For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”—Luke 23:31.
The head of the synodal church (his words, not mine) recently stated to Crux: “We keep hoping. I believe strongly that we cannot give up hope, ever. I have high hopes in human nature. There is the negative side; there are bad actors, there are the temptations. On any side of any position, you can find motivations that are good and motivations that are not so good.”
Hope in human nature? Not in Jesus Christ? Not the Catholic Church as the only way of salvation? Nope… hope in human nature.
Some of you might think I am nitpicking his theology to be a tough-guy, but his words demonstrate the pinnacle of modernism—promoting not just a man-centered “church,” but even the alleged man-centered “theological virtues” of faith and hope and charity. Of course, there is no such thing as “theological virtues” centered on man. What is an angel without God? A demon. What is man without God? A condemned man. That is why a theology that puts hope in “human nature” is the same thing as a theology that is diabolical to its very core.
In the 2006 movie Apocalypto (above) 16th century indigenous people from the Yucatan peninsula are seen running around, slaughtering each other, ripping out the hearts of their enemies and destroying families. They are living exactly as St. Ignatius of Loyola described life before the Incarnation: “They strike, they kill, they go down to hell.” But then, during the last scene of Apocalypto, Spanish missionaries arrive in the New World. There is an immediate sense of relief for the Indian woman running for her life. There’s a sense that order and salvation are going to be brought to Central America.
I too was taught in Catholic grade school and high school that the Spanish missionaries only brought colonialism, racism and blankets full of small-pox to the new world. (And to this day, I have no doubt that there were some evil conquistadors and colonialists who abused indigenous people on four different continents.)
But the Gospel of peace was brought to that world of war and cannibalism as those missionaries stepped off the boat in Apocalypto. It’s the exact opposite of what we all learned in our social studies classes. In fact, overturning the modernist false-narrative against the underpinned reality of original sin is one of the main reasons Mel Gibson made the movie. I confirmed this with him.
Switch gears for a minute: What was the last current event that shocked you as to the level of pure-evil in the world? Was it the shooting of Charlie Kirk in broad daylight? Or was it the celebration of his death by many leftists?
Growing up a liberal Catholic, we were told that everyone was basically good. Even before my Jesuit University education and even before my Jesuit high school education, we were taught in Catholic grade school to respect all religions. After all, our teachers insisted there were good people in all faiths, including Islam and Hinduism, Judaism and even atheists.
But Divine Revelation tells us that “good” won’t get anyone to heaven. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that because heaven is a supernatural goal, natural goodness won’t get you there. You need grace. That grace comes from receiving the gift of supernatural faith and repentance. That also comes from the sacraments.
To obtain a natural goal (like the Nobel peace prize) you need natural virtue. (Even that part is iffy as one considers some of the recipients of the Nobel peace prize.) But to obtain a supernatural goal, you need supernatural grace. That comes from an ascetical and sacramental life.
But many liberal “Catholics” today deny this. They think having reduced-culpability on moral issues will save a soul just as much as being a Catholic living in sanctifying grace. (But they have no explanation of how such a “noble pagan” is freed from sin. They say following one’s conscience outside the Church is almost as good as receiving the sacraments when it comes to salvation. But they have no explanation how supernatural grace is actually transmitted to such an ignorant person.
The reason most modernists don’t hold to traditional teaching on the basics of salvation is because, as Pope St. Pius X taught, modernism is “the synthesis of all heresies.” This includes Pelagianism. Pelagianism is the teaching that you can be saved by your own good works without any need for grace. But modernist-Pelagians know they can’t sound exactly like the 4th century heretic names Pelagius. Thus, instead of claiming non-Catholics are saved by “good works,” they simply claim non-Catholics are saved by “following their conscience.”
Von Balthasar was a heretical theologian of the 20th century who was a favorite of most Conciliar-Popes. He was essentially a universalist (notion that all are saved with no practical need for grace) and this always goes hand-in-hand with that modernist Pelagianism notion that simply following one’s conscience is enough to save you. Keep in mind that Hitler, Stalin and Pol-Pot were all “following their conscience” in some sense, so it’s clearly a non-start in any serious discussions on soteriology (the theology of salvation.)
Bishop Barron is a big fan of Von Balthasar and Barron stated: “Vatican II, for example, said that non-Christians can be saved. Even atheists of good-will can be saved. Someone who is following his or her conscience sincerely and honestly can be saved.” (Yes, he really said that. And it’s not AI, as I linked his own Instagram account above.)
Whether Charlie Kirk died a Protestant or a Catholic, I guarantee you cannot find a heresy spoken by him as severe as that last sentence, at least since his initial 2020 conversion. It’s bananas to insist that atheists can be saved by “good-will” and nearly anyone can be saved by simply “following his or her conscience.” This is absolutely and totally the ancient heresy of Pelagianism now living in mainstream “Catholic theology” today. (This is one of a dozen reason why I recently put on X that modernism is so much worse than evangelical Protestantism.)
Of course, in regards to the last sentence, if a fan of Von Balthasar were to read this article, his retort would go something like this: “No, no, Fr. Nix is being an extremist and misrepresenting us. When an atheist is saved, it’s by God’s grace working through his conscience. That is how Christ saves him. It’s still grace saving the soul, even if he doesn’t know the Gospel.”
Ok, that’s nice, but then how exactly is that done without supernatural faith and the sacraments? Try as they might to avoid it, every fan of Von Balthasar will always end up landing on Karl Rahner’s “Anonymous Christian” where every good person is basically a secret Christian by their good works or good intentions. Once again, this is nothing except Pelagianism re-packaged. They can’t help but flatten grace on nature when they deny the singularity of the salvific act of Jesus Christ on the cross and its ordinary way of transmission.
In doing this, they can never empty the cross of its power objectively. But they most certainly do empty the cross of its power subjectively. And that’s why they heretically hold Jesus is just “the privileged route” instead of “the way, the truth and the life.”
I believe the biggest hole in catechesis (along side the acceptancce of the heresy of religious indifferentism as outlined in the last several paragraphs) is the rejection of Original Sin. Or, the rejection of the depth of Original Sin has led to the heresy of religious indifferentism (the notion that all religions can get you to heaven.) Most fans of Von Balthasar will admit Original Sin exists, but they will not agree to the depth of it.
What exactly is the depth of original sin? Well, we are not Calvinists. We do not believe in total depravity. But most of the Catholic saints come pretty close. It’s not because they doubted the goodness and mercy of God. It’s because the saints knew absolutely how wicked man could be. Rather, how wicked man always is without Christ at the center of his life.
There are no “good” adherents to false-religions. Not only is it impossible to attain grace without Christ (and keep in mind even a last-minute gift of perfect contrition to a pagan dying who never met a missionary would still constitute the grace of the blood of Christ transmitted to that soul at the last minute in an extraordinary way) but you can’t even be good without grace. Christ Himself said: Nemo bonus, nisi unus Deus. (None is good but one, that is God.—Mark 10:18.)
A society is made up of individuals. This means that, in some sense, there is no “societal sin.” If a certain leftist culture would celebrate the shooting of a decent man on a University campus, they are clearly in the hands of the devil. Not only are these people missing supernatural grace in their lives. They’re not even naturally good.
The good news is this: When you’re done at being shocked that liberals who hate Christ would kill a relatively-innocent man on a university campus, you can actually go through life loving them and evangelizing them. There is great freedom in accepting the traditional Catholic Church’s teaching on Original Sin. When you expect nothing, you never end up disappointed.
So whether you’re watching Mayans cheer at the evisceration of enemies in Apocalypto or seeing leftists cheer on social media at the death of Charlie Kirk, you’re seeing the exact same thing: People living normal lives without Christ at the center of them. Yes, it’s really that bad on all seven continents (regardless of skin color) without Jesus and the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church.
Again, someone is going to accuse me of holding to John Calvin’s theology of “total depravity.” Of course, we Catholics do indeed reject “total depravity.” However, our traditional theology does come pretty close to that: Without Jesus Christ and the sacraments, one is probably bound to act like a demon ravaging the earth.
Seemingly-religious people (who would not follow Christ) put Christ to death 2,000 years ago. Strangely, we think of those people back then as being “much more mean” than secularists today. But they weren’t. Every person in history not living a Christ-centered life (from that Mayan-king pulling a heart out to a Pharisee mocking Christ on the cross to Jimmy Kimmel last week lying in saying a MAGA guy killed Charlie Kirk) is going to walk in nearly-total blindness and nearly-total darkness until Christ becomes the center of their lives. (Again, I put nearly to show we Catholics are not Calvinists.)
So please stop thinking people in the past were much more mean than today. Christ said to the weeping women on the Via Dolorosa this about His own crucifixion and what will follow in all of world history: “For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”—Luke 23:31. In other words, horrible sin will increase, not lessen, towards the end of time.
The Most Precious Blood of Jesus is still our only way out of the darkness—both Original Sin and mortal sin. Christ has never been, nor will ever be, merely the “privileged route.” And hope “in human nature” is the same as certain beings oddly having hope in “decent angels living without God.” That’s the very definition of a hell full of demons.
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