Cain and Abel and hell!

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Shin said:
It’s normally a misguided and misleading statement to say ‘never definitively held’ a ‘particular person’ is in Hell, this is not the case once one reads Revelation on the particular people condemned to Hell there. It is also not the case that to draw from this misguided statement that one can believe no one is in Hell because there isn’t a long list of people by name condemned there.
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I think maybe I didn’t make myself entirely clear. It is accurate to say that the Church has never defined it as an article of faith that any particular person is in Hell. This means that the Church – setting aside private revelations and the writings of the saints – has never categorically identified any named individual human person as being in hell. The Church does declare named individuals to be in heaven, when the evidence warrants it: these are the saints. But there is no corresponding list of the damned. I also said that the outlook is poor for the Iscariot, and cited the same passage from the Gospel that you cited; but the Church has never categorically stated that he is in hell. I believe Ven. John Paul II himself pointed this out some years ago (though I can’t recall in which document).

As for hell being empty of human souls, I never said that.
 
Going back to the original post’s question:

St. Abel the Patriarch. Memorial feast: Jan. 2.

Abel’s prayers are called for, in the Litany for the Dying, as are Abraham’s. Not in any obscure place, either. You start with “Lord, have mercy/Christ, have mercy/Lord, have mercy”, Then you ask Mary to pray for him, the angels and archangels to pray for him, and then it’s Abel’s turn. (And then the choirs of the righteous, and then Abraham.) Abel’s a big deal.
 
Mintaka said:
Going back to the original post’s question:

St. Abel the Patriarch. Memorial feast: Jan. 2.

Abel’s prayers are called for, in the Litany for the Dying, as are Abraham’s. Not in any obscure place, either. You start with “Lord, have mercy/Christ, have mercy/Lord, have mercy”, Then you ask Mary to pray for him, the angels and archangels to pray for him, and then it’s Abel’s turn. (And then the choirs of the righteous, and then Abraham.) Abel’s a big deal.
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Exactly. As if “accepta habere dignatus es munera pueri tui iusti Abel” were a statement of uncertainty. Come on, people. Lex orandi.
 
Apollos said:
I (warmly) disagree. Arguing about Cain’s fate opens up doors.
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Stating that a particular individual is definitely in hell is forbidden in the Scriptures, both by Christ and again in the epistles of St. Paul. This repetition tells me that we really need to avoid passing judgment on others.
 
Victorious said:
As for hell being empty of human souls, I never said that.
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There definitely are people in Hell, Michigan:):)🙂

And while I am not sure, I believe it is Church teaching that some will go to the final Hell. We just don’t know who. Even our LORD was careful to omit from Scripture the name of the rich man in Luke 16 and the names of HIS companions in death (one of whom might have gone there).

Given we do not know who, it doth behooveth us to pray for anybody and everybody.

ICXC NIKA
 
CWBetts said:
Stating that a particular individual is definitely in hell is forbidden in the Scriptures, both by Christ and again in the epistles of St. Paul. This repetition tells me that we really need to avoid passing judgment on others.
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And so is locking the door when one does not even go in oneself (Matthew 23:13). (Look, I even gave chapter and verse!)

Speculating about who is in hell draws out a host of issues ranging from how people were saved before Jesus came, to how we can know the fates of people beyond the grave. I’m tired of being bashed over the head with prudish, over-cautious anti-intellectual warnings that only strangle learning. Do you people bash historians the same way, telling them that we don’t actually know for sure how the Vietnam War got started and therefore we’re not allowed to talk about it? Come on.
 
Apollos said:
And so is locking the door when one does not even go in oneself (Matthew 23:13). (Look, I even gave chapter and verse!)

Speculating about who is in hell draws out a host of issues ranging from how people were saved before Jesus came, to how we can know the fates of people beyond the grave. I’m tired of being bashed over the head with prudish, over-cautious anti-intellectual warnings that only strangle learning. Do you people bash historians the same way, telling them that we don’t actually know for sure how the Vietnam War got started and therefore we’re not allowed to talk about it? Come on.
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There is way to speculate without saying “so and so is definitely in hell” as you have arrogantly done.
 
Whether Cain is in hell, or whether Judas Iscariot is in hell, I don’t know. It’s enough for me to know that Cain’s murder is a thing that we should not do. We don’t know if he made amend after his crime. Some who commit murder do repent from their crime… should they not be forgiven and truly pardoned?
 
I have read many mystics’ stories. Thanks to God, I also feel I know my catechism to a good degree. That said, we cannot say for certain that whether a ***single ***particular soul is in hell. (That some go we are certain, for Christ warns against damnation many times.)

We know souls have gone to purgatory (where more than likely most of the saved go first). And, thanks to Our Lady of Fatima again, we know of one instance with certainty.

But we know of thousands who have definitively entered heaven. If the Church proclaims a saint, it does so infallibly.

I find this quite comforting!
 
Shin said:
‘But first we must struggle with the demon of dejection who casts the soul into despair. We must drive him from our heart. It was this demon that did not allow Cain to repent after he had killed his brother, or Judas after he had betrayed his Master.’

St. John Cassian

'Suppose that, in the case of unhappy Cain, weeping in hell, he shed in every thousand years just one tear. Now, O my soul, recollect your thoughts and suppose this case: For six thousand years at least Cain has been in hell and shed only six tears, which God miraculously preserves. How many years would pass for his tears to fill all the valleys of the earth and flood all the cities and towns and villages and cover all the mountains so as to flood the whole earth? We understand the distance from the earth to the sun is thirty-four million leagues. How many years would be necessary for Cain’s tears to fill that immense space? From the earth to the firmament is, let us suppose, a distance of a hundred and sixty million leagues.

O God! What number of years might one imagine to be sufficient to fill with these tears this immense space? And yet - O truth so incomprehensible - be sure of it as that God cannot lie - a time will arrive in which these tears of Cain would be sufficient to flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill all the space between earth and the highest heaven. But that is not all.

If God dried up all those tears to the last drop and Cain began again to weep, he would again fill the same entire space with them and fill it a thousand times and a million times in succession, and after all those countless years, not even half of eternity would have passed, not even a fraction. After all that time burning in hell. Cain’s sufferings will be just beginning.’

St. Anthony Mary Claret

‘No, indeed; if sinners were to think of eternity – of that terrible FOR EVER! – They would be converted instantly. Cain has been in Hell nearly six thousand years, and he is only just entering it.’

St. Jean Marie Baptiste Vianney, the Cure of Ars
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Even if Cain was given an infinite amount of time he would not be saved, because even if Cain drank all the water on earth, he would still be not able to produce sufficient tears to flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill all the space between earth and the highest heaven. We can hope and pray that water in such quantities are available in some distant planets where Cain can go and take a drink before repenting and starting to cry.
 
frantony said:
Even if Cain was given an infinite amount of time he would not be saved, because even if Cain drank all the water on earth, he would still be not able to produce sufficient tears to flood the world, to reach even the sun, to touch the firmament, and fill all the space between earth and the highest heaven. We can hope and pray that water in such quantities are available in some distant planets where Cain can go and take a drink before repenting and starting to cry.
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I wonder how you are so certain of this. You read it somewhere, I suppose? It might come from an unauthentic private “revelation”, you know…
 
The following is an excerpt from the Roman Catechism (Also called “The Catechism of the Council of Trent”)

Penance Proved To Be A Virtue

That this inward penance is, as we have already said, a virtue, the various commands which have been given regarding it clearly show; for the law commands only those actions that are virtuous.

Furthermore, no one can deny that it is a virtue to be sorrowful at the time, in the manner, and to the extent which are required. To regulate sorrow in this manner belongs to the virtue of penance. 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. Penance, therefore, considered as a virtue, assists us in restraining within the bounds of moderation our sense of sorrow.
 
Cathoholic said:
The following is an excerpt from the Roman Catechism (Also called “The Catechism of the Council of Trent”)

Penance Proved To Be A Virtue

That this inward penance is, as we have already said, a virtue, the various commands which have been given regarding it clearly show; for the law commands only those actions that are virtuous.

Furthermore, no one can deny that it is a virtue to be sorrowful at the time, in the manner, and to the extent which are required. To regulate sorrow in this manner belongs to the virtue of penance. 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. Penance, therefore, considered as a virtue, assists us in restraining within the bounds of moderation our sense of sorrow.
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A good citation!
 
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