the damnation of the invincibly ignorant against the heresy of the Pelagians of the fifth century. They denied that any are born guilty of the original sin that suffices for the damnation of the invincibly ignorant. They claimed that it would be unjust for God to reprobate these supposed innocents. Yet many peoples were obviously without the hearing of the Gospel; they concluded that the invincibly ignorant can be saved without hearing it. This is recorded in the writings of the Fathers who took up the pen in defence of Catholicism against the Pelagians. Augustine was the foremost among these writers and hence the doctrine of the damnation of the invincibly ignorant features so prominently in many of his works; another is Prosper of Aquitaine. Jesuit Molinists revived this heresy of the Pelagians regarding the salvation of the invincibly ignorant in the seventeenth century and the Jansenists had Rome condemn them for it. The Jesuit order was key in imposing the heresy under Pius XII in the period immediately leading up to Vatican II, when they had Rome condemn Saint Benedict Center and excommunicate Fr. Leonard Feeney. The 1949 Letter of the Holy Office, which Pius XII approved and ordered published, claimed that “when a person is involved in invincible ignorance God accepts also an implicit desire”, though men cannot “be saved equally well in every religion”. Rome has capitulated to the Pelagians on this point, among others. We shall now exhibit the doctrine of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Saints, and especially of Augustine, regarding the reprobation of the invincibly ignorant. We shall keep our comments to a minimum, for the sake of brevity. The teaching of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Saints on the damnation of the invincibly ignorant · Origen The Fathers of the Church were always aware of nations without an opportunity to hear the Gospel, and no more so than in North Africa, where tribes in the interior were known to be without it. Writing in the first half of the third century, Origen observed that, “‘When every nation shall have heard the preaching of the Gospel, then shall come the end of the world.’ For at this time there are many nations, not of barbarians only, but of our own, who have not yet heard the word of Christianity.” (St. Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, ad loc.) · St. Augustine (Doctor) Two centuries later, Augustine observed that there were still many tribes in Africa, and possibly all over the world, to whom the Gospel had not been preached. “For there are among us, that is, in Africa, innumerable barbarian tribes, among whom the Gospel has not yet been preached. We learn this by the daily evidence before our eyes of those who are taken captive from there, and are now subjected to slavery by the Romans. [...] Those in the interior, however, who are not under Roman authority are manifestly not in contact with the Christian religion in any of their members. […] It is to some of its shores in the West that we know the Church has come, and whatever shores it has not yet reached it will eventually reach. […] ‘How then shall they call on him, in whom they have not believed? Or how shall they believe him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear, without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?’ […] There are still nations, as we are well assured, in which there is only a beginning and some in which there is not yet a beginning of fulfilment […] If it is hidden from us when the whole world will be filled by the Church bringing forth fruit and growing, undoubtedly it is hidden from us when the end will be, but it certainly will not be before that..” (Letter 199) Again; “‘And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come.’ What else does ‘then it shall come’ mean but that it will not come before then? How long after that it will come is unknown to us, but, obviously, we ought not to doubt that it will not come sooner. Therefore, if the servants of God were to undertake the labour of travelling all over the earth so as to gather in as many as they can, we could certainly estimate how long a time remains before the end of the world by the remaining number of nations to whom the Gospel has not yet been preached. But, if anyone believes that it is not possible for the servants of God to travel over the whole earth because some regions are inaccessible and inhospitable, and therefore a truthful report cannot be made on the number and importance of the nations still deprived of the Gospel of Christ, I think it much less possible to understand from the Scriptures how much time there will be before the end.” (Letter 197) A lot of material follows from Augustine on invincible ignorance that is most instructive. “From this misery, most righteously inflicted on sinners, God’s grace delivers; because man of his own accord, that is, by free will, could fall, but could not also rise. To this misery of just condemnation belong the ignorance and the difficulty which every man suffers from the beginning of his birth, and no one is delivered from that evil except by the grace of God. And this misery the Pelagians will not have to descend from a just condemnation, because they deny original sin; although even if the ignorance and difficulty were the natural beginnings of man, God would not even thus deserve to be reproached, but to be praised.” (The Gift of Perseverance 27) “The Lord Himself also says in the Gospel: ‘If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.’ Surely He does not mean that they have no sin, when they are full of many great sins, but He wishes us to know that, if He had not come, they would not have had this sin of having heard Him and not having believed in Him. He protests that they lack the excuse which would let them say: ‘We have not heard, therefore we have not believed.’ […] And although they think they have an excuse, God does not accept this excuse, because He knows that He made man right and gave him a commandment to obey, and that this sin, which passed upon his descendants, came from his having made a bad use of his free will. And we cannot say that those who have not sinned are damned, since that first sin passed upon all from one, in whom all sinned together before they committed any separate sins of their own. […] If their excuse were valid, it would not be grace but justice that redeemed them. But, since only grace redeems man, it finds nothing just in him whom it redeems, neither will, nor act, nor, least of all, that excuse, for if it were a just excuse the one using it would not truly be redeemed by grace.” (Letter 194, to St. Sixtus) “But even the ignorance, which is not theirs who refuse to know, but theirs who are, as it were, simply ignorant, does not so far excuse any one as to exempt him from the punishment of eternal fire, though his failure to believe has been the result of his not having at all heard what he should believe; but probably only so far as to mitigate his punishment. For it was not said without reason: ‘Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations that have not known Thee;’ nor again according to what the apostle says: ‘When He shall come from heaven in a flame of fire to take vengeance on them that know not God.’” (Grace and Free Will 5) “They who are not liberated through grace, either because they are not yet able to hear or because they are unwilling to obey; or again because they did not receive, at the time when they are unable on account of youth to hear, that bath of regeneration, which they might have received and through which they might have been saved, are indeed justly condemned; because they are not without sin, either that which they have derived from their birth, or that which they have added from their own misconduct. ‘For all have sinned’ - whether in Adam or in themselves – ‘and come short of the glory of God.’” (Nature and Grace 4) “If, according to the word of truth, no one is delivered from the condemnation which was incurred through Adam except through faith in Jesus Christ, and yet from this condemnation they shall not deliver themselves who shall be able to say that they have not heard the gospel of Christ, on the ground that ‘faith cometh by hearing,’ how much less shall they deliver themselves who shall say, “We have not received perseverance!” For the excuse of those who say, “We have not received hearing,” seems more equitable than that of those who say, “We have not received perseverance;” since it may be said, O man, in that which thou hadst heard and kept, in that thou mightest persevere if thou wouldest; but in no wise can it be said, That which thou hadst not heard thou mightest believe if thou wouldest. And, consequently, both those who have not heard the gospel, and those who, having heard it and been changed by it for the better, have not received perseverance, and those who, having heard the gospel, have refused to come to Christ, that is, to believe on Him - since He Himself says, ‘No man cometh unto me, except it were given him of my Father,’ - and those who by their tender age were unable to believe, but might be absolved from original sin by the sole laver of regeneration, and yet have not received this laver, and have perished in death: are not made to differ from that lump which it is plain is condemned, as all go from one into condemnation. Some are made to differ, however, not by their own merits, but by the grace of the Mediator; that is to say, they are justified freely in the blood of the second Adam.” (On Correction and Grace 11-12) “Therefore the nature of the human race, generated from the flesh of the one transgressor, if [as the Pelagians falsely contend] it is self-sufficient for fulfilling the law and for perfecting righteousness, ought to be sure of its reward, that is, of everlasting life, even if in any nation or at any former time faith in the blood of Christ was unknown to it. For [say the Pelagians] God is not so unjust as to defraud righteous persons of the reward of righteousness, because there has not been announced to them the mystery of Christ’s divinity and humanity, which was manifest in the flesh. For how could they believe what they had not heard of; or how could they hear without a preacher? For ‘faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.’ But I say (adds he): Have they not heard? ‘Yea, verily; their sounds went out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.’ Before, however, all this had been accomplished, before the actual preaching of the gospel reaches the ends of all the earth - because there are some remote nations still, although it is said that they are very few, to whom the preached gospel has not found its way, - what must human nature do, or what has it done - for it has either not heard that all this was to take place, or has not yet learned that it was accomplished - but believe in God who made heaven and earth, by whom also it perceived by nature that it had been created, and lead a right life, and thus accomplish His will, uninstructed with any faith in the death and resurrection of Christ? Well, if this could have been done, or can still be done, then for my part I have to say what the apostle said in regard to the law: ‘Then Christ died in vain.’ For if he said this about the law, which only the nation of the Jews received, how much more justly may it be said of the law of nature, which the whole human race has received, “If righteousness come by nature, then Christ died in vain.” If, however, Christ did not die in vain, then human nature cannot by any means be justified and redeemed from God’s most righteous wrath - in a word, from punishment - except by the faith and the sacrament of the blood of Christ.” (On Nature and Grace 2) “Why, then, does He not teach all that they may come to Christ, except because all whom He teaches, He teaches in mercy, while those whom He teaches not, in judgment He teaches not? Since, ‘On whom He will He has mercy, and whom He will He hardeneth.’ But He has mercy when He gives good things. He hardens when He recompenses what is deserved. […] And why He does not teach all men the apostle explained, as far as he judged that it was to be explained, because, ‘willing to show His wrath, and to exhibit His power, He endured with much patience the vessels of wrath which were perfected for destruction; and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory.” Hence it is that the “word of the cross is foolishness to them that perish; but unto them that are saved it is the power of God.’ God teaches all such to come to Christ, for He wills all such to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. And if He had willed to teach even those to whom the word of the cross is foolishness to come to Christ beyond all doubt these also would have come. For He neither deceives nor is deceived when He says, ‘Every one that hath heard of the Father, and hath learned, cometh to me.’” (The Predestination of the Saints 14, 15) “Faith, then, as well in its beginning as in its completion, is God’s gift; and let no one have any doubt whatever, unless he desires to resist the plainest sacred writings, that this gift is given to some, while to some it is not given. But why it is not given to all ought not to disturb the believer, who believes that from one all have gone into a condemnation, which undoubtedly is most righteous; so that even if none were delivered therefrom, there would be no just cause for finding fault with God. Whence it is plain that it is a great grace for many to be delivered, and to acknowledge in those that are not delivered what would be due to themselves; so that he that glorieth may glory not in his own merits, which he sees to be equalled in those that are condemned, but in the Lord. But why He delivers one rather than another,--‘His judgments are unsearchable, and His ways past finding out.’ For it is better in this case for us to hear or to say, ‘O man, who art thou that repliest against God?’ than to dare to speak as if we could know what He has chosen to be kept secret. Since, moreover, He could not will anything unrighteous.” (Predestination of the Saints 16) “In this general mass of perdition are the Jews also left, who could not believe so great and manifest wonders wrought before their eyes. And the cause wherefore they could not believe, the Gospel hath not hidden, speaking thus; ‘Though he did so great miracles before them, yet could they not believe, as Esaias said, I have blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart.’” (The Gift of Perseverance 10) “I spoke thus in answer to the question proposed, why it was after so long a time that Christ came: “[…] Thus the salvation of this religion, by which alone the one true salvation is truly promised, never failed him who was worthy of it; and whoever it failed was not worthy of it. And from the very beginning of the propagation of man, even to the end, the gospel is preached, to some for a reward, to some for judgment; and thus also those to whom the faith was not announced at all were foreknown as those who would not believe; and those to whom it was announced, although they were not such as would believe, are set forth as an example for the former; while those to whom it is announced who should believe, are prepared for the kingdom of heaven, and the company of the holy angels.” [Epistle 102] Do you not see that my desire was, without any prejudgment of the hidden counsel of God, and of other reasons, to say what might seem sufficient about Christ’s foreknowledge, to convince the unbelief of the pagans who had brought forward this question? For what is more true than that Christ foreknew who should believe on Him, and at what times and places they should believe? But whether by the preaching of Christ to themselves by themselves they were to have faith, or whether they would receive it by God’s gift,--that is, whether God only foreknew them, or also predestinated them, I did not at that time think it necessary to inquire or to discuss. Therefore what I said, “that Christ willed to appear to men at that time, and that His doctrine should be preached among them when He knew, and where He knew, that there were those who would believe on Him” may also thus be said, “That Christ willed to appear to men at that time, and that His gospel should be preached among those, whom He knew, and where He knew, that there were those who had been elected in Himself before the foundation of the word.” But since, if it were so said, it would make the reader desirous of asking about those things which now by the warning of Pelagian errors must of necessity be discussed with greater copiousness and care, it seemed to me that what at that time was sufficient should be briefly said, leaving to one side, as I said, ‘the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God’, and without prejudging other reasons, concerning which I thought that we might more fittingly argue, not then, but at some other time. Moreover, that which I said, “That the salvation of this religion has never been lacking to him who was worthy of it, and that he to whom it was lacking was not worthy,”--if it be discussed and it be asked whence any man can be worthy there are not wanting those [Pelagians] who say--by human will. But we say, by divine grace or predestination.” (The Predestination of the Saints 17, 18, 19) “Will any man dare to say that God did not foreknow those to whom He would give to believe, or whom He would give to His Son, that of them He should lose none? And certainly, if He foreknew these things, He certainly foreknew His own kindnesses, wherewith He condescends to deliver us. This is the predestination of the saints,--nothing else; to wit, the foreknowledge and the preparation of God’s gifts, whereby they are most certainly delivered, whoever they are that are delivered. But where are the rest left by the righteous divine judgment except in the mass of ruin, where the Tyrians and the Sidonians were left? who, moreover, might have believed if they had seen Christ’s wonderful miracles. But since it was not given to them to believe, the means of believing also were denied them. […] But what the Lord said of the Tyrians and Sidonians may perchance be understood in another way: that no one nevertheless comes to Christ unless it were given him, and that it is given to those ‘who are chosen in Him before the foundation of the world’, he confesses beyond a doubt who hears the divine utterance. […] Because, ‘To you,’ said He, ‘it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.’ Of these, the one refers to the mercy, the other to the judgment of Him to whom our soul cries, ‘I will sing of mercy and judgment unto Thee, O Lord.’” (The Gift of Perseverance 35) “Tyre and Sidon would not have been condemned, although more slightly than those cities in which, although they did not believe, wonderful works were done by Christ the Lord; because if they had been done in them, they would have repented in dust and ashes, as the utterances of the Truth declare, in which words of His the Lord Jesus shows to us the loftier mystery of predestination. […] But can we say that even the Tyrians and Sidonians would have refused to believe such mighty works done among them, or would not have believed them if they had been done, when the Lord Himself bears witness to them that they would have repented with great humility if those signs of divine power had been done among them? And yet in the day of judgment they will be punished; although with a less punishment than those cities which would not believe the mighty works done in them.” (The Gift of Perseverance 22, 23) “But God forbid there be true virtues in anyone unless he is just, and God forbid he be truly just unless he lives by faith, for ‘He who is just lives by faith.’ Who of those wishing to be considered Christians, except the Pelagians alone, or, perhaps, you alone among the Pelagians, will call an unbeliever just, and an ungodly man just, and say a just man is in bondage to the Devil?-whether he be Fabricius, whether he be Scipio, whether he be Regulus, whose names you thought would frighten me, as though we were speaking before the ancient court of Rome. You may also appeal to the school of Pythagoras, or that of Plato, where the most erudite and learned in a philosophy far excelling the others in nobility said there are not true virtues except those in some way impressed on the mind by the form of the eternal and unchangeable substance which is God. In spite of this, I proclaim against you with all my divinely given liberty of godliness: ‘True justice is not in those men’ and ‘He who is just lives by faith, faith comes from hearing, and hearing is by the word of Christ. For Christ is the consummation of the Law unto justice for everyone who believes.’” (Against Julian IV:17) · St. Jerome (Doctor) “Or lastly make your own the favourite cavil of your [Pelagian] associate Porphyry, and ask how God can be described as pitiful and of great mercy when from Adam to Moses and from Moses to the coming of Christ He has suffered all nations to die in ignorance of the Law and of His commandments. For Britain, that province so fertile in despots, the Scottish tribes, and all the barbarians round about as far as the ocean were alike without knowledge of Moses and the prophets. Why should Christ’s coming have been delayed to the last times? Why should He not have come before so vast a number had perished? Of this last question the blessed apostle in writing to the Romans most wisely disposes by admitting that he does not know and that only God does. Do you too, then, condescend to remain ignorant of that into which you inquire. Leave to God His power over what is His own; He does not need you to justify His actions. I am the hapless being against whom you ought to direct your insults, I who am for ever reading the words: ‘by grace ye are saved,’ and ‘blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.’” (Letter 133, 9) · St. Prosper of Aquitaine There is much material on this matter, most instructive, from St. Prosper. “Likewise, he who says that not all men are called to grace is above reproach if he speaks of those only to whom Christ has not been announced. We know, indeed, that the gospel is meant to reach all parts of the world, but we do not think it has already been preached in all countries. Nor can the call of grace be said to have reached where no men are as yet reborn into the fold of Mother Church. [...] Yet, we actually know with a firm faith that the Church shall spread to all parts of the world and that the world shall not end before the gospel has been announced in all regions of the earth.” (Answers to the Gauls, qualification to article 4, qualification to article 10) “How could the faith which Adam lost be found in any of his sons unless it be imparted to them by the same Spirit who worked all in all? Accordingly, if the posterity of Adam did not lose what he lost, then his sin only harmed him personally, it did not harm the human race. But all have sinned in one: in punishment of Adam’s sin the whole race was condemned. Therefore, all have lost what Adam lost. He lost faith in the first place; and if faith is the first gift we all lost, it is also the first gift we have to receive again. Let us, then, hold on to the doctrine of grace which says that faith is a gift of God, and we shall be proof against the deceits of the Pelagian error; for it is in order to prove that grace is due to man that the Pelagians refuse to say that faith is a gift of God.” (Answers to Extracts of the Geonese) “Let us give thanks to God, who has granted us the spirit of faith and virtue, of continence and charity, of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, of knowledge and godliness, and of His fear. Had not He who ‘worketh all in all’ given us these, we should not have any of them, we should be sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death together with them who knew not God or when they knew Him, have not glorified Him as God or given thanks, but ascribing that knowledge to their own wisdom, became fools; their hearts darkened, they became vain in their thoughts. Yet, even in that miserable state we should not be justified in complaining of this punishment nor in giving excuses for this ignorance, nor should we find any remedy for it in our fallen nature.” (Answers to the Genoese 8) “To assert that throughout the ages God’s will concerning the salvation of the human race and its call to the knowledge of the truth is universal and equal for all, in the sense that it never passed over any individual, is to trespass on the unfathomable depths of God’s judgements. For why is it that ‘in times passed God suffered all nations to walk in their own ways,’ when He ‘chose Jacob unto Himself,’ and did not do ‘in like manner to every nation and did not make manifest to them His judgements’. Why is it that ‘that which was no people is now the people of God’, and that ‘to those on whom He had no mercy He is now merciful?’ […] Nor should one think that any man was made just, either before the law or under the law, by another grace or another faith than the grace and the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Answers to the Gauls, article 8) “But up to the day that the seed should come of which it had been said, In thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, this faith remained confined to the people of one race, and there with the true Israelites the hope of our Redemption was kept alive. For although there were some men of other races whom, whilst the Law was in force, the truth deigned to enlighten, yet they were so few that we can hardly know whether there were any. But not withstanding the fact that the abundance of grace which now floods the whole world did not then flow with equal bounty, this does not excuse the Gentiles who, being aliens from the conversation of Israel, having no hope, and without God in this world, have died in the darkness of their ignorance.” (Call of All Nations II:14) “One section of mankind attains salvation, the other perishes. Were we to ascribe this to individual merits and say that grace left off the wicked and chose the good, then we would be faced with the case of countless peoples to whom for so many ages no messenger of the heavenly doctrine has appeared. And we should not say that their posterity were better than they, for it is written of them: The nation of the Gentiles that was ‘sitting in darkness has seen a great light’; and ‘to them that were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, light is risen’; and it is to these that the Apostle Peter says: ‘But you are a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people, that you may declare His virtues, who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light; who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God; on whom once He had no mercy, but now He shows mercy.’ Therefore, what the fathers did not merit, the sons did not receive on account of their merits. For indeed, fathers and sons alike were steeped in irreligion, the blindness of ignorance plunged them both in the same errors.” (Call of All Nations I: 15) “From this profession of faith in God’s grace some draw back for fear lest, if they accept the doctrine on grace as in Holy Scripture and manifested by the effects of its power, they be compelled to admit also that of all men born in the course of the centuries the number of the predestined, chosen according to the design of God’s call, is fixed and definite with God. But it is as much against holy religion to deny this as it is to gainsay grace itself. For it is no secret, but evident to all who open their eyes, how for so many centuries countless thousands of men were left to their errors and impieties and died without any knowledge of the true God. This is shown, in the Acts of the Apostles, by the words of Barnabas and Paul, who told the Lycaonians: ‘Ye men, why do ye do these things? We also are mortals, men like unto you, preaching to you to be converted from these vain things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all things that are in them, who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.’ […] What, then, about the trite objection from the Scripture text, ‘God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth?’ Only they who fail to see its meaning think it goes against us. All those who, from the past ages till today, died without having known God, are they of the number of “all men”? And if it is said, wrongly, that in the case of adults the evil works they did of their own free will were the obstacle to their salvation, as though grace saved the good and not the wicked, what difference in merit could there be between infants that are saved and others that are not?” (Letter to Rufinus) “God forbid that this should ever enter Catholic minds! God forbid such ungodliness that we should ever think that anyone ‘is delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of God’ by an adoption which is a reward he deserved and not a pure grace! Adam was lost by a grave sin of his, and all men were lost in him. Eternal perdition is what is owing in Adam to every man who is born from this cursed stem. And just as we have no right to complain because in past ages God left all nations to walk in their own ways, so also we would have no reason for complaint if God even now withholding His grace allowed us to perish together with those whose condition is the same as ours.” (Answers to the Genoese 6) ““Not all men are called to grace.” To say that all men, that is, all men to whom the gospel is announced, are not called to grace, is not a correct way of speaking, even though some of them do not obey the gospel call. It can only be said that not all men are called if those also are included to whom the mystery of the cross of Christ and of our redemption in His blood has not yet been announced. Suppose even that the whole world and every country have already heard the preaching of the gospel (that it will be so, an infallible prophecy has foretold): there yet can be no doubt that from the time of our Lord’s resurrection till today many have died without having known the gospel. Of these we may say that they were not called, since they never heard of the hope to which we are called. And if anyone says that the universality of the call was always so public and so full that, from our Lord’s ascension on, there was not a single year in which the preaching of the gospel failed to reach all men, then he should explain how the Asiatics also shared in that call at the moment when, according to Holy Scripture, the apostles were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the divine word in Asia; or the people of Bithynia at the moment when the same apostles tried to go and preach to them and were not allowed to do so by the Spirit of Jesus.” (Answers to the Gauls, article 4) “Hence, when the apostles began to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, Holy Scripture reports of one section of those who heard them preach: ‘And the Gentiles hearing were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to life everlasting believed.’ And elsewhere it says, when many women listened to Paul’s preaching: ‘A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one that worshiped God, did hear: whose heart the Lord opened to attend to those things which were said by Paul.’ And again, at the very moment that the preachers of the gospel were sent out to all the nations, the apostles were forbidden to go to certain regions by Him who will have all men to he saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, with the result, of course, that many, detained and going astray during this delay of the gospel, died without having known the truth and without having been sanctified in baptism. Let, then, Holy Scripture say what happened: ‘And when they had passed through Phrygia and the country of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia. And when they were come into Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.’ Is there any wonder that at the very beginning of the preaching of the gospel the apostles could not go except where the Spirit of God wanted them to go, when even now we see that many of the nations only begin to have a share in the Christian grace, while others have not yet got a glimpse of that divine gift? Or should we say that the wills of men obstruct the will of God, that those peoples are of such wild and fierce ways that the reason why they do not hear the gospel is that their ungodly hearts are not ready for its preaching? But who else changed the hearts of believers but He who ‘hath made the hearts of every one of them?’” (Letter to Rufinus 11-14) “OBJECTION: The Lord withholds from some men the message of the gospel, lest hearing it they be saved. ANSWER: If you can prove that from the time when the Gospel began to be preached there has been no one who failed to hear the message of Christian grace, then it would be wrong to say that the message thus proved to have been announced to all was not announced to all. But if in some way there are still men who have not heard the gospel message, then you cannot say that this happened without a hidden judgment of God, which it would be wrong to blame because it transcends your understanding. […] Likewise, he who says that the Lord withholds from some men the message of the gospel, lest hearing it they be saved, can escape the odium of the objection by invoking the authority of the Saviour Himself. He did not want to work miracles among people who, He said, would have believed had they seen them. He forbade His apostles to preach to some nations, and He still allows other nations to live untouched by His grace. Yet, we actually know with a firm faith that the Church shall spread to all parts of the world and that the world shall not end before the gospel has been announced in all regions of the earth.” (Answers to the Gauls, article 10; qualification to article 10) “They [Pelagians] fancy they have still a better proof to show that the grace of the divine call operates according to God’s foreknowledge of human merits when they come to consider those nations which either in past ages were left to walk in their own ways or even now are lost in the ungodliness and ignorance of their ancestors: on these no ray of light whether of the law or of the gospel shines as yet, while among other peoples, where the preachers of the gospel found an open entry and a free way, the people of the Gentiles ‘who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death hath seen a great light; that which was no people is now the people of God; those on whom He had no mercy have obtained mercy now.’ They explain this difference by saying: the Lord has foreseen who are they that would believe, and He has disposed for each nation the time of sending His preachers at the very moment when He knew it would be well-disposed and conceive the desire of the faith. Nor is this explanation [say the Pelagians] of the divine delays against the Scripture text which says that God will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth: there is no excuse for those nations, because they could have come to know and worship the one true God by their natural reason, and if the gospel was not preached to them, it is only because they would not have accepted it.” (Letter to St. Augustine) “As for the people or Tyre and Sidon, what else can we say than that they were not given to have the faith? The Lord Truth Itself, says of them that they would have believed if they had been given to see the miracles that had been wrought in other towns which remained in unbelief. Why they were refused that gift, let our [Pelagian] cavillers say if they can; let them explain why the Lord worked miracles before people who would not profit by them and did not work them before others who would have profited. We on our part, though we cannot fathom the reason of God’s action nor the depth of His decree, yet know for certain that what He has said is true and what He has done is right, that not only the people of Tyre and Sidon but those also of Corozain and Bethsaida could have been converted and have come from unbelief to faith had God been pleased to work this change in their hearts. No one can suspect of falsehood what Truth itself says- ‘No man can come to me, unless it be given him by my Father.’ And: ‘To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.’ And: ‘No one knoweth the father but the Son and he to whom it shall please the Son to reveal Him’. And: ‘As the Father raiseth from the dead ... so the Son also giveth life to whom He will.’ And: ‘No man can say “the Lord Jesus” but by the Holy Ghost.’” (Answers to the Genoese 8) “As we have already said above, it is not given to any human study or genius to explore the decree and design according to which God, who is invariably good, invariably just, ever foreknowing, ever omnipotent, hath concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy on all; yet He delayed for centuries, while He was educating Israel, to enlighten the countless peoples of infidels; and now He allows that same Israel to go blind till the universality of the Gentiles enter the fold. He allows so many thousands of this people to be born and die to be lost, when only those whom the end of the world will find alive will attain salvation. From the explanation which all the Scriptures give of this mystery we learn what has happened in the past, what is taking place at present, and what remains to come about. But why God’s good pleasure decreed all this, is withheld from the ken of human understanding.” (Call of All Nations I:21) · St. Fulgentius of Ruspe “Grace is not properly esteemed by any one who supposes that it is given to all men, when not only does the faith not pertain to all, but even at the present time some nations may yet be found to whom the preaching of the faith has not yet come. But the Blessed Apostle says: ‘How then are they to call upon Him in whom they have not believed? or how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? but how are they to hear, without preaching?’ Grace, then, is not given to all; for certainly they cannot be participants in that grace, who are not believers; nor can they believe if it is found that the preaching of the faith has never come to them at all.” (Synodal Epistle of St. Fulgentius and other African Bishops) · Pope St. Gregory the Great (Doctor) “‘The kingdom of heaven is like unto an householder who went out early in the morning to hire labourers for his vineyard. […] But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: Why stand you here all the day idle? They say to him: Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them: Go you also into my vineyard.’ (St. Matthew 20) The workers early in the morning, in the third hour, the sixth, the ninth refer to that ancient Hebrew people, who from the beginning of the world were his elect. So long as they were zealous to worship God with right faith, so long they were labourers in his vineyard. In the eleventh hour he called the Gentiles to whom he said: ‘Why do you stand here all the day idle?’” (Homily 19 on the Gospel) · St. Thomas Aquinas (Doctor) “Unbelief has a double sense. First, it can be taken purely negatively; thus a man is called an unbeliever solely because he does not possess faith. Secondly, by way of opposition to faith; thus when a man refuses to hear of the faith or even contemns it, according to Isaiah, ‘Who has believed our report?’ This is where the full nature of unbelief, properly speaking is found, and where the sin lies. If, however, unbelief be taken just negatively, as in those who have heard nothing about the faith, it bears the character, not of fault, but of penalty, because their ignorance of divine things is the result of the sin of our first parents. Those who are unbelievers in this sense are not condemned for the sin of unbelief, but they are condemned on account of other sins, which cannot be forgiven without faith.” (Summa Theologica 2, 2, 10, 1) “Objection: It seems that man is not bound to believe anything explicitly. For no man is bound to do what is not in his power. Now it is not in man’s power to believe a thing explicitly, for it is written (Rom. x. 14, 15): ‘How shall they believe Him, of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?’ Therefore man is not bound to believe anything explicitly. Reply: As regards the primary points or articles of the faith, man is bound to believe them, just as he is bound to have faith; but as to other points of faith, man is not bound to believe them explicitly, but only implicitly, or to be ready to believe them, in so far as he is ready to believe whatever is contained in the Divine Scriptures. Then alone is he bound to believe such things explicitly, when it is clear to him that they are contained in the doctrine of faith. If we understand those things alone to be in a man’s power, which we can do without the help of grace, then we are bound to do many things which we cannot do without the aid of healing grace, such as to love God and our neighbour, and likewise to believe the articles of faith. But with the help of grace we can do this, for this help “to whomsoever it is given from above it is mercifully given; and from whom it is withheld it is justly withheld, as a punishment of a previous, or at least of original sin”, as Augustine states (De Corr. et Grat. v., vi.).” (Summa Theologica 2, 2, 2, 5) · Pope Paul III This pope repeated that none might be saved without knowledge of the Gospel when the New World was found, with its many nations who were without any hearing of it. “And since man, according to the testimony of the sacred scriptures, has been created to enjoy eternal life and happiness, which none may obtain save through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, it is necessary that he should possess the nature and faculties enabling him to receive that faith; and that whoever is thus endowed should be capable of receiving that same faith. Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little understanding as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary faculty to enable him to receive it. Hence Christ, who is the Truth itself, that has never failed and can never fail, said to the preachers of the faith whom He chose for that office ‘Go ye and teach all nations.’ He said “all,” without exception, for all are capable of receiving the doctrines of the faith. The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith. […] We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ. […] By virtue of Our apostolic authority We define and declare by these present letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, which shall thus command the same obedience as the originals, that the said Indians and other peoples should be converted to the faith of Jesus Christ by preaching the word of God and by the example of good and holy living.” (Sublimus Deus) · St. Francis Xavier “Before their Baptism, certain Japanese were greatly troubled by a hateful scruple: that God did not appear merciful, because He had never made Himself known to the Japanese people before, especially as those who had not worshiped God were doomed to everlasting Hell. They grieve over the fate of their departed children, parents, and relatives; so they ask if there is any way to free them by prayer from the eternal misery. And I am obliged to answer: there is absolutely none.” “Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”” (Letter to St. Ignatius Loyola) “I intend to write what I have found, not only to India, but to the Universities of Portugal, of Italy, and above all of Paris, and admonish them, while they are devoting themselves heart and soul to learned studies, not to think themselves so free and disengaged from responsibility as to take no trouble at all about the ignorance of the heathen and the loss of their immortal souls.” · St. Charles Borromeo “Infidels are outside the Church because they never belonged to, and never knew the Church, and were never made partakers of any of her Sacraments. [...] Among these figures of the Church, the ark of Noah holds a conspicuous place. It was built by the command of God, in order that there might be no doubt that it was a symbol of the Church, which God has so constituted that all who enter therein through Baptism, may be safe from danger of eternal death, while such as are outside the Church, like those who were not in the ark, are overwhelmed by their own crimes.” (Catechism of Trent, 1:9) · St. Louis De Montfort “My heart is penetrated with grief when I think of the almost infinite number of souls who are damned for lack of knowing the true God and the Christian religion. The greatest misfortune, O my God, is not to know thee, and the greatest of punishments not to love thee.” (Love of Eternal Wisdom) · St. John Marie Vianney “The angels sin, and are cast into Hell. Man sins, and God promises him a Deliverer. What have we done to deserve this favour? What have we done to deserve to be born in the Catholic religion, while so many souls are every day lost in other religions? What have we done to deserve to be baptized, while so many little children in France, as well as in China and America, die without baptism?” (The Little Catechism of the Curé of Ars) · St. Peter Julian Eymard “Unfortunate are the nations that do not live in the Church of Jesus Christ. They are like men outside the Ark at the time of the flood. Outside the Church, these poor travellers wander without a guide in the desert. They are like a sailor on a boat without either rudder or pilot. Alas, unfortunate children, abandoned on the road, without a mother to nourish and love them; they will soon die of cold and hunger! The gift of the Church as our mother and teacher in the Faith is therefore the greatest grace Jesus Christ could bestow upon us. And the greatest charity we can do to a man is to lead him to the true Church, outside which there is no salvation.” (Eucharistic Handbook) · St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori (Doctor) “How thankful we ought to be to Jesus Christ for the gift of faith! What would have become of us if we had been born in Asia, Africa, America, or in the midst of heretics and schismatics? He who does not believe is lost. This, then, was the first and greatest grace bestowed on us: our calling to the true faith. O Saviour of the world, what would have become of us if Thou hadst not enlightened us? We would all have perished.” (Preparation for Death) “Some theologians hold that the belief of the two other articles - the Incarnation of the Son of God, and the Trinity of Persons - is strictly commanded but not necessary, as a means without which salvation is impossible; so that a person inculpably ignorant of them may be saved. But according to the more common and truer opinion, the explicit belief of these articles is necessary as a means without which no adult can be saved.” (First Command, 8) · Pope Leo XIII It was restated that none might be saved without knowledge of the Gospel, with regard to the finding of the New World and its many nations who were wholly ignorant of it. “By Christopher Columbus’ toil another world emerged from the unsearched bosom of the ocean. Hundreds of thousands of mortals have, from a state of blindness been raised to the common level of the human race, reclaimed from savagery to gentleness and humanity; and, greatest of all, by the acquisition of those blessings of which Jesus Christ is the author, they have been recalled from destruction to eternal life. […] When he learned from the lessons of astronomy and the record of the ancients, that there were great tracts of land lying towards the West, beyond the limits of the known world, lands hitherto explored by no man, he saw in spirit a mighty multitude, cloaked in miserable darkness, given over to evil rites, and the superstitious worship of vain gods. Miserable it is to live in a barbarous state and with savage manners: but more miserable to lack the knowledge of that which is highest, and to dwell in ignorance of the one true God. […] He was carried away, as we think, with joy, when on his first return from the Indies he wrote to Raphael Sanchez: “That to God should be rendered immortal thanks, Who had brought his labors such prosperous issues; that Jesus Christ rejoices and triumphs on earth no less than in Heaven, at the approaching salvation of nations innumerable, who were before hastening to destruction.” […] He must needs have succumbed under labors so vast and overwhelming if he had not been sustained by the consciousness of a nobler aim, which he knew would bring much glory to the Christian name, and salvation to an infinite multitude.” (Quarto Abeunte Saeculo, On the Columbus Quadricentennial) · Popes St. Pius X and Benedict XIV “Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: “We declare that a great number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be numbered among the elect.”” (Acerbo Nimis)

St. Augustine, Doctor of Grace