Universal salvation is a condemned heresy. [Cum Sicut, Pope Pius II, Denz 717b]
We pray for all souls, all souls do not go to Heaven.
Christ has told us:
Lord, are they few that are saved? But he said to them: Strive to enter by the narrow gate; for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter, and
shall not be able.
St. Luke (Luke 13:23-24)
“Shall seek”… Shall desire to be saved; but for want of taking sufficient pains, and being thoroughly in earnest, shall not attain to it. ]
*For many are called, but few chosen. *
St. Mark (Mark 20:16)
‘The majority of men shall not see God, excepting those who live justly, purified by righteousness and by every other virtue.’
St. Justin the Martyr
I do not speak rashly, but as I feel and think. I do not think that many priests are saved, but that those who perish are far more numerous.
St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop, Doctor, Father of the Church
‘Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved.’
St. Jerome, Doctor, Father of the Church
At Fatima, the Blessed Virgin Mary told the three child seers that many souls go to hell because they have no one to pray or make sacrifices for them. In her Memoirs, Sister Lucy describes the vision of hell that Our Lady showed the children at Fatima:
- “She opened Her hands once more, as She had done the two previous months. The rays [of light] appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls [of the damned]. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright (it must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me). The demons were distinguished [from the souls of the damned] by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear.”*