Bishop Barron is wrong about Judas – here’s why

“All those things are to be believed with divine and catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and are proposed by the Church either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal magisterium to be believed as divinely revealed.”

Chapter II, On Faith, Dei Filius, Vatican I

“(I)t is not permissible for anyone to interpret Holy Scripture in a sense contrary to (that of the Church), or indeed against the unanimous consent of the fathers.”

Chapter II, On Revelation, Canon 9, Dei Filius, Vatican I

(LifeSiteNews) – In an opinion piece written for Fox News, Bishop Robert Barron cast doubt on the eternal fate of Judas Iscariot, the Apostle who betrayed Our Lord, and presented a number of reasons for concluding (or hoping) that Judas may have been saved.

In support of this idea, Barron marshalled a number of post-Vatican II sources, including the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church and comments made by John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis.

Although he explicitly states that “we cannot embrace a simple-minded universalism,” and that we “have to admit to the very real possibility of an eternal rejection of God,” his short article nonetheless shows the influence of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theology along with its “hope that all men be saved,” particularly in the following passage:

The point is that God, in Christ, has gone to the very limits of God-forsakenness precisely to communicate the divine mercy even to that darkest place.

Barron is on record as having stated:

My own view, having surveyed this grand tradition, is that Balthasar has it pretty much right.

The data offered by Barron

The only pre-conciliar data that he cited in support of his view was a private revelation received by St. John Vianney about a 19th century Frenchman who committed suicide but repented moments before death and a carving from the medieval Basilica of St. Mary Magdalen in Vézelay, France.

The former has no direct relation to Judas. The latter is a carving depicting Judas’ suicide on one side and a man carrying Judas’ body on the other; the second depiction is alleged to be the Good Shepherd carrying Judas’ body, with Judas also allegedly smiling. This interpretation is far from obvious and thus cannot be used as a theological data point; it is not even obvious that this is what the carving depicts.

Barron mentions that the late Francis kept an image of this carving in his office; he neglects to mention that he also kept a bizarre and indecent image in his office suggesting the same idea.

He also cites the medieval poet Dante Alighieri, both as an “authority” who believed Judas to be damned but also for saying, as Barron puts it, “that all God needs is a single tear of repentance to save a sinner.”

This is not how one should approach the interpretation of Scripture or any theological matter. While poets and “monuments” of Christian culture may indeed provide “data” indicating the faith of the “Church Believing,” neither are theological authorities. While the private revelation of St. John Vianney enshrines a true principle (that God can grant a grace to a suicide moments before death), it is gratuitous to apply this to the case of Judas against the tradition of the Church. ^[1]

However, Barron himself admits that this idea is a novelty – or at best a “minority” position. He recognizes that “most figures in the great theological and spiritual tradition have assumed that Judas is in hell” – citing St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine as well as Dante.

In fact, the status of Judas’ fate is of considerably greater weight than Barron suggests – and this weight has implications greater than his comments recognize.

In this article, we shall consider:

1. The Teaching of Holy Scripture
2. The Teaching of the Liturgy
3. The Teaching of the Roman Catechism
4. The Teaching of the Fathers

The teaching of Holy Scripture

At the Last Supper, Our Lord said of Judas:

The Son of man indeed goeth, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man shall be betrayed. It were better for him, if that man had not been born. (Mark 14.21)

This is repeated by all three of the Synoptic Gospels. Such words seem to make little sense if Judas was saved; if he attained the Beatific Vision of God in Heaven, then no suffering that he may have endured in Purgatory – or even in the remorse of his conscience – could make it better for him not to have been born.

After Judas’ suicide and the Ascension of Christ, St. Peter spoke of Judas:

For it is written in the book of Psalms: Let their habitation become desolate, and let there be none to dwell therein. And his bishopric let another take.

… Judas hath by transgression fallen, that he might go to his own place. (Acts 1.20, 25)

Such words are difficult to reconcile with the idea that Judas’ “own place” is Paradise, or even Purgatory.

Soon after, in his prayer before the Passion, Our Lord referred to him as follows:

Those whom thou gavest me have I kept: and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition: that the scripture may be fulfilled. (John 17.12)

Barron notes that St. Thomas Aquinas holds that Judas was damned. Here is what St. Thomas says of this passage:

He is called the son of perdition as though foreknown and foreordained to eternal perdition. In this way those destined to die are called the sons of death: you are the sons of death (1 Sam 26:16); you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte … and you make him a son of death twice as much as yourself (Matt 23:15). (Commentary on St. John, Chapter 17) ^[2]

Elsewhere in his corpus, St. Thomas evidently considers Judas’ damnation so certain that he does not even expand on it. For example:

(T)he twelve apostles who walked with Christ during his earthly life are not the only ones who will judge. Judas assuredly will not judge; nor shall Paul, who labored more than the rest, lack judicial power, especially as he himself says: Do you not know that we are to judge angels? (1 Cor 6:3). (Compendium of Theology, Chapter 245)

Barron also notes that St. Augustine disagrees with him. Here is what he said of this passage:

(N)one of them is lost but the Son of perdition: i.e. the betrayer of Christ, predestined to perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled, especially the prophecy, in Psalm 108. (Catena Aurea)

St. Peter also refers to Psalm 108, after the Ascension. The Church has applied the wider prophecies in this Psalm to Judas:

Set thou the sinner over him: and may the devil stand at his right hand.

When he is judged, may he go out condemned; and may his prayer be turned to sin.

May his days be few: and his bishopric let another take. (…)

And he loved cursing, and it shall come unto him: and he would not have blessing, and it shall be far from him. And he put on cursing, like a garment: and it went in like water into his entrails, and like oil in his bones.

May it be unto him like a garment which covereth him; and like a girdle with which he is girded continually. (Ps. 108.6-8, 18-19)

Once again, these words appear to exclude the possibility that Judas was saved.

These words are given authoritative interpretation in the liturgy itself.

The teaching of the liturgy

The theologian J.M.A Vacant referred to the testimony of the liturgy:

(T)his magisterium, which is exercised by the express teaching of revealed truths and the doctrines connected with them, is also expressed in an infallible, although implicit, manner, by the discipline and worship of the Church, and by the conduct of the pastors and the faithful. This is a truth admitted by all theologians and it is unnecessary to demonstrate it at this point.

In the liturgies of Holy Week, we find the Church testifying to Judas’ damnation. On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the Church sings the following collect:

O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession: grant unto us the full fruit of Thy clemency; that even as in His Passion, our Lord Jesus Christ gave to each a retribution according to his merits, so having taken away our old sins, He may bestow upon us the grace of His Resurrection. Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

At Tenebrae for Maundy Thursday, the Church sings the following:

Resp. 4: ℟. Mine own friend hath betrayed Me by the sign of a kiss: Whomsoever I shall kiss, That Same is He; hold Him fast. This was the traitorous sign which he gave, even he who murdered with a kiss.
* Woe unto that man! He cast down the price of blood, and went, and hanged himself.
℣. It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
℟. Woe unto that man! He cast down the price of blood, and went, and hanged himself.

Resp. 5: ℟. One of My disciples shall betray Me this night. Woe unto that man by whom I am betrayed!
* It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
℣. He that dippeth his hand with Me in the dish, the same shall betray Me into the hands of sinners.
℟. It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
omit Glory be
℟. One of My disciples shall betray Me this night. Woe unto that man by whom I am betrayed. * It had been good for that man if he had not been born.

Although these responsories are indeed the words of the Gospel, the repetition in the liturgy creates a striking effect, and it seems very contrived to say that the Church does this in spite of believing that Judas may have been saved. The Church would be misleading the faithful with these responsories if she believed otherwise.

Similarly, if the Church did believe otherwise, there would be a liturgical custom of praying for the repose of Judas’ soul. But there is no such custom; and given the significance of Judas in the history of the Church, this should be construed not just as the absence of a custom, but an actual custom of not praying for Judas’ soul. And as St. Thomas Aquinas said on another matter, the custom of the Church is a decisive argument in itself:

On the contrary: The custom of the Church stands for these things: and the Church cannot err, since she is taught by the Holy Ghost. (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica III Q83 A5.)

The Catechism of the Council of Trent

The Roman Catechism also contains the following:

Some conceive a sorrow which bears no proportion to their crimes. Nay, there are some, says Solomon, who are glad when they have done evil. Others, on the contrary, give themselves to such melancholy and grief, as utterly to abandon all hope of salvation. Such, perhaps, was the condition of Cain when he exclaimed: My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon. Such certainly was the condition of Judas, who, repenting, hanged himself, and thus lost soul and body. (On Penance)

Speaking of bad priests and bishops, the same Catechism teaches:

It is such as these that our Saviour describes as hirelings, who, in the words of Ezechiel, feed themselves and not the sheep, and whose baseness and dishonesty have not only brought great disgrace on the ecclesiastical state, so much so that hardly anything is now more vile and contemptible in the eyes of the faithful, but also end in this, that they derive no other fruit from their priesthood than was derived by Judas from the Apostleship, which only brought him everlasting destruction.

Vacant expressed the following judgment on the authority of this catechism:

The catechism of the Council of Trent and the diocesan catechisms, considered as a whole, express the doctrine of the Supreme Pontiffs and the bishops who had them drawn up; at the same time, they manifest the belief of the faithful, since they are the immediate rule.

As these catechisms are intended to set forth not what is opinion, but what is the faith of all, most of the points which they agree to teach without restriction must be regarded as proposed to our faith.

The great Thomistic commentators, the Carmelites of Salamanca, expressed a similar conclusion:

(T)he authority of this Catechism has always been of the greatest in the Church.

Let us now turn to the teaching of the Fathers.

The teaching of the Fathers

The Council of Trent taught that one must not interpret Holy Scripture in a sense contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers:

(T)o check unbridled spirits, (this Council) decrees that no one relying on his own judgment shall, in matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine, distorting the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which holy mother Church, to whom it belongs to judge of their true sense and interpretation, has held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpretations should never at any time be published.

(Decree Concerning the Edition and Use of the Sacred Books, Fourth Session of the Council of Trent)

This teaching was reaffirmed by Vatican I, and is itself the “unanimous teaching” of the Church. The theologian J.M.A. Vacant wrote:

(W)hen a point of doctrine is admitted unanimously, or by more or less all of the Fathers or authorised theologians, it is an unmistakable sign that it forms part of the revealed truth, taught by the ordinary magisterium. Indeed, if it were otherwise, how could it have obtained the assent of all these authorised witnesses of the magisterium for so many centuries – and in preference to so many opinions which have disappeared, or which have only obtained the adhesion of a few authors? How could it have been presented by all of them, not as a more or less well proven assertion, but as a point of doctrine, that is, as a point taught by the Church? Therefore, any dogmatic formula which has this constant and unanimous agreement must be regarded as a certain doctrine and accepted as correct.

Although Bishop Barron has acknowledged the weight of the authorities against him, let us consider what the Fathers say on the matter.

Speaking of the ways in which God may be said to “desert” someone, St. John Damascene writes:

(W)hen man, after God has done all that was possible to save him, remains of his own set purpose blind and uncured, or rather incurable, and then he is handed over to utter destruction, as was Judas. May God be gracious to us, and deliver us from such desertion.

(An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Chapter XXIX, Concerning Providence)

In acknowledging that Judas could have been forgiven, St. Ambrose makes clear that he believes that Judas was not forgiven:

For I suppose that even Judas might through the exceeding mercy of God not have been shut out from forgiveness, if he had expressed his sorrow not before the Jews but before Christ. “I have sinned,” he said, “in that I have betrayed righteous blood.”

(Concerning Repentance, Chapter IV, n. 27)

He also writes:

Thou hast Thyself said that Thou art one with the Father. Because Peter believed this, he received the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and without anxiety for himself forgave sins. Judas, because he believed not this, strangled himself with the cord of his own wickedness. O the hard stones of unbelieving words!

(On the Holy Spirit, III, Chapter XVII, n. 123)

St. Athanasius writes:

Thus Judas, when he thought he kept the Passover, because he plotted deceit against the Saviour, was estranged from the city which is above, and from the apostolic company.

(Festal Letters, Letter VI, n. 11)

St. Cyril of Jerusalem appears to teach the same:

Judas having entered into the temptation of the love of money, swam not through it, but was overwhelmed and was strangled(9) both in body and spirit.

(Catechetical Lecture, XXIII, n. 17)

Speaking of the “many mansions” which Christ prepared for his followers, St. Jerome teaches that Judas lost his place in Heaven:

It profited Judas nothing to have a place prepared, since he lost it by his own fault.

(Against Jovinianus II, n. 26)

St. Jerome also speaks of Satan “devouring Judas” (Letter XXII to Eustochium) and states that “his end is condemned because of his treachery” (Letter LIV to Furia). He also compared the Good Thief and Judas in the same way as the Roman liturgy:

For instance, the robber believes upon the cross and immediately hears the assuring words: “verily I say unto thee, To-day shall thou be with me in paradise:” while Judas falls from the pinnacle of the apostolate into the abyss of perdition.

(Letter CXXV to Rusticus)

Pseudo-Jerome writes of Christ’s forgiveness of the Good Thief, cited in the Catena Aurea:

Truth was numbered with the wicked; He left one on His left hand, the other He takes on the right, as He will do at the last day. With a similar crime they are allotted different paths; one precedes Peter into Paradise, the other Judas into hell. A short confession won for him a long life, and a blasphemy which soon ended is punished with endless pain. (Mark 15.20-28)

St. Leo the Great also teaches that Judas’ end was without grace:

Judas, thou art proved more criminal and unhappier than all; for when repentance should have called thee back to the LORD, despair dragged thee to the halter. […] Why dost thou distrust the goodness of Him, Who did not repel thee from the communion of His body and blood, Who did not deny thee the kiss of peace when thou camest with crowds and a band of armed men to seize Him.

But O man that nothing could convert, O “spirit going and not returning,” thou didst follow thy heart’s rage, and, the devil standing at thy right hand, didst turn the wickedness, which thou hadst prepared against the life of all the saints, to thine own destruction, so that, because thy crime had exceeded all measure of punishment, thy wickedness might make thee thine own judge, thy punishment allow thee to be thine own hangman.

(Sermon LIV, On the Passion, III, n. III)

These are not the words of a man who believes that Judas converted at the last moment. In another sermon on the Passion, the same St. Leo writes:

To this forgiveness the traitor Judas could not attain: for he, the son of perdition, at whose right the devil stood, gave himself up to despair before Christ accomplished the mystery of universal redemption. For in that the Lord died for sinners, perchance even he might have found salvation if he had not hastened to hang himself. But that evil heart, which was now given up to thievish frauds, and now busied with treacherous designs, had never entertained aught of the proofs of the Saviour’s mercy. (…)

But the wicked traitor refused to understand this, and took measures against himself, not in the self-condemnation of repentance, but in the madness of perdition, and thus he who had sold the Author of life to His murderers, even in dying increased the amount of sin which condemned him.

(Sermon LXII, On the Passion, XI, n. IV)

St. Augustine, to whom Barron alludes, speaks of Judas’ damnation on several occasions. He wrote:

(I)mitate not the repentance of Judas the traitor, but the tears of Peter the shepherd.

(Letter CCXI, n. 4)

Such a comment makes little sense if Judas efficaciously repented and was saved. Elsewhere, he writes:

(B)y despairing of God’s mercy in his sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no place for a healing penitence?

(City of God, Book I, Chapter 17)

And again:

But inasmuch as He did not raise up Judas, must we therefore contend that He was unable to do so? He certainly was able, but He would not. For if He had been willing, He could have effected this too. For the Son quickeneth whomsoever He will.

(On the Spirit and the Letter)

Elsewhere, he interprets the impenitence of Judas as the unpardonable “sin against the Holy Ghost” to which Our Lord refers in the Gospel:

(W)hen Judas had said, “I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood,” yet it was easier for him in despair to run and hang himself, than in humility to ask for pardon. And therefore it is of much consequence to know what sort of repentance God pardons.

(On the Sermon on the Mount, Chapter XXII, n. 74)

St. John Chrysostom wrote:

(T)he wicked one dragged Judas out of this world lest he should make a fair beginning, and so return by means of repentance to the point from which he fell. For although it may seem a strange thing to say, I will not admit even that sin to be too great for the succour which is brought to us from repentance.

(Letter I to Theodore, n. 9)

He also taught that Judas did receive grace from Our Lord to repent, but that he refused it:

Observe, for instance, when Judas had thrown himself into sin, how great assistance he enjoyed, yet not even so was he raised. (…) Judas, who having enjoyed ten thousand good things, repaid his Benefactor with the contrary.

(Homily LXXI on John XIII)

What emerges from a consultation of the Fathers is at least a moral unanimity that this is the teaching of revelation in Holy Scripture rather than their mere opinion.

In light of the above evidence, let us recall again the Profession of Faith made at Vatican I, recalling the Council of Trent:

I accept Sacred Scripture according to that sense which Holy mother Church held and holds, since it is her right to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures; nor will I ever receive and interpret them except according to the unanimous consent of the fathers.

Conclusion

In this article, we have considered the teaching of Holy Scripture, and its interpretation in the Liturgy, the Roman Catechism, and the teaching of the Fathers. In light of this, there is little wonder that Pope Pius XI also taught the same:

Judas, an Apostle of Christ, “one of the twelve,” as the Evangelists sadly observe, was led down to the abyss of iniquity precisely through the spirit of greed for earthly things.

(Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, 1935)

In some respects, what we have seen here will be of little surprise to Bishop Barron, who acknowledged that “most figures in the great theological and spiritual tradition have assumed that Judas is in hell.”

However, this is an understatement. The witnesses to the tradition of the Church that we have cited do not assume this to be the case; they teach it, and their teaching has both authority and consequences.

Vatican I taught the following:

All those things are to be believed with divine and catholic faith which are contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and are proposed by the Church either by a solemn judgment or by her ordinary and universal magisterium to be believed as divinely revealed.

(Chapter II, On Faith, Dei Filius, Vatican I)

There seems to be no way to evade the conclusion that the eternal loss of Judas is indeed “proposed by the Church (…) by her ordinary and universal magisterium.” This is indeed “to be believed as divinely revealed,” because it is an authoritative interpretation of what is contained in Holy Scripture. As Fr. de Zulueta writes of heresy:

The error must concern a doctrine contained or revealed in the Scriptures, and also proposed as such by the Church to our belief. But, be it carefully observed, it is not necessary for the guilt of heresy that the doctrine should have been solemnly defined by supreme authority; it is quite sufficient that it should form part of the ordinary daily teaching of the Church throughout the world, which is infallible. To say, ‘It is not heresy to deny this doctrine: for the Church has never defined it,’ is utterly unsound. Hence it would be heresy to deny any truth clearly contained in the Scriptures, because the Church teaches all that the Scriptures do.

(Letters on Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 51.)

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the eternal loss of Judas belongs to the Church’s ordinary and universal teaching. If so, then to deny or even doubt Judas’ damnation (as is entailed in raising the possibility of his salvation) would be contrary to what must be believed with divine and catholic faith. Even if one hesitates to state this definitively, it seems that such a position must be regarded as at least proximate to heresy.

The final word shall go to Fr. Dave Nix, who gave the following exclusive comment to LifeSiteNews:

I’d like to ask Bishop Barron an honest question: If Judas is not in hell, then why did Jesus say of Judas, “It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” (Mt 26:24)? Really, I’d like a clear answer from Bishop Barron on that. If Judas eventually made it to the Beatific Vision, why did Jesus say such a harsh and unprecedented thing?

The Beatific Vision would have been obtained by Judas even following such a monstrous betrayal of Christ if he had simply repented in perfect contrition as the noose tightened. Of course, if that had happened, Christ would have forgiven Judas and never said “better he had never been born.”

But He did say that, so Bishop Barron needs to explain why.