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Will Only a Few Be Saved? · Crisis Point

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  Foreign.
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  Welcome to Crisis Point. I'm Eric Sammons. Today, what I want to talk about is probably the most important topic of all, and that is salvation, specifically on how many people will be saved.
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  There is a common teaching of many doctors, saints, fathers, over the centuries, until recently, that only a few would be saved.
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  But is this true? And what does that mean for us, for our own lives, for evangelization, for our loved ones and other people in the world? So I want to break that down today and talk about that.
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  I'm bringing this up because Christian Wagner, who's a traditional Catholic commentator on his substack, recently, he had an article in which he defended the doctrine that only a few would be saved.
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  And he quotes many doctors, saints, theologians, fathers, in defense of that teaching.
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  And I would encourage people to read his article about that.
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  Now, probably the most famous sermon on this topic was given by Saint Leonard of Port Maurice. This is a canonized saint.
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  And he preached a sermon on the little number or the few of those who would be saved.
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  And in that sermon, he details that he believes not just that a few people worldwide would be saved, but only a few Catholics, only a little number of Catholics would be saved. He actually focuses not on what would happen to non Catholics, the assumption is they're damned, but instead his focus is on the few number of Catholics, people who say they're Catholic, that would be saved. This sermon was given centuries ago.
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  Now, I will say the main. If you look at why he gives this sermon, it is to urge his audience to live holy lives. That's the purpose. The purpose isn't to discourage them and say, you're all going to hell no matter what you do, but instead to encourage them and urge them to live lives of sanctity so that they would not be among the few.
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  And this sermon as well, I highly recommend people read. You can find it online. Just look up the few who will be saved or St Leonard of Port Maurice. It's what he's most known for. And remember, this is not a sermon of some random person in church history. It's by a canonized saint. And it's well known. This sermon was well known that he preaches when he was canonized.
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  So nothing he said there in that sermon made the people who canonized him think, oh, maybe I should, you know, maybe we shouldn't canonize this guy. He's crazy. He's fringe for thinking this. And in fact, in his sermon, he quotes many other, like I said, fathers, doctors, saints, just like Christian Wagner did in his article.
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  So clearly this idea that only a few will be saved, maybe only a few Catholics should not be dismissed lightly.
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  I know it goes completely against our modern sensibilities.
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  There's no question that the assumption among most people today, including most Catholics, is that no, not only a few will be saved, but that most will be saved is simply in our modern DNA.
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  I mean, honestly, I think this too, like, this is my assumption too my, I should put it this way.
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  In my heart it's my natural assumption, but in my head and when I think it through, I, I have to take it seriously what previous generations of Catholics said and taught.
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  Now I will say that this, the, the kind of, the hardcore nature of only a few will be saved did start to lighten up among Catholics even before Vatican ii. This is not a Vatican ii, a post conciliar thing. Now it kind of went crazy after Vatican ii.
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  But my point is, if you read Catholic theologians, respected Catholic theologians from the 19th century and the early 20th century, you will see that they, they too begin to lessen the rigidity, lessen the hardness of this teaching, this idea. And when I say teaching, by the way, I'm not saying it's a defined Catholic teaching. I want to make sure that's clear.
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  Yes, many fathers, doctors, saints have taught, believe that only a few will be saved, only even only a few Catholics will be saved. But it's not the teaching of the Church.
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  Now it's not the teaching of Church either that many will be saved. This is an important fact. Sometimes we get hung up on just what does the Church teach officially? And that's all that matters.
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  The reality is the Church leaves a number of things to our, our decision making, our, our being able to debate about it, letting us think about it and understand it without giving a definition. And this is one of those things. How many? Because honestly, in this case it's because our Lord hasn't revealed it to the Church. How many will be saved? Now I'm going to get into some things our Lord said that suggest certain things.
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  But the point is the Church has never said exactly how many people would be saved and would not.
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  So the point though is, is that for many centuries Catholics believe that very few would be saved, even very few Catholics.
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  But that started to, that, that the hardness of that belief started to weaken in the last, let's say 200 years.
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  200 years.
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  And so again, what, what, what, what should we believe? Are only a few saved or are many saved?
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  Honestly, I think it's the wrong question.
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  I think it's the wrong Question to ask, will, will only a few be saved?
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  I think that we simply cannot know here on Earth how many are saved.
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  And God's not telling us.
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  God is not telling us how many are saved and are not saved. We simply do not know. And he will not tell us. And only. So only God knows. And the people obviously who have died know.
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  I assume they're. They're. It's revealed to them at that point, if hell is very. If they're in hell, if it's more occupied than heaven, if you're in heaven, that's more occupied than Hell and Purgatory and things like that.
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  So honestly, I think it. I think it's a question that diverts us from what matters more. It's a qu. I'm not saying you can't debate like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but I am saying that it really isn't. The important question here is how many will be saved. I think the crash the correct question is how did Christ tell us how we should be saved?
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  How did Christ tell us how we should be saved? In other words, what is the path that we can be assured of our salvation? Now, to be clear, we don't believe in assurance of salvation.
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  We don't once saved. Saved, you can know for sure before you die whether or not you are saved. But we can know with assurance that we follow a path, be safe. It did reveal to us, if I'm following right now, I can feel confident that if I were to die, I would be saved. But we can't know for sure that we'll continue to follow it. That's why we can't have assurance of salvation here on earth. I might be following it very well right now, but in 20 years, maybe I've fallen off, maybe I've stopped doing that.
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  But the point is, how did Christ tell us we should be saved? This is what matters.
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  And he did tell us. He gave us a church.
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  He told us we need to be members of it. He told us we need to. In so many. When I say he told us this, I'm not saying a verse in the Gospels where he said all laid all this out. What I'm saying is by his teachings and what he handed on to the apostles, and then what the apostles handed on to their successors, which handed on until our time, makes it very clear to be saved. The way you know you can be saved is if you're a member of his church, which is the Catholic Church.
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  You receive the sacraments regularly, you pray regularly, you do Good works.
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  If you do those things, you will be saved.
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  If you do those things, you will be saved.
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  So if you're a baptized Catholic who's going to Mass regularly, every, every Sunday and Holy day's obligation, receiving communion, going to confession regularly, not in a state of mortal sin. And if you go in a state of mortal sin, you go to confession as quickly as possible.
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  If you pray regularly, every day, if you are conducting good works in the name of Christ and to serve him, you will be saved.
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  You will be saved. And this is important to note because the sin of scrupulosity, which I have a hard time saying, the sin of scrupulosity is just as serious a sin as the sin of laxity. Yes, most Catholics today probably fall into a sin of laxity, thinking, ah, it doesn't matter. If I really do this stuff, I'll be fine. I don't really have to be serious about it. That is the more prominent sin. However, that doesn't mean scrupulosity isn't a sin.
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  If you are doing those things. I said you're a baptized Catholic, you're going to Mass, you know, regularly, you're going to confession regularly, you're staying out of the state of mortal sin. And when you are in mortal sin, you're not thinking everything you do is a mortal sin either.
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  But you're following what the Church teaches is a mortal sin.
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  And you are praying regularly, you're doing good works based upon your state of life.
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  Based upon your state of life. If you are a stay at home mom with four children under the age of eight and your time is 100% consumed taking care of your kids and taking care of your house and serving your husband, things like that, you are doing good works.
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  When I say that, I'm not. When I say good works, I'm saying you have to be working at a soup kitchen, something that, that's obviously very meritorious and we should, people should be doing that when they can, things like that.
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  But based on your state of life, are you doing good works? So if you're doing all that, be at peace, be at peace. If you were to die, you'd be saved.
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  It doesn't mean you'd become lax and think, okay, I'm good for the rest of my life. But it does mean you can be at peace. You don't have to have scruples about that.
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  But let's be honest, when I say those things to do, baptized Catholic, going to Mass regularly, going to confession regularly, and, and basically praying, doing good works, basically following the precepts of church, you'll be saved.
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  Here's what we do know. We can't say, you know, the question isn't will a few be saved? But I would say only a few are doing that. In fact, we have proof of that. We have polls that show it. Recently, this poll just popped up and it was from Pew Research center conducted in February 2025, 13% of Catholics. Basically it said the percentage of Catholics who say they pray daily is 50%. So only 50% of people who say they're Catholics pray daily.
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  Only 28% attend Mass weekly, at least weekly.
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  Only 23% go to confession at least once a year. By the way, that is a priest of the church. You go to confession at least once a year.
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  And only 13%. This is the key stat. Only 13% of self identified Catholics in America pray daily and attend Mass weekly and go to confession at least yearly. This is like minimal. To be Catholic, a practicing Catholic would be to do those three things.
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  I kind of set aside the good works because that's difficult to, to define and to and categorize. What this means is only 13% of Catholics are practicing Catholics in the most minimal sense of what we mean by practicing Catholics. They go to Mass at least weekly, they go to confession at least yearly, and they pray daily.
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  And by the way, this stat is, is not new in the sense that this isn't a new phenomenon. I remember when I was working at Diocese of Diocesan Director of Evangelization 15 years ago, I remember crunching the numbers and putting together various polls and finding my, my, I found those about 10%, which is, you know, within the margin of error, it's about 10 to 15%.
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  And this has been true actually for decades, that in America at least, very few Catholics, very few Catholics are doing what Christ said was the assured path to salvation.
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  So we know only a few we can say with certainty based upon this polling data, we can say with certainty only a few are doing what Christ said we need to be, we need to do, to be assured of our salvation, to be assured that we'd be saved if we died at that moment. Again, doesn't mean that necessarily will keep doing it. But at that moment, at this moment, if we're doing those things, we, we can be assured that we, we can be assured that we'd be saved.
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  And so with this reality, what this means is that why I say the focus shouldn't be on how many people are in heaven or how many people are in hell, but the focus should be on what Did Christ tell us we need to do to be saved?
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  That means our priority here on earth is to make sure we are following those precepts that Christ gave us and that we're urging other people to follow those precepts, Whether they're Catholic or not, we're urging them to do that. In other words, evangelization.
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  Now, if I went through the, the, the, the analytics on this video at YouTube or wherever, I'm willing to bet I would see a certain drop off in people who are listening. Once I said the word evangelization, it literally is like a killer of to get engagement in the Catholic world, The, the very term. In fact, I, I kind of. It's kind of a policy at Crisis magazine that we don't put the word evangelization in the title of an article because we know that means nobody will read it.
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  The book, I think, of mine, I think this is true, that has done the worst as far as sales go, is the book the old evangelization. Now, there can be other factors involved in this, but I honestly think the word evangelization was a big reason why less people bought that than some of my other books.
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  Because when you hear that word, people, Catholics just tune out. They just don't want to hear it yet.
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  This is literally. This should be the emphasis of what we're talking about when we talk about salvation.
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  Not, okay, let's have this theoretical debate about how many people might be in heaven or how many people might be in hell.
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  Instead, what are we doing today, right now, to make sure we're not going to hell and those we love aren't going to hell? That's the real question. That's where the real discussion should be.
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  Because like I said, we know Christ has told us how we can be saved.
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  And so the focus should absolutely be on our own lives here on earth and those of others who are here on earth. We shouldn't be worried about people in heaven or hell or purgatory. Now, people in purgatory, obviously, we should be praying for them. Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't be worried about them, though, because we know they're going to heaven. We should, however, be praying for them, for the poor souls in purgatory. The point is our focus. God has put us on this earth for a very short time while we are on earth. That's what our focus should be on. It should be on people on earth, ourselves and others, getting us to heaven, getting all of us to heaven, and doing so by following the ways that Christ himself has Made clear that we should get to heaven. Being a practicing Catholic, essentially, that's probably the nutshell version of how you can be assured you will be saved is if you are practicing Catholic, when you die, you will be saved, guaranteed, no exceptions.
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  If you're a practicing Catholic, when you die, you will be saved, guaranteed, no exceptions. That should be our focus, ourselves becoming practice Catholics and urging others and helping others become practicing Catholics.
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  So now, what about those here on earth? Let's focus on that. Who aren't practicing Catholics, whether they are Catholics who are just simply not going to confession, let's say, or they are Catholics who aren't even going to any of the sacraments or not, praying Catholic or not. Or non Catholics. All the non Catholics out there, what about them?
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  Well, the reality is we know that they're not on the best path here on earth. And so again, we need to urge them for the path that they should go.
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  However, what happens? What about when they die? What should we think?
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  We don't know with certainty. We cannot say with moral certainty what happens to them when they die. And I'm sorry, that's a hard teaching to hear, but it's the teaching of the Catholic Church. We, we cannot know with certainty. I have loved ones who died who were not practicing Catholics when they died.
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  Tears me up to think about it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to deny the teaching of the Church.
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  The Church has never. However, that being said, the Church has never declared who's in heaven, who's not. And generically, it has declared certain people in heaven, obviously the saints, but is never declared definitively somebody is in hell. Now, I do think we can believe Judas is in hell because some things Christ said about him.
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  But the point is, is that it doesn't mean hell is empty. It just simply means we don't necessarily know who is checked in and who is not.
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  Now, we do know Christ has said some very scary and terrible words on this subject. He has said many are called, but few are chosen. That's Matthew 22:14.
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  He also said the gate is wide and the way is easy. That leads to destruction.
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  And those who enter it, enter by it are many.
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  The gate is narrow and the way is hard. That leads to life, and those who find it are few. That's Matthew 7, 13, 14.
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  So Christ Himself pretty clearly said it's easier to go to hell than it is to go to heaven, essentially.
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  Now, I do think we're talking relative terms. We don't know exactly the numbers.
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  The fact is, is that when it comes down to it, we can hope for somebody's salvation who has died, who is not practicing Catholic. We have to understand what the word hope means here. It's not a certainty.
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  It's not a. Okay, it doesn't matter what the Church teaches about, you know, being a practicing Catholics or God doesn't care whether or not you're practicing Catholic. None of that. It doesn't mean any of that. It just simply means that we hope on God's mercy that he saved them through some means that we don't understand or know.
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  We should never, however, like I said, assume it. You should never assume. You should really never assume anybody is in heaven when they die because they could be in purgatory.
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  I think we can be confident, though, if somebody's a practicing Catholic when they die. I don't think it's like somehow presumptuous to assume they're at least in purgatory.
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  I mean, like example, my in laws, my mother and father in law, both of them, I prayed for them very much when they died and continue to pray for them.
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  But I, I feel confident, I have a certain certainty that they're, that they're, if they're not already in heaven, they will be one day. They're in purgatory because they were practicing Catholics when they died.
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  Now, of course, there could be situations in which somebody you think is a practicing Catholic is actually not. Maybe you don't know him that well. That's not the case. My in laws course. But, like, you might not know them that well as well as you think you do. And, and perhaps they were in a state of mortal sin and so they did go to hell. I'm not saying that's impossible, but I'm saying that you can be reasonably confident of somebody who's practicing Catholic. You should not be scrupulous about everybody else. Like, oh, really, Actually, they, maybe they were actually, you know, in mortal sin or whatever.
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  But I do think we can hope, even those who are not Catholic, when they die, we can hope for their salvation. We can pray to God for mercy on their soul. Absolutely. We should pray for all those who die, even those who die outside the visible boundaries of the Church.
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  But I do think that we can never assume it. And I think again, if you, if you kind of decide, okay, what percentage of your brain when it comes to thinking about salvation should be on the status of people who have died and the percent that should be on the status of people who are still alive, I would argue this is kind of my main point. Here is that 98, 99 of it should be on those who are alive right now on earth, not on those who have already died. The only thing you should be doing for those who die is praying for them.
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  Not, not like contemplating whether or not they're, they're, they're in hell or heaven or purgatory. You just should be praying for them.
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  Whereas when it comes to those who are still alive, your focus should be on, okay, what can I do to help them be practicing Catholics? So if they're already practicing Catholics, encouraging them in their faith, if they're Catholics who have not, who are not practicing, to encourage and urge them to begin practicing the faith again, and for those who are not Catholic to become Catholic and become practicing Catholics, that's what the vast majority of our energy and time should be spit on when we're thinking about salvation. Not on what happens to the, not, not what has happened to those who have already died, but what might happen to those who are currently still alive.
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  Really, this whole debate, this whole discussion isn't exactly about salvation, isn't exactly about like, how we live.
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  It's much more about our perception of God and who he is.
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  And you see very clearly, if you look at historically how people have talked about God and perceived him, how Catholics have talked about and perceived God, and their view of salvation at that time versus how they might talk about him in other times, their view for salvation, then it tracks very closely.
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  If your emphasis of God is on his justice, on his judgment, then you will to talk a lot more about how few are saved.
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  If, however, the focus is on God's mercy, then you're, you're not going to talk about how few are saved. You're going to start assuming more are saved.
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  It very much correlates because that's really, like I said, it's a question of God. If you think God is mostly merciful, you think more are saved. If you think God's mostly judgmental, then you think less are safe. Now here's the thing though.
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  God is perfectly balanced in his justice and in his mercy. In fact, they are one thing in God. They're not actually separate things. I'm kind of projecting them as separate things. They're actually not separate in God. They're one, but they're perfectly imbalanced because they are one in God. However, our conception, our in here on earth, our conception of God and His mercy, his justice, they are not perfectly imbalanced. We see that in previous generations.
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  It was much more emphasized as justice in modern generations. And by modern, I don't mean like I said, just post Vatican II. I'm talking about last maybe 200 years or so, the shift has become more on his mercy. And therefore you see a shift away from this idea that only few are saved.
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  Now the reality is, like I said, because it's perfectly balanced in God, that means whatever happens to people who died is perfectly just and perfectly merciful in every situation.
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  What I think we want to do is, I think because of modern times, the over emphasis is on God's mercy in exclusion of his justice.
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  And so we assume everybody is saved. I do think we need to pull back and move towards more emphasizing his justice. This is something I talk about a lot in my book Deadly Indifference.
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  It's this idea of what's our emphasis.
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  And this is where I critique somebody like a Bishop Barron, who, who I believe his emphasis is far too much on God's mercy in exclusion to his justice. You can't overemphasize God's mercy really because it's infinite.
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  But in our human way of conceiving it, you can overemphasize it by excluding his justice.
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  And so what we see here is not. I don't think we should go to saying, you know, everybody is damned and we're all like basically just in, in bad shape.
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  I don't think we should even be saying, personally, I don't think we should be going around saying only a few are saved because again, I think that's God's call, not ours.
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  I do think though, we absolutely should go back to saying and should emphasize only a few are living the way that God, that Christ himself said we need to live to be saved, to assure us of our salvation.
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  That's what the focus should be.
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  And so if you're on a podcast with somebody like a Ben Shapiro and you're ash, I become Catholic, your answer absolutely should be yes. Yes, Yes. A thousand times yes. Why? Because we're in. We're, we're focused on the fact very few are living the way Christ made it clear that we need to live to be assured of our salvation.
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  And if so, a Jewish person says, do I need to become Catholic? You, the answer is always yes. Because that Jewish person is not living the way Christ said we need to live.
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  Neither is the, the non practicing Catholic, neither is the non Catholic, the Protestant, the atheist, the Muslim.
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  And so that's what our focus should be on.
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  And I think that's a better way to balance his mercy and his judgment in our minds is to focus more on okay, what do I need to do to be saved?
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  And what do those around me need to do to be saved?
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  Because what happens is, and we, we've seen this 100% in practice, in real world, what happens is when you over emphasize God's mercy to the exclusion of his justice, and you basically suggest that just about everybody or lots of people are saved, or that we can at least reasonably think, reasonably hope that most people are saved, not just certain individuals, but everybody is saved, then what happens is we stop doing our duty to evangelize people, that they need to be practicing Catholics, or at least we weaken our evangelization efforts. And we see this all over the place. I mean, how many church prelates, priests, Catholics, just simply do not talk about the hard things, about being a practicing Catholic because they don't want to offend people.
• 29:08
  But in doing so, they're not, they're not giving the treasure that Christ has given us to them, and they're not giving them the sure path to salvation. Instead of the one that we hope maybe, maybe they could be saved, we give them that instead of the sure path that says, yes, you will be saved if you do this.
• 29:27
  That's really what the, that, that's really the problem here, when it comes down to it is. So like I said, I don't think the question is are only a few saved?
• 29:38
  The question really is, what did Christ tell us we need to do to be saved? And are only a few following that right now?
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  And sadly, the answer, that second question is yes, only a few are following it. So we need to urge them not to urge to get on the right path.
• 29:54
  So the takeaway here is simple. We need to pray, we need to fast. We need to work for this, our own salvation, and for the salvation of those around us. Everybody has a sphere of influence, people they know and love. We need to work for their salvation. And then when they die, we should pray and fast for their salvation, then assuming that they may be in purgatory, and therefore we want to lift them out of purgatory. But our focus should be mostly on people here on earth praying and fasting and working for their salvation, and of course for our own salvation. And never assume just because you're practicing Catholic today that you always will be. Not in a sense of scrupulosity, but more in a sense of yes, I need to always be faithful. Every day, every day I need to wake up and say, I'm going to be faithful to Christ today. And then I know I can be assured I will be saved. If I am faithful to Christ.
• 30:46
  Okay, I'm going to wrap it up there. I hope this was helpful for people.
• 30:50
  Until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor.