Don’t Be Like Judas! (Nor Like Eric Sammons, For That Matter)

Response to another flawed semi-trad argument…

Don’t Be Like Judas!
(Nor Like Eric Sammons, For That Matter)

OK, so we doctored this screenshot a little: The painting on the left doesn’t actually show the betrayal of Judas

Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, recently released a video clip on YouTube that’s a composite of highlights from his 35-minute Crisis Point podcast episode “Don’t Be Judas” of Apr. 15, 2025.

As the clip is less than a minute long (a so-called YouTube ‘short’), a lot more people will be exposed to what Sammons says there than would take the time to sit through the full-length episode.

Here is a transcript of the 56-second clip:

Satan is going to attack us from every direction. He will try to exploit our devotion to orthodoxy — which is a good thing — he will try to twist that so we turn against the Church in other ways. Judas had an image how Jesus would overcome evil. Judas did not like the way that Jesus was allowing evil to be in control — apparently in control — of the world. Because at the Crucifixion particularly, it looks like evil is in control. We know, of course, that Jesus Himself — St. John the Apostle makes this very clear — that Jesus Himself was in control.

I would say that a lot of the people today who are breaking communion with Francis by saying he is not the Pope, by saying, well, I’m not in communion with somebody like a Cardinal Cupich or Cardinal McElroy, they are falling for the same temptation that Judas did. They are upset that Jesus has not cleaned out the Church. He has allowed this evil to thrive inside the Church, and because of that, they end up breaking company with Jesus, just like Judas did.

(Eric Sammons in YouTube Short, May 24, 2025)

For those who would like to view the clip, here it is:

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“Satan tries to trick trads to be Judas”, says the clip’s description. The full episode’s remarks read: “Today’s Catholic can face the same temptation as Judas: break communion with Jesus because the Lord doesn’t overcome evil as quickly as we expect.”

Apparently a lot of people are becoming sedevacantists and Sammons is trying to do his part to “stop the bleeding”, so to speak. But is Sammons’ assessment accurate? Is his defense reasonable?

Let’s see.

First, we must point out that throughout his presentation, Sammons assumes that the church people are leaving on account of ‘Pope’ Francis (who was still alive at the time of Sammons’ recording) is in fact the Roman Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ. Thus his entire argument can only work, at best, for those who share that belief, otherwise it is an instance of begging the question, the logical fallacy that assumes as true the very point under dispute.

Of course Sammons’ assumption will be shared by most of his audience — and, granted, he says in his full episode that he’s talking to his “own people” — but it cannot be used in refutation of those who are already convinced that an entity that teaches a false religion and follows a public apostate as its earthly head, cannot be the Mystical Body of Christ, the indefectible Catholic Church founded by the Son of God.

Of course there are some — and perhaps they are the ones Sammons has in mind exclusively — who think the problem was Francis alone, whereas the rest of the Vatican II religion, all the way from John XXIII to Benedict XVI, was perfectly fine. For those people, Sammons’ argument that they ought not to leave (what they themselves believe is) the Catholic Church may very well make sense. However, oftentimes Francis’ public defection from the Faith in his official magisterium was merely the impetus for people to look into what has happened to the Catholic Church since the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958. Thus the understanding that Francis cannot be the Pope is frequently accompanied by the realization that the institution he leads differs in essence from the Catholic Church of Pope Pius XII and his predecessors. In other words, it is often precisely because they understand, at least implicitly, that the Vatican II Church is not the Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ that those who seek true Catholicism abandon it.

Our next point of criticism concerns how Sammons frames the issue he is talking about. He makes it seem as though the entire affair were a matter of bad clerics, wicked shepherds; but that is a serious misrepresentation of the issue.

All Catholics are sinners, and in that sense the Catholic Church will always have clergy and laity who are sinful to a greater or lesser extent. But the situation since ‘Pope’ John XXIII (r. 1958-63) and his Second Vatican Council (1962-65) is not simply one of sinful clerics. Rather, it is a matter of public defection from the Faith — heresy — as well as the dissemination of other erroneous ides that more or less approach heresy, in (what appears to be) the Catholic Church’s highest teaching office, the papal magisterium.

It is Catholic dogma that the Catholic Church cannot defect, and she most certainly would defect if heresy or other dangerous theological errors could be taught by the Pope in his official capacity, could creep into the Church’s universal disciplinary laws, could poison the Church’s sacramental rites and liturgical prayers, and so forth. And no, that’s not an undue extension of papal infallibility, as some might think:

Ironically, Sammons himself has published a book called Deadly Indifference (2021), in which he argues that “the Church lost her mission”, as it says on the title cover. For the Church to lose her mission would surely constitute the very essence of defection. It would mean that she failed in the very purpose for which Jesus Christ established her, which is impossible. Like salt having lost its flavor, she would then be “good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men” (Mt 5:13). Obviously, no one and nothing can defeat the work of God: “So shall my word be, which shall go forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me void, but it shall do whatsoever I please, and shall prosper in the things for which I sent it” (Is 55:11); “…for if this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, you cannot overthrow it…” (Acts 5:38b-39a).

That Sammons promises on the cover of his book to tell the reader “how we can reclaim” the Church’s lost mission cannot but seem cynical; but above all, it is irrelevant. If the Vatican II Church does not have the mission of Christ, then it cannot be His Church — and no amount of strategizing, books with forewords by Athanasius Schneider, or Crisis Point podcasts can turn it into His Mystical Body.

Our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ founded His Church to last until the end of time, not merely as a visible institution but as the visible ark of salvation for all. Although this ark consists of members who are sinners, it can never fail in its essential mission:

In the Catholic Church Christianity is incarnate. It identifies itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the mystical body of Jesus Christ and which has for its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Saviour, the daughter and the heiress of His redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance, and of that immortality which have been promised it, it makes no terms with error, but remains faithful to the commands which it has received to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time and to protect it in its inviolable integrity.

(Pope Leo XIII, Apostolic Letter Annum Ingressi; underlining added.)

…Christ did not wish to exclude sinners from His Church; hence if some of her members are suffering from spiritual maladies, that is no reason why we should lessen our love for the Church, but rather a reason why we should increase our devotion to her members. Certainly the loving Mother is spotless in the Sacraments, by which she gives birth to and nourishes her children; in the faith which she has always preserved inviolate; in her sacred laws imposed on all; in the evangelical counsels which she recommends; in those heavenly gifts and extraordinary graces through which, with inexhaustible fecundity, she generates hosts of martyrs, virgins and confessors. But it cannot be laid to her charge if some members fall, weak or wounded.

(Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Mystici Corporis, n. 66; underlining added.)

Furthermore, what guarantees the Church’s unswerving fidelity to Christ in her teachings, worship, and disciplinary laws is the Pope, who, being Christ’s Vicar, is specially assisted by God in that regard:

To preserve forever in his Church the unity and doctrine of this faith, Christ chose one of his apostles, Peter, whom he appointed the Prince of his Apostles, his Vicar on earth, and impregnable foundation and head of his Church. Surpassing all others with every dignity of extraordinary authority, power and jurisdiction, he was to feed the Lord’s flock, strengthen his brothers, rule and govern the universal Church. Christ not only desired that his Church remain as one and immaculate to the end of the world, and that its unity in faith, doctrine and form of government remain inviolate. He also willed that the fullness of dignity, power and jurisdiction, integrity and stability of faith given to Peter be handed down in its entirety to the Roman Pontiffs, the successors of this same Peter, who have been placed on this Chair of Peter in Rome, and to whom has been divinely committed the supreme care of the Lord’s entire flock and the supreme rule of the Universal Church.

…There are other, almost countless, proofs drawn from the most trustworthy witnesses which clearly and openly testify with great faith, exactitude, respect and obedience that all who want to belong to the true and only Church of Christ must honor and obey this Apostolic See and Roman Pontiff.

(Pope Pius IX, Encyclical Amantissimus, nn. 2-3)

Wherefore, let the faithful also be on their guard against the overrated independence of private judgment and that false autonomy of human reason. For it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty. Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord.

(Pope Pius XI, Encyclical Casti Connubii, n. 104)

Clearly, any institution that does not believe and teach the true Catholic doctrine as it was known until the death of Pope Pius XII in 1958, cannot be the Catholic Church founded by Our Lord. That this raises all kinds of difficulties, many of which are not easy to resolve, is beyond question; but it does not change the truth of the matter.

As regards the Pope considered as a sinner, pre-Vatican II Church history gives testimony to Christ’s miraculous assistance in that no matter how seriously deficient he is in his personal morals, he will never impose teaching on the faithful that is unsafe for Catholics to accept and follow.

We can see this verified, for instance, in the case of Pope John XII (r. 955-963), who was perhaps the worst of all the bad Popes:

Nothing in his life marked him for this office, and everything should have kept him from it. He was rarely seen in church. His days and nights were spent in the company of young men and of disreputable women, in the pleasures of the table and of amusements and of the hunt, or in even more sinful sensual enjoyments. It is related that sometimes, in the midst of dissolute revelry, the prince had been seen to drink to the health of the devil. Raised to the papal office, Octavian changed his name and took the name of John XII. He was the first pope thus to assume a new name. But his new dignity brought about no change in his morals, and merely added the guilt of sacrilege.

Divine providence, watching over the Church, miraculously preserved the deposit of faith, of which this young voluptuary was the guardian. This Pope’s life was a monstrous scandal, but his bullarium is faultless. We cannot sufficiently admire this prodigy. There is not a heretic or a schismatic who has not endeavored to legitimate his own conduct dogmatically: Photius tried to justify his pride, Luther his sensual passions, Calvin his cold cruelty. Neither Sergius III nor John XII nor Benedict IX nor Alexander VI, supreme pontiffs, definers of the faith, certain of being heard and obeyed by the whole Church, uttered, from the height of their apostolic pulpit, a single word that could be an approval of their disorders.

At times John XII even became the defender of the threatened social order, of offended canon law, and of the religious life exposed to danger.

(Rev. Fernand Mourret, A History of the Catholic Church, Vol. 3 [St. Louis, MO: Herder Book Co., 1946], pp. 510-511; underlining added.)

Given the above, it is not difficult to see why people would come to the realization that the Vatican II Church cannot be the Catholic Church and therefore Francis (now Leo) cannot be the Pope — or vice versa.

For more in-depth information about this, please see:

Not Just Wicked Shepherds but a Heretical Church: A Sedevacantist Reply to Joshua Charles

Interestingly enough, the Church of which Leo XIV is now the head itself does not even regard itself as the Roman Catholic Church in the same sense as that taught by Pope Pius XII and all his predecessors, namely: “…the Mystical Body of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church are one and the same thing” (Encyclical Humani Generis, n. 27). Rather, the New Church of Vatican II says the Church established by Christ subsists in the Catholic Church, but exists also in elements in heretical sects.

Returning to Sammons’ words now, his claim that Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ because he was scandalized at the Cross seems somewhat contrived: “Judas had an image how Jesus would overcome evil. Judas did not like the way that Jesus was allowing evil to be in control — apparently in control — of the world. Because at the Crucifixion particularly, it looks like evil is in control.”

In the full episode from which the short clip is taken, Sammons acknowledges that the proximate motive for Judas’ betrayal of Christ was greed — those 30 pieces of silver — as Sacred Scripture clearly teaches. However, he says, some Church Fathers held that Judas had grown disillusioned with Christ because His Kingdom was spiritual and not earthly or political.

Be that as it may — it would have been nice for Sammons to provide a quote or two instead of just making an assertion about the Church Fathers — such an interpretation is not Church teaching and not found in Holy Scripture, nor does it seem to be part of Sacred Tradition. While one or two Church Fathers may have expressed such a thought, Mr. Sammons’ enthusiasm for associating sedevacantism with Judas in the minds of his audience is palpable. (Again, that’s the same Eric Sammons who claims that the Catholic Church lost her mission, something which, if true, would also constitute a betrayal of Christ, incidentally.)

That there are ‘Judases’ in our day is certain, but are they not rather the heretical prelates running the Vatican II Church, from John XXIII all the way to Leo XIV now? And by this we do not simply mean that they are personally sinners, as we all are, but that their betrayal of Christ is evident in the official exercise of their putative roles.

For Sammons to tie Judas’ defection from Christ to the “scandal of the cross” (Gal 5:11) is bizarre. After all, the Iscariot betrayed his Master the night before the Crucifixion and had resolved to do so a day even before that. Furthermore, the idea that the Crucifixion in particular scandalized Judas is directly contradicted by Scripture. When Judas saw Christ allowing His enemies to mistreat Him and have Him tried by Pilate, he did not feel vindicated in his betrayal but actually regretted it:

And when morning was come, all the chief priests and ancients of the people took counsel against Jesus, that they might put him to death. And they brought him bound, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, who betrayed him, seeing that he was condemned, repenting himself, brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and ancients, saying: I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. But they said: What is that to us? look thou to it. And casting down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed: and went and hanged himself with an halter.

(Matthew 27:1-5)

Although both rued their respective betrayals, St. Peter had genuine supernatural contrition (see Mk 14:66-72) and was therefore forgiven by Christ; whereas Judas Iscariot’s remorse was merely natural and led him to despair.

Lastly, Sammons sums up for his audience what he “would say”, namely, that “a lot of the people today who are breaking communion with Francis by saying he is not the Pope, by saying, well, I’m not in communion with somebody like a Cardinal Cupich or Cardinal McElroy, they are falling for the same temptation that Judas did. They are upset that Jesus has not cleaned out the Church. He has allowed this evil to thrive inside the Church, and because of that, they end up breaking company with Jesus, just like Judas did.”

Notice how Sammons operates here: He quotes no Church teaching but instead uses a strained analogy that is based on something he claims can be found in a handful of Church Fathers or other theologians (yet he does not condescend to provide a single quote). Armed with such a mamby-pamby pseudo-argument, he thinks he has refuted those who leave the Vatican II Church because they don’t want to be in communion with men who are obviously not Catholics. Notably absent from his lecturing is any appeal to Church teaching, and it’s not difficult to see why once we realize what the Church teaches regarding her unity of Faith:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. “There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition” (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. “No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic” (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

(Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Satis Cognitum, n. 9)

Precisely how Sammons thinks a Catholic is supposed to be in communion with people like Blase Cupich or Robert McElroy and someone like Francis (or Leo XIV now) while at the same time retaining the pre-Vatican II Catholic religion, is anyone’s guess. As Pope Clement XIII wrote to the world’s bishops in 1758:

…you can easily see that there is a difference between the sons of light and the sons of the world. The latter disagree among themselves with various and diverse opinions, while the former, initiated into the mysteries of unity, profess the one faith of all by the mouth of one, through the head of all. Therefore, concentrate all your attention on increasing peace among the faithful. Uproars, contentions, rivalries, animosities, and dissensions should be silenced. In this way those who go by the name of Catholic can all be perfect in the same sense, in the same opinion, saying the same thing together, knowing the same thing and understanding it thoroughly. They should understand that if they want to be members of Christ, they cannot have concord with the head if they want to be in disagreement with the members. Nor can those who have not lived in fraternal love be counted as brothers by the Almighty Father.

(Pope Clement XIII, Encyclical A Quo Die, n. 3)

To say, as Eric Sammons seems to do, that one must be in communion with Modernists in order not to cease being Catholic is absurdity on stilts!

Thus we see that Sammons’ entire Judas analogy fails spectacularly.

To sum up, we find Sammons’ argument rather strained because it is based on an interpretation of Judas’ defection that is not found in Divine Revelation nor the teaching of the Church; he leaves out of consideration the very relevant fact that when the Iscariot saw “evil in control” of Christ, he regretted his betrayal; and nothing he argues is backed up by any quotations from the Church’s magisterium. It is adding insult to injury that this argument comes from someone who himself is on the record claiming the Catholic Church has lost her divine mission!

Making poor arguments, however, is not new or unusual for the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine — it’s basically his pedigree. Here are some prior instances we’ve called him out on. Unfortunately, he never responds:

One of the problems with Mr. Sammons’ approach is that he treats the Catholic Church and the Papacy as if they were merely human institutions, much like the Lutheran Church of Germany, the United Nations, or the Boy Scouts of America.

The exhortation not to be like Judas Iscariot is a spiritually wholesome one; let’s just make sure we’re not like Eric Sammons either.

Image source: composite with elements from YouTube (screenshot) and Wikimedia Commons (‘The Arrest of Christ’ by Giotto)
Licenses: fair use and public domain

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Don’t Be Like Judas! (Nor Like Eric Sammons, For That Matter)