BISHOP ROBERT BARRON: Is Judas beyond salvation? A Palm Sunday meditation on mercy

Every year, on Palm Sunday, we read, in the Catholic liturgy, one of the great Passion stories from the synoptic Gospels. This year it’s Saint Matthew’s Day. There are a number of distinctive features in Matthew’s account, but the most distinctive and interesting, to me, is the evangelist’s treatment of Judas.

No other Gospel more effectively emphasizes the repentance and regret of the traitor. “Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned, deeply regretted what he had done. He returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, ‘I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.'” This is not a matter of brutal indifference or self-justification. This is a clear and honest admission of guilt.

Then we are told that Judas threw the money into the temple and “went and hanged himself.” A horrible end to a sad life, with Jesus’ betrayer falling into despair and engaging in self-mutilation. And this is why most figures in the great theological and spiritual tradition have assumed that Judas was in hell. Augustine thought so; Thomas Aquinas thought so; Dante represented him perpetually chewed in the very mouth of Satan. And if his betrayal of the Lord wasn’t enough to earn him a place in hell, then his suicide, in the opinion of most theologians, certainly sealed the deal.

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But I would like to draw your attention to a counter-opinion – certainly in the minority – exhibited in one of the capitals of a column of the magnificent basilica of Vézelay in France.

On one side is an extremely vivid depiction of Judas hanging, his eyes bulging, his tongue sticking out of his mouth. But on the other side is a representation of the Good Shepherd carrying the body of Judas on his shoulders like the lost sheep. And the dead man seems to smile.

Pope Francis loved this image so much that he had a reproduction of it on his desk in his papal office. This showed, to him, the hope that even Judas could have been saved by the overwhelming mercy of the Lord.

Pope Francis greets his arrival for his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Hall, at the Vatican, Wednesday February 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Now I know (please don’t send me complaint letters) that we cannot embrace a naive universalism, which says we are perfectly sure that all men will be saved. We must indeed admit the very real possibility of an eternal rejection of God. And yet Pope John Paul II insisted that the Church has never made a definitive statement about whether any particular person is in hell. And Pope Benedict XVI said we should suspend judgment regarding Judas, handing him over to the mercy and justice of God. But then again, wouldn’t his suicide guarantee that he went to eternal perdition?

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Listen to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on this point: “We must not despair of the eternal salvation of people who have committed suicide. By ways known only to Him, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for people who have committed suicide” (2283).

ITALY – CIRCA 2002: Kiss of Judas, 14th century fresco by Master Trecentesco of Sacro Specol. Upper church of the Sacro Speco monastery, Subiaco. Italy, 14th century. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

The fact is that God, in Christ, went to the very limits of God’s abandonment, precisely to communicate divine mercy even in the darkest places. When Jesus said from the cross: “God, my God, why have you forsaken me? » he signals that he has entered the condition of the most desperate sinner. He certainly did not become a sinner, but he voluntarily adopted the psychological and spiritual state of the sinner.

I am not advocating that we be lenient with sin or dismiss its terrible seriousness. But I indeed commend what Paul said: “Where sin abounds, grace abounds more.”

Indeed, I insist that God’s mercy is greater than any sin we could commit, even the betrayal of Christ. So, do we despair of those who committed suicide? No. We pray for them and entrust them to the mercy of God.

The Kiss of Judas, also known as the Betrayal of Christ, depicted on a mural in the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud in Fontevraud-l’Abbaye, France. (Godong/Universal Images Group)

We tell the story of a French couple in the 19th century, she deeply religious, he vaguely agnostic. At one point in their marriage, the wife asked her husband if she could hang a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus above their bed. With little enthusiasm, but mindful of her feelings, he agreed. Over time, due to setbacks in his business and frustrations with his ambitions, the husband fell into a deep depression.

Finally, in desperation, he threw himself from a building and plunged to his death. His wife, completely helpless and convinced of her own guilt in this affair, became inconsolable. At the end of her strength, she decides to speak to Jean Vianney, the famous priest of Ars, a man renowned for being a spiritual master and reader of souls. When she arrived in the small town near Lyon, she was shocked to find that the line of those seeking an audience with the great man stretched for a kilometer.

In anguish, she knelt near the communion rail and cried. To her surprise, she then heard a voice calling her name. It was Jean Vianney. “How do you know my name?” she asked. He replied: “It doesn’t matter. He continued: “You are in despair over the death of your husband. I want you to understand that as he was rushing towards death, God showed him this picture of the Sacred Heart that He had hung above your bed.” “How can you know such a thing?” she panted. “It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “What matters is that when he saw this, he repented.”

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The same Dante who sent Judas to the depths of hell also said that all God needs is one tear of repentance to save a sinner.

What should we learn from a prayerful reading of Matthew’s Passion story? God is mercy within mercy.

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