“Know that at the very hour I passed, 33,000 people also died. Out of this number, Saint Bernard and myself went up to Heaven without delay, 3 went to purgatory, and all the others fell into Hell.” – Saint Vincent Ferrer / Saint Leonard of Port Maurice

This quote is almost certainly, thankfully, fake (or at least, not what is implied) for a few reasons.

The first issue is authenticity – did the saint actually say it? Internet sleuths have found that the quote comes from a book called Prediche quaresmali, Volume III, pages 146-182, published in 1806. This would seem at first pretty good evidence at first – except that Leonard died in 1751 at the age of 74. Assuming that Leonard didn’t give this homily just before death, let’s make an assumption that he was 60 when he said it. That would be almost 70 years later.

Now, maybe the homily was correctly recorded more than 70 years after it was given… but where? It wasn’t in Prediche quaresmali itself – the title just means “Lenten sermons” and is a compilation work. There must have been, if it was authentic, another record – whether it was a book Leonard wrote himself, or the work of an observer. Unfortunately, there is currently no trace of what that record was, or who wrote it, or whether Leonard himself wrote it, or whether it was accurate.

This alone is a significant issue – we don’t know for certain, or have any evidence, that Leonard himself wrote down this sermon. But, for the sake of argument, let’s say he did, and the sermon was correctly recorded. Read the relevant part of the sermon carefully from the most common online source:

The following narrative from Saint Vincent Ferrer will show you what you may think about it. He relates that an archdeacon in Lyons gave up his charge and retreated into a desert place to do penance, and that he 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.”

Our chronicles relate an even more dreadful happening. 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.”

Note that Leonard of Port Maurice is not using any first-hand knowledge here; but quoting two sources:

1. Saint Vincent Ferrer, quoting an unknown bishop
2. An unknown “brother,” repeating the story of an unknown woman, from an unknown time

Let’s take the first one. Did Saint Vincent Ferrer say this? There are two main difficulties:

1. Vincent Ferrer died in 1419. Leonard, in 1751. Despite a ~300-350 year gap between the event and Leonard quoting it, Leonard makes a citation from Ferrer that has never been found elsewhere. If this was an authentic citation, this would require believing that a quote from Ferrer survived more than ~300 years for Leonard to then find it, but the quote was lost in the last ~300 years.
2. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (who Vincent Ferrer’s anonymous bishop is almost certainly talking about), died in 1090. Again, almost ~300 years before Vincent Ferrer himself.

To recap, we have Leonard making a quote of Vincent Ferrer, which has never been found elsewhere, supposedly from him 300 years before. Vincent Ferrer, meanwhile, is quoting an unknown bishop, about an incident with an unknown deacon, that also happened about 300 years earlier. Neither of these events have any documentation outside of this sermon, which itself has no record for almost 70 years after Leonard’s death. To call this sketchy would be an understatement.

As for the second one – an unknown “brother,” telling the story of an unknown woman, with no discussion on when this happened. Did it happen in Leonard’s time? Did it happen hundreds of years earlier, itself with also no record or citation?

But let’s say, that these quotes, despite their authenticity issues, were somehow real:

“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.”

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.

We get two very different ratios here:

1. 3 out of 60,000.
2. 5 out of 33,000.

Both of those numbers have serious, mathematical issues on why they should not be taken seriously:

1. If 33,000 people died every hour; 33,000 per hour * 24 hours * 365 days = 289 million deaths per year. That’s almost the entire population of the world in Vincent Ferrer’s lifetime, dying every year. Maybe there was a natural disaster – but Vincent Ferrer says nothing about one. And if there was one, it would render these numbers extremely location-specific and thus irrelevant, wouldn’t it? For reference on why 289 million is absurd; in 2023 with a population more than 14x the size, we have “only” 61 million deaths per year.
2. If 60,000 people died every hour; that’s 525 million deaths per year. For the time, this would have been about 2/3s the global population, dying every year. Maybe there was a natural disaster – but the woman in question never says or implies there was one, and if there was one, it would once again render these numbers irrelevant. Again, in 2023, with a population more than 14x as large, we have “only” 61 million deaths per year.
3. In the Middle Ages, infant mortality was extremely high. About 30% of children died before their first birthday. Considering that baptized infants go to Heaven immediately for having no sin, having less than three children die within the span of an hour is statistically impossible. Some napkin math says there would be at least 8 deaths straight to Heaven, with modern low mortality rates, with modern low fertility rates, if just 20% of children back then were baptized. Considering the higher fertility, higher mortality, and higher baptism rate, the real number was almost certainly higher. Now put that into 5 out of 33,000; or 3 out of 60,000; and include saved adults, and the problem with these statistics becomes clear.

But let’s say, somehow, there was a freak mathematical incident twice where these numbers could make any sense, requiring almost no children to be born across the world for a full hour. There’s one more issue, and that’s theological:

Jesus Christ was explicitly asked, by his apostles, how many would be saved. He did not tell them.

Christ did not see fit to tell our first Pope, or Paul, or the Apostles, the specific ratios for how many would be saved. At the same time, he gladly told an anonymous woman and an unknown bishop precise numbers. If anyone had a right to know, it would have been the apostles – not two random anonymous figures who have gone into obscurity and were never canonized. The likelihood of Christ doing this, I believe, is nonexistent.

One more point should be considered: If these two anonymous individuals were correct, what do these numbers benefit our souls? For most people reading them and taking them seriously, they would either have two reactions:

1. Pride (“Well, I’ll surely be one of the 33,000! I’m doing great!”)
2. Despair (“I’ll never be one of the 33,000 and should just give up.”)

While some listeners might avoid both traps, God does not lay traps. The value of these visions in trapping readers into either viewpoint, combined with giving information that Christ himself deliberately did not give, suggests a possible demonic origin.