By Christopher Fleming

Up until Vatican II, the Catholic Church was called the Ark of Salvation in reference to Noah’s ark and the deluge. Just as the eight people on the ark survived the divine chastisement in Noah’s time, only those who on Judgment Day are found in the true Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ will be saved from the wrath of God. Saint Cyprian, echoing St. Peter’s first epistle, speaks of the deluge as “the world’s baptism” which washed the world of sin and offered a new beginning. In The City of God, St. Augustine makes a very interesting observation: the measurements Noah received from God to build the ark correspond to those of a human body, whose length is usually six times its width. According to this saint, the ark is a figure of the Body of Christ, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

Since the Church has modernized itself and embraced the world, Catholics no longer tend to speak like this; it is too selective and discriminatory. Now, instead, the emphasis is on accepting all, whether or not they have the faith, in a sort of universal fraternity based on little more than “good vibes.” It does not help either that nowadays hardly anyone believes in the story of the deluge. The modern Catholics have learned to read Scripture in a strictly allegorical way, turning away from 1,900 years of traditional exegesis, the Magisterium of all the Fathers of the Church, and what Catholics have always held true. If the story of Noah is purely allegorical and has no historical basis, why compare the Catholic Church with the ark?

What the Modernists oppose is not so much the objection that the event never took place, as much as the idea of the divine wrath. A Modernist cannot stand the concept of a God Who is capable of punishing humanity for its sins. This false mercy demands that God forgive everything—with or without the sinner’s repentance; in other words, God has become a grandfatherly figure who allows everything. The Fear of the Lord, one of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, has disappeared from the spirituality of the Modernist realm. This is why the authenticity of the deluge is discarded, as well as the destruction of Sodom, now that the sin to which that accursed city gave its name is fashionable.

It is a dogma of the faith that outside the Church there is no salvation, or as it was said of old, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus. The Athanasian Creed stated, “Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith.”

The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 affirmed, “There is indeed one universal church of the faithful, outside of which nobody at all is saved.”

Pope Pius IX stated, “It is again necessary to mention and censure a very grave error entrapping some Catholics who believe that it is possible to arrive at eternal salvation although living in error and alienated from the true faith and Catholic unity.”

Pope Pius XI also wrote in Mortalium Animos, 1928, “The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation.”

Religious indifferentism, the idea that all religions are equally worthy, is a heresy that has been officially condemned by the Church several times. Furthermore, it is an error that brings about disastrous consequences, because far from promoting peace in the world, it provokes the wrath of God. Cardinal Mercier stated clearly, “To place the religion of Divine origin on par with religions invented by men is the blasphemy that calls forth God’s chastisements on society, much more than the individual sins of men.”

The problem with Modernism, for which there is no solution, is that once Holy Scripture has been de-valued, the moral imperatives relativized, and the Catholic Church reduced to a mere option among others, the Catholic religion becomes totally irrelevant. Why would those in Africa or Asia (to speak of the less-evangelized continents), want to convert to the Catholic Faith, if there is no compelling need? It is always a difficult choice to abandon your parents’ religion to receive Baptism. In many cases it is very traumatic for the neophyte because his family members reject him. And if we are talking about a Muslim converting to Catholicism, true heroism is required since he faces a death sentence, as is stipulated in the “religion of peace.”

No one in his right mind would be willing to convert to Catholicism unless there is a compelling reason. It is not enough to say—although for sure it must be said—that the Catholic religion is the only true religion, because some people may not care. Nobody wants to inflict pain on their family members and cause needless suffering. A Hindu could very well say to a missionary, “The Catholic Faith could be true, but leave me alone with my idols; I am very happy the way I am.” What could the missionary reply? If he follows the new pastoral directives of the current Catholic hierarchy, there is no good answer; if the man is happy in his idolatry, his religious liberty must be respected, because in the new Church everybody has the right to profess the faith they choose. The conciliatory attitude of the Modernist Church refuses to tell the world the only thing it really needs to hear: to save your soul you must be part of the Catholic Church. That was the message of the great missionaries of the past, starting with St. Paul, because it is the message of Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who said, “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned” (Mk. 16:15-16).

When St. Francis Xavier preached the Gospel to the infidels, he encouraged them to be baptized because their salvation depended on it. The Asian pagans that heard the Spanish saint preach did not remain unmoved: either they fell on their knees begging for the baptism for the remission of their sins, or they rejected the preaching so strongly that they wanted to see the missionary dead. Faced with the truth, there is no room for middle ground. The same thing happened with Our Lord Jesus Christ; some souls converted and reformed their lives completely, whereas others rejected His words and plotted His death.

Today, everyone preaches about the goodness of God and how much He loves everybody; the result is general boredom. The sermons are riddled with trivialities, not to mention the sprinkle of heresy here and there. Few pay attention past the 10-minute mark, because once it has been said that God is very good and that He forgives sinners many times over, the faithful are bored to death. No conflicting or disagreeable subjects are allowed. There can be no mention of individual sin (mention of societal sins, on the contrary, is allowed in abundance, because nobody is responsible for them), and no mention of the final judgment or Hell. This sickly-sweet message conveys a false sense of security, precisely the opposite of what is needed to stir up the consciences of the faithful.

These types of sleep-inducing sermons are totally opposed to the mission of the Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ did not found the Church to feed the poor, to teach reading and writing to the children, nor to take care of the sick—however good and praiseworthy these things are. Nor did He found His Church to enter into dialogue with false religions. It would be expedient for the bishops to keep in mind this truth: the main mission of the Church is the salvation of souls. Souls are not saved with complacency and self-satisfaction, but with calls to conversion. The model of all missionaries ought to be Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who said, “Repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mk. 1:15).

Preaching for the purpose of the salvation of souls must confront the reality of sin. It is a waste of time to talk over and over about how good we are, as if a physician refused to mention the illness for the sake of a “positive attitude.” Today there is no mention, or perhaps a very superficial mention, of sin, so as to not scare anybody away. As a result, those who listen to the Modernists never reach the conclusion that they have a problem. And if their sinfulness does not bother them, if they do not hunger for God, why would they need the Church? The Modernists have managed to make themselves totally irrelevant.