Pope JPII and Hell

[Doxiemom]

Am i understanding that Pope John paul II held out the possibilty that some people in hell will not be damned forever?

Interesting, because hell was created for Satan and his minions as well as the Lake of Fire.

All in hell will be called forth for their final judgement at the Great White throne. Scripture speaks of those in heaven and angels taking part in this Judgement.

May our God understand us for our hope that mercy can prevail and may we understand that we just may be witness and agree that no mercy should be shown.

This is when I give it over to God and wait .

 

[Cruxis117]

Am i understanding that Pope John paul II held out the possibilty that some people in hell will not be damned forever?

Interesting, because hell was created for Satan and his minions as well as the Lake of Fire.

All in hell will be called forth for their final judgement at the Great White throne. Scripture speaks of those in heaven and angels taking part in this Judgement.

May our God understand us for our hope that mercy can prevail and may we understand that we just may be witness and agree that no mercy should be shown.

This is when I give it over to God and wait .

No, that’s what I was asking. But no, that is actually not the case. He holds the traditional fact that people who are in hell are there for all eternity.

 

[fred_conty]

The church has not defined hell as not being a physical place either, so anyone may
take it any way they wish. It has been defined that it is eternal and that there is suffering.
And there is a strong theological opinion that the suffering will be comparable to the number and type of unforgiven sins, so that there is probably degrees to the intensity of suffering.

IMO, Jesus made it strong in a graphic way on a number of occasions. To me, if it isn’t physical it may as well be from His discriptions.

 

[BrotherAlan]

Again, aside from the question of whether or not the Magisterium has infallibly declared hell to be a physical place or not, we still must recognize the fact that the damned will have physical bodies. Since it is necessary for physical bodies to be in a physical place, hell must be a physical place. So, simply put, given the fact that all men (including the damned) will rise again with their physical bodies, the fact that hell is a physical place is undeniable.

In Christ,
BrotherAlan

P.S.
This argument also holds for heaven-- since the Saints in heaven will have bodies after the general resurrection, heaven, too, must be a physical place.

 

[SwissGuard25]

Basically, the idea is that Blessed Pope John Paul II doesn’t believe in Hell, that’s what both articles are asserting. However, From what I’m reading, it does seem plain that Pope John Paul II isn’t syaing that at all, but is simply expressing what the pains of hell are. I know that he approved/authorized the CCC, which has this to say about hell:

He isn’t rejecting the existence of Hell. He is simply implying Hell has no power over him, and that Hell doesn’t need to be acknowledge. It’s like don’t give the snotty girl what she want’s is a crude way to put it.
A Catholic doesn’t need to worry about Hell just what he does in this life to earn a spot in Heaven.
If a person worried about going to Hell he would just be doing good works to avoid Hell and not for the love of God.

 

[BrotherAlan]

As with all things in the practice of the moral and spiritual life, a “happy medium” must be sought with regards to our considerations on hell. In other words, we must avoid 2 extremes-- on the one hand, we must not be so concerned or fearful of hell that we get discouraged, or develop a crippling, overly-scrupulous fear of it (for, this state of soul would be counter to the peace that Christ came to bring us). Yet, on the other hand, we ought not completely ignore this reality either. For, there was a reason why Our Lord, Jesus Christ, revealed to us the doctrine of hell (and spoke about it on a number of occasions); namely, He revealed it so that we may be filled with a *salvific *fear (not a crippling fear) of it, so as to do what we need to do in order to avoid going there. This, too, has been the way of the Saints; for, while the saints were very holy and close to God, yet, in general, they still maintained a salvific fear of hell (eg., St. Pio, among other saints, is said to have had a fear of being lost). Likewise, the great masters of the spiritual life have offered meditations on hell to their readers/directees; for example, St. Ignatius of Loyola, in his highly-praised “Spiritual Exercises”, has his retreatants meditate on hell so that-- he says-- should they ever cease to do good out of a pure love for God, at least they would avoid sin out of fear of hell (in other words, while doing good out of fear of going to hell is, admittedly, an imperfect motive for the Christian; nevertheless, it is still *good *to avoid sin, even if it is out of the imperfect motive of fearing to go to hell).

In Christ the Savior,
BrotherAlan

“Jesus Christ is Lord!” (Phil. 2:11)