Weigel’s “argument” against hell

I oppose the SSPX’s schismatic acts, past and imminent, for the reasons outlined recently by Eamonn Clark. But not infrequently, the Society’s mainstream opponents reveal themselves to be less than Catholic in their thinking. Take a recent article by George Weigel, directed against the SSPX’s recent “declaration of faith.”

Among other things, Weigel claims that the SSPX contradicts Catholic teaching in their statement that “every man must be a member of the Catholic Church in order to save his soul, and there is but one baptism as the means of being incorporated into her. This necessity concerns the whole of humanity without exception and embraces without distinction Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans, and atheists.”

Weigel warns: “SSPX hell is thus quite well populated, and includes your Lutheran, Anglican, Jewish, Muslim, and nonbelieving friends and relatives. This, however, is precisely the extreme distortion of the old maxim extra ecclesiam nulla salus (no salvation outside the Church) for which Fr. Leonard Feeney was excommunicated in 1953.”

First of all, whatever might be said about the way the SSPX formulated the above statement, it is simply false to identify their position with that of Fr. Feeney. Feeney was disciplined by the Church for denying baptism of desire. The SSPX upholds it.

Extra ecclesiam nulla salus is Catholic doctrine—indeed, it is the teaching of Vatican II (Lumen Gentium 14). That some who are not formal members of the Church can be united to it by baptism of desire does not require us to gainsay the statement that belief in Christ (entailing the following of the Church He established) is necessary for salvation. Jesus Christ Himself said those who did not believe in Him would be damned, without feeling the need to qualify it. Even invincible ignorance, could it be presumed to exist, is not salvific!

More disturbing than the false characterization of the SSPX, though, is Weigel’s argument against their view of hell. It is, in fact, not an argument at all, but simply a denial of the urgency of evangelization. It is a pure appeal to emotion, the same tactic used by atheists and universalists: I don’t want to think of anyone I care about going to hell, therefore it can’t be true.

But the statement that there is no salvation outside the Church does not become false because you find it unpleasant to imagine your friends and family in hell, and because you are too cowardly to tell them they need Jesus and too lazy to offer the prayers and sacrifices that would bring them to Him.

This is precisely the problem in the modern Church, that we prefer to mute the urgency of the Gospel message and the warnings of our Lord because they make us uncomfortable and call us to a level of heroism we are unwilling to enter into. To discourage people from fearing for the salvation of their non-Catholic friends and relatives is directly to undermine the Catholic faith and the mission of the Church. It is a no less insidious tactic coming from George Weigel than from James Martin.

And while I cannot say I am surprised to see this kind of thing coming from Weigel, as this is not his first time contradicting Catholic doctrine in the name of Vatican II, I find it scandalous that Catholic publications continue to give him a space in which to do so. Besides, it only tends to confirm the views of those who, like the SSPX, associate the Council with heterodoxy.