The New York Post says
quote:
Vatican officials said that the Pope - who is also the Bishop of Rome - had been speaking in “straightfoward” language “like a parish priest.” He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that Hell is a “state of eternal separation from God,” to be understood “symbolically rather than physically.”
LINK
Well something didn’t ring true on this so I went to the Catechism
Nope, the Catechism never talks about Hell as being symbolic, but instead insists on the reality of Hell:
quote:
Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,” and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”
The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. (CCC 1034-36)
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Now does the Church say as doctrine what Hell will be like down to the last detail? Does it say in Dogma what this eternal fire is or what it might mean? No not really but again the media is giving a distortion in attempt to create a story.
If it can’t get worse it does. John Paul the II views are misinterpreted. The Daily Mail in the UK pronounces
Even Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in every other way fearless in breaking taboos and conservative in his theological outlook, dwelt on hell just once in his 28 years in office. And then only to dismiss it.
Hell, he said, was a state of mind that arises when, by our sins, mankind has separated itself from God’s love. It therefore has no physical reality. He was effectively removing it from the Catholic Church’s map of the afterlife.
LINK ]
Good grief, what in the HELL are they talking about. Hell is trying to determine a Church’s theology from the AP and other news wires it seems. Pope John Paul II did not do that all. As we see witht he Catechism he that was produced under his watch as well as big Advocacy of devotions such as “Our Day of Fatima” and the “Divine Mercy”. All of which procliams Hellis very real. So where are they getting this form. Well they are getting iit froma serious of talks the Pope did in 1999 on HEaven, Hell, and Purgatory. What we Catholics call the “last things”
Here is the pertinent part
The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather* than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. This is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the truths of faith on this subject: “To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called ‘hell’” (n. 1033).
LINK
Can someone tell this to my JW DH?