Send CathInfo's owner Matthew a gift from his Amazon wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/25M2B8RERL1UO

Author Topic: i often wonder about Judas.  (Read 5327 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: i often wonder about Judas.
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2025, 08:38:45 AM »
So when Our Lord said that it would have been better had he never been born would be false if Judas had been saved, and therefore Judas is lost.

Is this a Church teaching or a logical conclusion because I have often heard it said that no layman can know for certain who is damned (not even Judas Iscariot). 


Offline Ladislaus

  • Supporter
Re: i often wonder about Judas.
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2025, 09:18:09 AM »
Is this a Church teaching or a logical conclusion because I have often heard it said that no layman can know for certain who is damned (not even Judas Iscariot).

What you've heard is generally inaccurate, as this inability to know the internal forum it not limited to "laymen" or even to "Churchmen", but even the Church cannot and does not know for sure about the damnation of souls ... unless it was REVEALED through actual Public Revelation.  Now, the Church's charism of infallibility prevents mistaken judgments regarding who IS in Heaven, i.e. in the canonization of saints ... but there's no protection against even the Church being wrong about who is certainly in Hell ... so the reference to "layman" is completely moot and warps the principles behind it.

What we have here, however, is a case of Divine Revelation where God Himself in Sacred Scripture revealed that Judas would be lost, where He stated that it would have been better for him had he never been born.  Our Lord does not make false statements.

So this is the one case where we have Public Divine Revelation (vs. private revelations) that this one soul has been lost.

Of course, we have to be careful of this nonsense that's being promoted by the Modernist Pelagian heretics that salvation is purely an internal forum thing.  If one is not inside the Catholic Church at death, then one is lost.  Non-Catholics are all presumed lost by the Church.  So, for instance, there was one question put to the Holy Office under St. Pius X asking whether if asked a Catholic may respond that Confucius (the specific example cited) could have been saved.  Holy Office responded in the negative declaring that a Catholic, when asked about Confucius (or other infidels), must state that Confucius is damned.  While there isn't absolute certainty, the Church directs that Catholics consider it morally certain that those who died without having manifested in the external forum signs of their conversion.  We can't hem-haw about the one-in-a-billion possibility that somehow in the depths of their souls, unbeknownst to all, one or two souls may have received some light or grace of conversion ... since that does nothing but undermine the principle and lead to the attitude of ... heck, anybody could be saved ... and thereby gutting the Church's teaching.

In short, even the Church would not know (not just laymen) that Judas had been damned by Public Revelation (which ended at the death of the last Apostle).  But in the case of Judas, we have Public Revelation in Sacred Scripture, and then also a unanimity of Church Fathers considered him damned, so that's typically taken as a sign Divine Revelation by Tradition as well.


Re: i often wonder about Judas.
« Reply #7 on: April 18, 2025, 09:47:31 AM »
There is no doubt but Judas has had a hard time since he betrayed Jesus
by picking him out as the one the Jews and Romans were looking for.
Every Holy Thursday he gets a hammering with the story in the garden of Gethsemane
I have even read that he has to be in Hell.
Judas doesn't even come close to getting hammered as Adolf Hitler. Hitler is, by far, the most demonized man in world history. By who? The jews. They own the media, schools, governments and banks. You will go to prison in some parts of Europe for even saying something nice about Hitler or doubting the h0Ɩ0h0αx. 

Re: i often wonder about Judas.
« Reply #8 on: April 18, 2025, 10:13:59 AM »
What you've heard is generally inaccurate, as this inability to know the internal forum it not limited to "laymen" or even to "Churchmen", but even the Church cannot and does not know for sure about the damnation of souls ... unless it was REVEALED through actual Public Revelation.  Now, the Church's charism of infallibility prevents mistaken judgments regarding who IS in Heaven, i.e. in the canonization of saints ... but there's no protection against even the Church being wrong about who is certainly in Hell ... so the reference to "layman" is completely moot and warps the principles behind it.

What we have here, however, is a case of Divine Revelation where God Himself in Sacred Scripture revealed that Judas would be lost, where He stated that it would have been better for him had he never been born.  Our Lord does not make false statements.

So this is the one case where we have Public Divine Revelation (vs. private revelations) that this one soul has been lost.

Of course, we have to be careful of this nonsense that's being promoted by the Modernist Pelagian heretics that salvation is purely an internal forum thing.  If one is not inside the Catholic Church at death, then one is lost.  Non-Catholics are all presumed lost by the Church.  So, for instance, there was one question put to the Holy Office under St. Pius X asking whether if asked a Catholic may respond that Confucius (the specific example cited) could have been saved.  Holy Office responded in the negative declaring that a Catholic, when asked about Confucius (or other infidels), must state that Confucius is damned.  While there isn't absolute certainty, the Church directs that Catholics consider it morally certain that those who died without having manifested in the external forum signs of their conversion.  We can't hem-haw about the one-in-a-billion possibility that somehow in the depths of their souls, unbeknownst to all, one or two souls may have received some light or grace of conversion ... since that does nothing but undermine the principle and lead to the attitude of ... heck, anybody could be saved ... and thereby gutting the Church's teaching.

In short, even the Church would not know (not just laymen) that Judas had been damned by Public Revelation (which ended at the death of the last Apostle).  But in the case of Judas, we have Public Revelation in Sacred Scripture, and then also a unanimity of Church Fathers considered him damned, so that's typically taken as a sign Divine Revelation by Tradition as well.
Thank you. I really appreciate you clearing that up for me. God bless. 

Re: i often wonder about Judas.
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2025, 12:10:36 PM »
Thanks all. A subject well worth debating. Pity two gave the debate thumbs down. 
I thought that was the purpose of a Catholic forum.