Are most people going to hell?

[baltobetsy]

And these prophecies and teachings were given to the whole world, and it has been sanctioned by the Church. The prayers given at Fatima have been officially incorporated into the Rosary.

So doesn’t that make it the part of the church beliefs?

Nope. It makes it part of popular piety, as is the Rosary and the Fatima prayers that are customarily included. The Rosary is not an official liturgy of the Church. The private revelations of Mary at Fatima, though deemed “worthy of belief” by the Church, are not part of the public revelation that must be believed.

Betsy

 

[Mijoy2]

Nope. It makes it part of popular piety, as is the Rosary and the Fatima prayers that are customarily included. The Rosary is not an official liturgy of the Church. The private revelations of Mary at Fatima, though deemed “worthy of belief” by the Church, are not part of the public revelation that must be believed.

Betsy

This is true. However if it’s good enough for Pope JPII (and all popes that preceeded him and our present Holy Father) along with virtually all our respected modern day apologists and all the good Priests on EWTN and elsewhere, it’s certainly good enough for me .

It’s more then “worthy of belief”, it’s well accepted and respected by the Church. It’s simply not a requirement to believe, to be in good standing with the Church.

 

[Brooklyn]

Nope. It makes it part of popular piety, as is the Rosary and the Fatima prayers that are customarily included. The Rosary is not an official liturgy of the Church. The private revelations of Mary at Fatima, though deemed “worthy of belief” by the Church, are not part of the public revelation that must be believed.

Betsy

You are right. Any revelation after Christ and the apostles is deemed to be private, hence, all the Marian apparitions and others are private revelations. This is what the Holy Father wrote when he was still Cardinal:

Because they do not require divine and Catholic faith, private revelations do not impose an obligation of belief of the sort that public revelation does. To disbelieve knowingly and deliberately anything God has revealed in such a way that it requires divine and Catholic faith is to commit mortal sin. However, since God has not issued private revelations with this degree of certainty, the burden is not imposed. Thus, "such a message can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better at a particular moment in time; therefore it should not be disregarded. It is a help which is offered, but which one is not obliged to use"

However, in regard to the Rosary, the Catechism says:

CCC: 971 “All generations will call me blessed”: “The Church’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin is intrinsic to Christian worship.” The Church rightly honors “the Blessed Virgin with special devotion. From the most ancient times the Blessed Virgin has been honored with the title of ‘Mother of God,’ to whose protection the faithful fly in all their dangers and needs. . . . This very special devotion . . . differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word and equally to the Father and the Holy Spirit, and greatly fosters this adoration.” The liturgical feasts dedicated to the Mother of God and Marian prayer, such as the rosary, an “epitome of the whole Gospel,” express this devotion to the Virgin Mary."

So we are not required to accept Fatima or any other apparition as true, and we are not even required to say the Rosary or any other Litany of the Church, but my question is, since it has been accepted as True by the Church, and since both are a great help in developing our relationship with our Saviour, why wouldn’t a member of the Church accept it? As Cardinal Ratzinger said: “such a message can be a genuine help in understanding the Gospel and living it better at a particular moment in time”

Mary

 

[distracted]

Jesus had many “hard” sayings. He said that many will attempt to enter into Heaven and won’t be ‘strong enough’. He said that not everyone who says Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven… etc.
Sin distorts the soul… and habitual sin changes a person so much as to render him/her virtually beyond hope - if it weren’t for Jesus. He alone is “strong enough” to completely purify the soul… But we have to “apply Jesus” in order to be allowed to enter heaven. If we just say, Jesus, forgive me, and then go on our way, forgetting about him, doing whatever, not really attempting to atone for those sins, we won’t be purified of them… and therefore, won’t be bonded with Christ and will lose… our sanctification, etc. True, if we were to die in such a state, we may go to Purgatory & not to Hell… but who wants to go to Temporary Hell (it has been described by the saints as “excrutiating”) when we could, say, spend a lot of time with Jesus (& do acts of charity, etc…) and avoid a lot of that? One saint said that to wait till u get to Purgatory to atone for your sins is like paying a million dollars for something u could get for a penny. Somehow i know this is true… I’ve spent a lot of time at the Blessed Sacrament… Its amazing how far from Christ we can be and not even realize it…

 

[Fidelis]

Here are some principles I think we can all agree on:

1. There is such a thing as sin. The Church has taught us what actions or inactions are objectively sinful.

1. Sins can either be venial or mortal.

1. If one dies with unrepented mortal sin that person will go to hell.

1. If one does not die with unrepented mortal sin (in a state of sanctifying grace) that person will go to heaven, perhaps with a layover in Purgatory, but eventually to heaven.

1. Even though we can identify what actions are objectively evil and are in fact sins, we have no power to establish culpability for those sins in others as far as eternal consequences for that person goes. That is up to God alone.

1. The fact that we cannot establish culpability for those sins in others does not make us incapable of identifying sin. In certain (but not not all) situations we may even be obligated to point it out.

7a. “Nice” people can go to hell if they engage in activities that know are objectively sinful but are not sorry for and die in that state.

7b. Not-so-nice people can go to heaven if their not-so-niceness is not objectively sinful. St. Jerome was know to be something of a curmudgeon, but he’s still a saint.

7c. Niceness has nothing to do with salvation. The word appears nowhere in Scripture or in the Catechism.

 

[Brooklyn]

Fidelis, I think you summed it up beautifully!

I can’t think of anything to add to that!

Mary

 

[FuzzyBunny116]

Some of the wisest words I ever heard said that God does not tell us how many will be saved and how many will be damned - after all, Christ telling us that few will enter through the narrow gate is a relative term. Even a handful suffering eternal torment is quite a lot. One third of Europe died from the black death, and we do NOT call that a few.

The priest said that God does not let us know because if we think most will be saved, we will get cocky. If we think most will be damned, we will despair. And if we think its a balance of the two, we will rejoice in our brother’s sin, because then our odds of making into Heaven (statistically speaking) have increased.

 

[upbeatjonm]

The disciples asked Jesus “Who then can be saved?”, as which Jesus replied: “for man it is impossible, but for God, all things are possible” . Therein lies our hope.

Jon

 

[Sir_Knight]

To address the original question, “are most people going to hell?” According to the church fathers …

• "The most common sentiment which is held is that, among Christians, there are more damned souls than predestined souls."
• "Many attain to faith, but few to the heavenly kingdom."
• “There are few who are saved.”
• “Few are saved in comparison to those who are damned.”
• "Out of 100,000 people whose lives have always been bad, you will find barely ONE who is worthy of indulgence."
• "the number of priests who fall into hell each day is so great that it seemed impossible that there be any left on earth"
• "Many priests are not saved; on the contrary, the number of those who are damned is greater."
• "Out of thirty-three thousand people who died. Two went up to heaven without delay, three went to purgatory, and all the others fell into Hell."
• “If you consider the sacrament of penance, there are so many distorted confessions, so many studied excuses, so many deceitful repentances, so many false promises, so many ineffective resolutions, so many invalid absolutions!”
• "Most Catholic adults confess badly at death, therefore most of them are damned."
  
  … [Source (The Few Number Who Are Saved) (this topic is already being discussed [here (http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=183214)).​

 

[Brendan]

The church teaches that there is indeed a hell but there is no official teaching that there is anyone there…God is infinitely just but He is also infinitely merciful. In that infinite mercy he would find anything within one’s heart to find that person worthy of His kingdom. While one might expect Hitler to be in hell there is no one who can prove that he is. And I never moved from official Church teachings with anything that I said here. Yes, there is a hell. Yes those who fully reject God may go there. But now we leave the rest for God to decide.

Are most people going to hell?? Only God knows…teachccd

Christ Himself that ‘Many’ will fail. Does that mean ‘most’, not really, but it does mean MANY.

It’s all fine and good to have a heart that looks to God and Loves Him. But talk is talk, you have to walk the walk.

If one commits moral sin, that is being a hypocrite, telling God one thing, but doing another.

We can fall, certainly, but with true repentance of the time we fall, we will certainly die the eternal death.

 

[mozier]

May I be forgiven for saying this or thinking it, but if God is the kind of being that would send people to hell just for being flawed and human, then I would rather go to hell, for at least I’d be in better company. If God is the way some saints and Calvinists make him out to be, then I would rather not spend eternity with Him.

Personally, I believe that it is not hell nor heaven that is full, but rather it is purgatory that is bursting at the seams. I do not need a vision in order to ponder that.

 

[bilop]

May I be forgiven for saying this or thinking it, but if God is the kind of being that would send people to hell just for being flawed and human, then I would rather go to hell, for at least I’d be in better company. If God is the way some saints and Calvinists make him out to be, then I would rather not spend eternity with Him.

Personally, I believe that it is not hell nor heaven that is full, but rather it is purgatory that is bursting at the seams. I do not need a vision in order to ponder that.

Quite frankly, no you wouldn’t. There is no “company” in Hell. You would be completely alone in your suffering.

I don’t think any Catholic believes one goes to Hell for “being flawed and human”. One goes to Hell for thinking are flaws are OK, and not repenting and seeking forgiveness for our sins.

God Bless

 

[opticks]

I brought this up in another post many moons ago.

For one to be knowledgeable that a sin is mortal and thus “choose” to turn away from god (punishable by eternal damnation), you need to have some kind of reference telling you that a particular sin is “mortal.”

Thus by doing such things as reading the CCC, the Bible, or even listening to the homily, you are increasing your odds of going to Hell by the simple fact you now know what will send you there!

Someone who has never heard of Christ would have a better chance at salvation than your average Catholic, at least according to our own church.

 

[Sir_Knight]

One is also required to have a properly developed moral compass so ignorance is not an absolute “get-out-of hell” card.

 

[mozier]

Quite frankly, no you wouldn’t. There is no “company” in Hell. You would be completely alone in your suffering.

I see. Well, if God is as harsh as some think, and as this sermon seems to imply, then I would rather be alone than be with a psychopathic deity for all eternity.

Thankfully, though, God is not like that.

 

[boppaid]

Quite frankly, no you wouldn’t. There is no “company” in Hell. You would be completely alone in your suffering.

I don’t think any Catholic believes one goes to Hell for “being flawed and human”. One goes to Hell for thinking are flaws are OK, and not repenting and seeking forgiveness for our sins.

God Bless

But we are a flawed people. We are not sinless. Only Christ was sinless. Should we go around feeling damned because of how we were created? (with sinful natures) While we must always strive to do our best, and strive to be Christlike, we must ALWAYS remember that the only sinless one to walk the earth was Jesus, and we will never be good enough for heaven on our own. We are a flawed people given the grace by Christ’s death, to be “good enough”, right?

 

[Ahimsa]

A good Calvinist would gladly go to hell, for the glory of God.

 

[bilop]

But we are a flawed people. We are not sinless. Only Christ was sinless. Should we go around feeling damned because of how we were created? (with sinful natures) While we must always strive to do our best, and strive to be Christlike, we must ALWAYS remember that the only sinless one to walk the earth was Jesus, and we will never be good enough for heaven on our own. We are a flawed people given the grace by Christ’s death, to be “good enough”, right?

Of course we are not sinless, nor can we be. But we can not use that as an excuse to sin. We must detest our sin, repent it, fight against it, and seek absolution through confession when the sin is mortal.

We all are given enough grace to be saved, but we must accept and act on that grace.

What I was trying to get at was that the “we all sin, it’s too hard not to, God will understand, I’m nice except for the one mortal sin I won’t give up” attitude is a road to damnation.

BTW, I believe the Blessed Mother was also sinless.

God Bless

 

[bilop]

I see. Well, if God is as harsh as some think, and as this sermon seems to imply, then I would rather be alone than be with a psychopathic deity for all eternity.

Thankfully, though, God is not like that.

God is harsh only in that we don’t like his laws. That’s too bad for us.

Think of it this way. If you were all good and all knowing, and you sent your son to die for mankind, and set up a Church to spell out the laws in detail, how pleased would you be with those who argued with you?

God Bless

 

[bilop]

I brought this up in another post many moons ago.

For one to be knowledgeable that a sin is mortal and thus “choose” to turn away from god (punishable by eternal damnation), you need to have some kind of reference telling you that a particular sin is “mortal.”

Thus by doing such things as reading the CCC, the Bible, or even listening to the homily, you are increasing your odds of going to Hell by the simple fact you now know what will send you there!

Someone who has never heard of Christ would have a better chance at salvation than your average Catholic, at least according to our own church.

Many mortal sins are Natural Law sins (murder, aldultery, theft, perjury etc), and all men are born with knowledge of the Natural law. Ignorance is no escape from culpability on these sins.

God Bless