Mike is a guy who’s rotten through and through. He was raised a Catholic and was baptized, had first communion and Reconciliation, but he left all that behind at a young age. He’s been in a gang since he was a teenager, and has taken part in all sorts of criminal activity. He’s helped his gang rob homes, stores, and people, sell drugs to adults and children, has personally killed several people, and has helped with the deaths of dozens of other people. He is 35.
Diana is by all measures an upstanding citizen and overall a great person. She works hard, attends church and is involved in all sorts of church activities, gives a large percentage of her income to charity, volunteers at soup kitchens, helps the poor, and is constantly on the lookout for other good things to do. She is also 35.
However, over the course of a few months Diana becomes unsatisfied with her life, and wants to start living a little more “wildly.” She experiments with drugs, and soon becomes addicted to cocaine. While under the influence she sleeps around, and one of the people she sleeps with is Mike. They get into an argument, which becomes violent, and that night Mike kills Diana. She dies in a state of mortal sin, and thus goes straight to hell. Here is both the answer and the core of your dilemma. You DO NOT KNOW whether Diana died ‘in the state of mortal sin which is UNREPENTED.’ Thus, even though Diana engaged in a mortal sin and even though she was probably doing so with full knowledge, you DO NOT KNOW that she did not, in the last seconds of her life, repent, and be forgiven.
After killing Diana Mike becomes extremely remorseful, and sees how despicable his life has been. He decides he wants to turn his life around, and starts out by going to Church. A few weeks later he begins talking to the Priest, and after a week of that decides that he wants to go to Confession. He does so, and confesses all his crimes and his evil lifestyle. The priest absolves him, he makes his confession, and walks outside, where he is immediately shot and killed by a member of his gang who is there to prevent him from giving them away. Since he dies in a state of grace he goes immediately to heaven.
My question is how is this just in any way? Over the course of their lives Diana was a much better person than Mike, but because she died at a time when she was sinning she went to hell. Mike, overall, was a horrible person, but he managed to save himself because he died during a time when he was repentant. Essentially, the only point in their lives that mattered was the moment of death. How is that just?
