Will Few Christian Adults Be Saved, as St. Leonard of Port Maurice Claimed?

“Note well that there is no question here of the human race taken as a whole,” St. Leonard said. But then he went on for several paragraphs to show why he was convinced that few out of the whole human race are saved. “Saint Gregory explains … out of all men, many are called to the True Faith, but out of them few are saved.”Then he recognized that he was digressing: “But oh, I see that by speaking in this manner of all in general, I am missing my point.”

However, he soon returned to saying that few out of the whole human race are saved. “The good are so rare and the wicked are so great in number.”

“Saint Anselm declares, ‘There are few who are saved.’ Saint Augustine states even more clearly, ‘… few are saved in comparison to those who are damned.’”

St. Leonard also cited the words of people who allegedly returned from the dead:

“Saint Vincent Ferrer … relates that an archdeacon in Lyons … died the same day and hour as Saint Bernard. After his death, he appeared to his bishop and said to him, ‘Know, Monsignor, that at the very hour I passed away, thirty-three thousand people also died. Out of this number, Bernard and myself went up to heaven without delay, three went to purgatory, and all the others fell into Hell.’

“One of our brothers, well-known for his doctrine and holiness, was preaching in Germany. He represented the ugliness of the sin of impurity so forceful that a woman fell dead of sorrow in front of everyone. Then, coming back to life, she said, ‘When I was presented before the Tribunal of God, sixty thousand people arrived at the same time from all parts of the world; out of that number, three were saved by going to Purgatory, and all the rest were damned.’”

These proportions of people saved sound extraordinary. Also, three out of thirty-three thousand and three out of sixty thousand are oddly coincidental, like what we today would call an urban legend, with the outline of the story the same but the characters changed. The statements, presented as direct quotations from one who sounds like a ghost and another from an allegedly resurrected woman, offer no names (just “an archdeacon,” “his bishop,” “a woman”) or dates, and, according to St. Leonard, were second-hand reports to him. Jesus’s parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) suggests that people will not be granted warnings from the souls of those who have died: Abraham rejects the rich man’s request that Lazarus be sent to the rich man’s family who were still alive and warn them, and Abraham states, “They will not be convinced even if one should rise from the dead.” I think that this refers to the resurrection of Jesus but also indicates that if people will not heed “Moses and the prophets” or have faith in Jesus, they should not expect additional miraculous warnings. Despite their specific numbers and the quotations, I think that the stories that St. Leonard presented as warnings from the dead are, at best, parables.

Beyond his digressions about what numbers of the human race are saved, St. Leonard cited sources who stated that most adult Christians are damned:

He quoted Salvianus: “Except for a very little number who flee evil, what is the assembly of Christians if not a sink of vice?”

“Two learned cardinals, Cajetan and Bellarmine … teach that the greater number of Christian adults are damned.”

“Saint Gregory [said] clearly, ‘Many attain to faith, but few to the heavenly kingdom.’”

“Saint Chrysostom. This Saint says that most Christians are walking on the road to hell throughout their life.”

“Saint Thomas, the Angelic Doctor, after weighing all the reasons pro and con in his immense erudition, finally concludes that the greater number of Catholic adults are damned.”

Suarez, “after consulting all the theologians and making a diligent study of the matter … wrote, ‘The most common sentiment which is held is that, among Christians, there are more damned souls than predestined souls.’”

It was “the most common sentiment”; that implies that it was not the only sentiment among theologians. As for “the Greek and Latin Fathers … almost all of them say the same thing.” So St. Leonard indicated that not all the Church Fathers said that most adult Christians are damned. If only St. Leonard had told us what these others said.

St. Leonard also presented an alleged statement by a demon via an unnamed source: “A famous preacher” while preparing a sermon, saw “a horrible demon” that said, “Lay your books aside. If you want to give a sermon that will be useful to these princes and prelates, content yourself with telling them on our part, ‘We the princes of darkness thank you, princes, prelates, and pastors of souls, that due to your negligence, the greater number of the faithful are damned; also, we are saving a reward for you for this favor, when you shall be with us in Hell.’” I wouldn’t trust a demon, yet this might not be bad advice. It sounds to me like a parable that St. Leonard presented as a historical fact.

St. Leonard also claimed that Catholic priests are nearly all going to hell. He quoted an alleged private revelation to an unnamed “servant of God … that the number of priests who fall into hell each day is so great that it seemed impossible to him that there be any left on earth.”

“Saint Jerome [declared] that although the world is full of priests, barely one in a hundred is living in a manner in conformity with” their vocation. “Saint Chrysostom exclaimed with tears in his eyes, ‘I do not believe that many priests are saved; I believe the contrary, that the number of those who are damned is greater.’”

What about confession of sins and forgiveness? “Very few are saved by” penance. “Saint Ambrose says it is easier to find men who have kept their innocence than to find any who have done fitting penance.” “Most Catholic adults confess badly at death, therefore most of them are damned.”

St. Leonard cited Scripture to support his position that most Christian adults are damned.

“In the time of Noah, the entire human race was submerged by the Deluge, and only eight people were saved in the Ark. Saint Peter says, ‘This ark was the figure of the Church,’ while Saint Augustine adds, ‘And these eight people who were saved signify that very few Christians are saved, because there are very few who sincerely renounce the world, and those who renounce it only in words do not belong to the mystery represented by that ark.’”

This is what St. Peter wrote: “A few persons, eight in all, escaped in the ark through the water. You are now saved by a baptismal bath which corresponds to this exactly” (1 Peter 3:20-21). This compares the people in the ark to those who are baptized. It doesn’t say that all the baptized will be saved, but it also doesn’t say that only a few of them will be. Everybody in the ark was saved.

Some other Scriptures suggest a different conclusion from St. Leonard’s:

“If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).

“God has imprisoned all in disobedience that he might have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32).

“The man of any nation who fears God and acts uprightly is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:35).

“I—once I am lifted up from earth—
will draw all men to myself”
(John 12:32)

These Scriptures indicate that anyone who sincerely turns to God will receive His mercy.

Numbers aside, St. Leonard said that salvation is a choice: “Those who are damned are damned by their own malice, because they wanted to be damned.” “Whoever wants to be saved, will be saved.”

St. Leonard’s calls to repentance and warnings against complacency are worthwhile. However, his insistence that nearly all adult Christians are damned, based on the arguments he presented, is unwarranted.

Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, copyright 1983, Thomas Nelson, Inc.