The gate of the Kingdom of Heaven in beatitude was opened for the first time by the entrance of Jesus. The keys to that gate were put in the hands of Christ’s Vicar on earth when He said to Peter, and his successors: “And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” No matter what we do in the way of justification, we can never enter salvation unless we enter it under the leadership of him who has the keys to that Kingdom.

That flesh and blood Vicar of Jesus Christ is none other than the Pope, our Holy Father, a visible head for Christ’s visible Church. He is a man whom we can point to as the visible Vicar on earth of the visible Christ in eternity. He is as pointable-at now in time as Jesus once was when He walked the streets of Jerusalem, followed by Peter and His Apostles.

It is a defined dogma of the Catholic Church that no one can be saved who is not subject to that flesh and blood Vicar of Jesus, the Roman Pontiff. It is one of the requirements for salvation. Justification is useless for purposes of the Beatific Vision unless submission to Christ’s Vicar has been added to it in essential complement.

Pope Boniface VIII, in 1302, infallibly declared in his bull, Unam Sanctam: “We declare, say, define and pronounce, that it is wholly necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” A defined dogma can never be changed. It holds for every age; it applies to every generation, until the end of time.

If you do not have a belief in, and submission to, a visible Holy Father and a visible Church, with clear distinguishable marks, you will never get into Heaven.