All Catholics should believe in the possibility of universal salvation as we believe God wants us all to be saved, and that everything is possible in God. Also, we are called to pray for the salvaton of all. As for how many believe all will actually be saved, I don’t know what the percentage is, but many Catholics hold that belief. It is probably not the majority view, but its certainly not a rare view. This is not a new belief; there have always been Catholics that believed in universal salvation, dating back to at least Gregory of Nyssa and Origen. Of course, there have also always been those that believed the opposite. Officially, the Church does not deny the possibility that all will be saved, but doesn’t predict it either.
I disagree :
“When you hear the word fire, you have been taught to think of a fire other than the fire we see, owing to something being added to that fire which in this there is not; for that fire is never quenched, whereas experience has discovered many ways of quenching this; and there is a great difference between a fire which can be extinguished, and one that does not admit of extinction. That fire, therefore, is something other than this. If, again, a person hears the word ‘worm,’ let not his thoughts, from the similarity of the term, be carried to the creature here that crawls upon the ground; for the addition that it ‘dieth not’ suggests the thought of another reptile than that known here. Since, then, these things are set before us as to be expected in the life that follows this, being the natural outgrowth according to the righteous judgment of God, in the life of each, of his particular disposition, it must be the part of the wise not to regard the present, but that which follows after, and to lay down the foundations for that unspeakable blessedness during this short and fleeting life, and by a good choice to wean themselves from all experience of evil, now in their lifetime here, hereafter in their eternal recompense.” Gregory of Nyssa, Great Catechism, 40 (A.D. 383).
I didnt find anything about Origgen - But I did find this :
“But because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing against God, and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands. Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, ‘These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!’ If both destinies are “eternal,” then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative,–on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.” Augustine, City of God, 21:23 (A.D. 426).
