Reality of hell

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aquinasg

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Its been common among Catholics these days to say that we don’t know for sure that anyone goes to hell. This is a very dangerous theory and contradicts Church teachings:

Pope St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis (# 2), April 15, 1905:
“And so Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: ‘We
declare that a great number of those who ARE condemned to eternal
punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those
mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be
numbered among the elect.’”

Catechism of Trent

“For if we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemer shed His
blood for the salvation of all; but if we LOOK TO THE FRUIT which mankind
have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not to all,
but to many of the human race. When, therefore, our Lord said: “For you,”
He meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the
Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples
with whom He was speaking. When He added, “And for many”, He wished to be
understood to mean the remainder of the ELECT from among the Jews or
Gentiles.”
 
aquinasg said:
Its been common among Catholics these days to say that we don’t know for sure that anyone goes to hell. This is a very dangerous theory and contradicts Church teachings:

Pope St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis (# 2), April 15, 1905:
“And so Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: ‘We
declare that a great number of those who ARE condemned to eternal
punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those
mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be
numbered among the elect.’”

Catechism of Trent

“For if we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemer shed His
blood for the salvation of all; but if we LOOK TO THE FRUIT which mankind
have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not to all,
but to many of the human race. When, therefore, our Lord said: “For you,”
He meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the
Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples
with whom He was speaking. When He added, “And for many”, He wished to be
understood to mean the remainder of the ELECT from among the Jews or
Gentiles.”
Click to expand...
Indeed, to hold the belief that nobody goes to Hell is unorthodox, unscriptural, and quite liberal thinking.
 
I have a story. (I’ll do my best to give the shortest version!)
My Uncle (my mom & dad’s best friend since high school, so he was “Uncle” to me) killed himself a couple of weeks ago because of a very serious charge that was made against him. I think he was ashamed & didn’t want family & friends to go through it with him, although he was “innocent until proven guilty”- I don’t know that he was guilty at all. He was the kindest guy, best sense of humor, “do anything for you”, etc- but he never went to Mass, or as far as we all know, had anything to do with the Catholicism he was brought up in. A lot of people are saying “Well, he was a good guy, he went to Heaven.” My deceased grandmother, a devout Catholic, said the same when her daughter (my aunt) died suddenly. She never received the Sacraments either. I believe that this is the thinking of many people today. but it’s not “being a good person” that gains you Eternal Life- it’s the sacrifice of Jesus Christ & the Sacraments of the Church, & by the way you live you show people that you’re a Catholic.
All my family & I feel we can do is pray for my Uncle & have Masses said for him, just in case. :crossrc:
I could start a whole thread on suicide, couldn’t I?
In Jesu XPI Passio ❤️
 
And you must believe in Christian truths to be saved

Pope St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis (# 2), April 15, 1905:
“And so Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: ‘We
declare that a great number of those who ARE condemned to eternal
punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those
mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be
numbered among the elect.’”

Pope Benedict XIV, Cum Religiosi (# 4):
“… confessors should perform this part of their duty whenever anyone stands at their tribunal who does not know what he must by necessity of means know to be saved…”
 
Jesu_XPI_Passio said:
I have a story. (I’ll do my best to give the shortest version!)
My Uncle (my mom & dad’s best friend since high school, so he was “Uncle” to me) killed himself a couple of weeks ago because of a very serious charge that was made against him. I think he was ashamed & didn’t want family & friends to go through it with him, although he was “innocent until proven guilty”- I don’t know that he was guilty at all. He was the kindest guy, best sense of humor, “do anything for you”, etc- but he never went to Mass, or as far as we all know, had anything to do with the Catholicism he was brought up in. A lot of people are saying “Well, he was a good guy, he went to Heaven.” My deceased grandmother, a devout Catholic, said the same when her daughter (my aunt) died suddenly. She never received the Sacraments either. I believe that this is the thinking of many people today. but it’s not “being a good person” that gains you Eternal Life- it’s the sacrifice of Jesus Christ & the Sacraments of the Church, & by the way you live you show people that you’re a Catholic.
All my family & I feel we can do is pray for my Uncle & have Masses said for him, just in case. :crossrc:
I could start a whole thread on suicide, couldn’t I?
In Jesu XPI Passio ❤️
Click to expand...
Fantastic username. You may find this interesting: forums.catholic-questions.org/group.php?groupid=466
 
aquinasg said:
Its been common among Catholics these days to say that we don’t know for sure that anyone goes to hell. This is a very dangerous theory and contradicts Church teachings:

Pope St. Pius X, Acerbo Nimis (# 2), April 15, 1905:
“And so Our Predecessor, Benedict XIV, had just cause to write: ‘We
declare that a great number of those who ARE condemned to eternal
punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those
mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be
numbered among the elect.’”

Catechism of Trent

“For if we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemer shed His
blood for the salvation of all; but if we LOOK TO THE FRUIT which mankind
have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not to all,
but to many of the human race. When, therefore, our Lord said: “For you,”
He meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the
Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples
with whom He was speaking. When He added, “And for many”, He wished to be
understood to mean the remainder of the ELECT from among the Jews or
Gentiles.”
Click to expand...
To hold the view that someone MUST be in hell is quite heterodox.
Who are those persons: Hitler, Stalin, Mao? Are you sure?
 
To claim that we cannot be sure whether someone is in hell does not mean that there is nobody in hell.

We just don’t know and shouldn’t pass that kind of judgement.
 
Yeah, two thoughts on this…(1) if the Church says it cannot say who has gone to hell then I don’t think we should, but (2) the fact that we can’t confirm someone is in hell or that anyone has gone to hell is not to say that there is no hell…the concept is talked about in scripture and in church teaching so it exists.

However, and here’s where my “liberal” thinking comes in…hell is not necessarily the stereotypical image of fire, brimstone and eternal torture, that is an image arising out of the medieval Dante’s Comedy…perhas hell is nothing more than an end to existence, a separation from God and the fact that our lives were never rememberred…that is an image and description that is more in tune with the Hebrew understanding and therefore probably would of been the understanding of Jesus.

Secondly, you and I, as well as all practising Catholics will not go to hell as we have been living with, struggling with and wrestling many of the teachings of the church and Jesus in making sense of those teaching in our life…barring our sinning against the Holy Spirit, we should not live in fear, nor in an enviroment of self-limiting beliefs, we need to fully engage, learn, have fun and feel blessed on a daily basis, we will do fine…we may have to work out a few details in purgatory, but otherwise this “progressive” thinks we will do fine…

Thanks for sharing this thought with us through this thread…

Cheerz all.

Trickster (Aboriginal Word for Transformation)
Bruce Ferguson
 
“or that anyone has gone to hell” Again, I provided evidence to the contrary. And not all Catholics will be saved. Finally, many saints have confirmed that there is real fire in hell. Attempts to minimalize this is gravely dangerous
 
aquinasg said:
“or that anyone has gone to hell” Again, I provided evidence to the contrary. And not all Catholics will be saved. Finally, many saints have confirmed that there is real fire in hell. Attempts to minimalize this is gravely dangerous
Click to expand...
Sorry Aquinas, I seemed to have missed your evidence…I read the quotes of a pope and a council…and those statements are within the realm of church teaching…

Trickster
Bruce Ferguson
 
B]From the Writings of St. Anthony Mary Claret
Click to expand...
The sensation of pain in Hell is essentially very dreadful. Picture yourself, my soul, on a dark night on the summit of a high mountain. Beneath you is a deep valley, and the earth opens so that with your gaze you can see Hell in the cavity of it. Picture it as a prison situated in the center of the earth, many leagues down, all full of fire, hemmed in so impenetrably that for all eternity not even the smoke can escape. In this prison the damned are packed so tightly one on the other like bricks in a kiln… Consider the quality of the fire in which they burn.

First, the fire is all-extensive and tortures the whole body and the whole soul. A damned person lies in Hell forever in the same spot, which he was assigned by divine justice, without being able to move, as a prisoner in stocks.

The fire, in which he is totally enveloped, as a fish in water, burns around him, on his left, his right, above and below. His head, his breast, his shoulders, his arms, his hands, and his feet are all penetrated with fire, so that he completely resembles a glowing hot piece of iron, which has just been withdrawn from an oven. The roof beneath which the damned person dwells is fire; the food he takes is fire; the drink he tastes is fire; the air he breathes is fire; whatever he sees and touches is all fire…

But this fire is not merely outside him; it also passes within the condemned person. It penetrates his brain, his teeth, his tongue, his throat, his liver, his lungs, his bowels, his belly, his heart, his veins, his nerves, his bones, even to the marrow, and even his blood.

“In Hell,” according to St. Gregory the Great, “there will be a fire that cannot be put out, a worm which cannot die, a stench one cannot bear, a darkness one can feel, a scourging by savage hands, with those present despairing of anything good.”

A most dreadful fact is that by the divine power this fire goes so far as to work on the very faculties of the soul, burning them and tormenting them. Suppose I were to find myself placed at the oven of a smith so that my whole body was in the open air but for one arm placed in the fire, and that God were to preserve my life for a thousand years in this position. Would this not be an unbearable torture? What, then, would it be like to be completely penetrated and surrounded by fire, which would affect not just an arm, but even all the faculties of the soul?

More Dreadful than Man Can Imagine

Secondly, this fire is far more dreadful than man can imagine. The natural fire that we see during this life has great power to burn and torment. Yet this is not even a shadow of the fire of Hell. There are two reasons why the fire of Hell is more dreadful beyond all comparison than the fire of this life.

The first reason is the justice of God, which the fire serves as an instrument in order to punish the infinite wrong done to his supreme majesty, which has been despised by a creature. Therefore, justice supplies this element with a burning power, which almost reaches the infinite…

The second reason is the malice of sin. As God knows that the fire of this world is not enough to punish sin, as it deserves, He has given the fire of Hell a power so strong that it can never be comprehended by any human mind. Now, how powerfully does this fire burn?

It burns so powerfully, O my soul, that, according to the ascetical masters, if a mere spark of it fell on a millstone; it would reduce it in a moment to powder. If it fell on a ball of bronze, it would melt it in an instant as if it were wax. If it landed on a frozen lake, it would make it boil in an instant.

Pause here briefly, my soul, and answer a few questions I will put. First, I ask you: If a special furnace were fired up as was customarily done to torment the holy martyrs, and then men placed before you all kinds of good things that the human heart might want, and added the offer of a prosperous kingdom – if all this were promised you on condition that for just a half-hour you enclose yourself within the furnace, what would you choose?

Read more at: olrl.org/doctrine/pains.shtml
 
I don’t relish the idea of anybody being in Hell, either,
it’s a horrific thought.

Still, scripture and authentic Church Tradition affirm the reality of hell
and that folks go there. How many, we don’t know.
But Mary, at Fatima, said that sinners were falling into hell like snowflakes.
That’s a scary thought. I’ve been a big, big, BIG sinner.

We cannot as Catholics deny the reality of Hell.

On a side note, though, Jewish theology from Moses up to the time of Christ
never entertained the idea of eternal, conscious torment for the wicked.
Even the word, GEHENNA, which is often translated as HellFire,
to the Jews does NOT MEAN eternal punishment consciously. They believe
Gehenna is a type of purgatory that lasts about 12 months.
The closest thing in the O.T. to the idea of eternal punishment
is a statement in Daniel, I think chapter 12.
Love to all,
Jaypeeto4
 
trickster, you will have to explain how you can interprete those quotes differently than I did. no tricks now
 
Thank you Aquinas…so you believe in the literal description of fire and brimestone…so I will respect that.

IYou had stated that you belief in “softening” the church’s description of hell that there has been a very dangerous prescence created…did you elaborate on your thinking…as I think it is very important thinking by the way…you have also seen my “liberal”: views on the literal nature of hell…I look forward to your thinking about why there is a danger in not sticking to a medieval idea of hell…

Bruce Ferguson
Trickster
 
*I really do not have a theology degree behind me but being raised with a very devout devotion to Our Lady of Fatima…I have always wondered about the prayer she requested to be prayed when saying the Rosary…
If we are supposed to “presume” the majority of souls go to Hell…then why did Our Blessed Mother in the message to the three Fatima Children, say to pray; “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins…save us from the fires of Hell! Lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy Mercy!”

Just to clarify…I do understand and know that Hell is a reality and I beleive it is because of our ignorance of the Mysteries of Faith, as Pope Benedict XVI points out in an earlier post, that cause us our most Hellish sufferings.

I hope that came out right and makes some sense…*
 
Interesting discussion…ok first thing…I think as Catholics we can agree on the fact that there is a hell…to disagree with that would be to minimize the scriptures and the teaching of the church.

The issue now becomes on a literal fire and eternal torment…based on the ideas of saints and/or interpretations of what Our Lady may have said…I did not hear Our Lady or nor did I see what the saints have seen, so I don’t disrespect or minimize what they are saying…those messages are honoured, for sure.

However, saints and people (including the Fatima children and Lucy) are finite in their understanding of what they see…they can only explain things in the context of thier soci-cultural and religious context…and at the end of the day only I have to explain to the Creator the choices I have made and how I have chosen to believe things…that responsibility I will take for myself…it is good to wrestle with concepts, not to accept things in blind faith but in a humility that is a prayer for growth…

I am not arguing that there is no literal fire in hell…I haven’t been there…and I assume that those who argue for the literal existence of fire are basically on an equal level with me unless they have died, experienced hell and come back…it is truly a matter of faith and interpretation. Niether should our faith, our love for Jesus, our relationship with the Holy Spirit and our awe of Creator should not be based on fear…and I think that there is a bit of fear mongering with those who promote the real fire thing…

So, that is kind of my take…I am very much in tune with the post vatican II movement towards positive focus on a loving not punishing God…and yes…the Hebrews did not have the same understanding… I wonder if Jesus himself would understand the Catholic concept of hell 🙂

Bruce Ferguson
Trickster
 
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