Hell - Literal, Metaphorical and Fatima

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frankiepeace

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Hi everyone, I have a quick question that hit me as I was trying to fall asleep last night.

I recently read that Pope John Paul II said Hell is not in fact a literal place with fire and pitchforks but rather a state where one’s soul is separate from God.

Based on this I was thinking about the Fatima apparitions and how the 3 children claimed to have been given an image of hell (including the fire, demons and screaming souls).

How then do these two ideas reconcile? The way I see it, either JPII was wrong or the children were lying.

Thanks!
 
I would need to see the Pope John Paul II’s reference you are talking about.

It is of course possible for a manifestation to occur that is not the literal of the thing manifesting. For instance, the Holy Spirit manifests in Scripture more than once as fire. But the Holy Spirit is not an entity composed of gaseous flames in His essence. Angels in Scripture manifest as persons or even a donkey in the book of Numbers, yet angels in themselves are pure spirit. So too can the manifestation of the image of hell be shown us in physical terms so that we might understand what the soul undergoes when in hell.
 
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