When is the Last Time You Heard a Homily about Hell?

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drpmjhess said:
How can you scream about hell if you don’t know any details about it? e.g.,
  1. What it is
  2. Where it is
  3. How people “go there”
  4. what "there means with respect to hell
  5. How you quanitfy “many people”
It’s like arguing about the exact dimensions of the Yellow Brick road in the Land of Oz.

Petrus
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Not sure what the point is you are trying to make. We know very little about hell, if anything at all.

However we as Catholics are obliged to believe in it’s existance.

Seems we have very few choices here since the church is so very silent about hell beyond the churches insistance we believe it exists and that people do go there.

There are those who:
  1. refuse to believe people go there or that it exists despite what the church teaches.
  2. believe it exists but that only very few individuals go there. (these people are in direct disagreement with the saints and some doctors of the church, including Augustine)
  3. believe it exists and think many, some virtually all go there.
  4. do not know what to think because of the contadictory insinuations from the church regarding what to think about hell.
I fall into catagory #4.

Many many saints and respected theologians tell us most people go to hell and literally burn for all eternity. Yet Pope John Paul II suggests we not worry ourselves about the topic. I liken this to someone saying there is a very strong chance they are going to throw acid in your (or more importantly, your loved ones) eyes but …don’t worry about it.

For many (incuding myself) who find themselves in catagory #4, it only works to greatly weaken ones faith and to question literally everthing. We are told Faith does not contradict reason. Yet in this case it most certainly does. Not hell, the ambiguity of hell.

I have also noticed that with all the hours I spend listening to Catholic Answers on the radio, and listening to and watching EWTN, seldom is this topic deeply examined.
 
Let me ask this: does one’s beliefs about Hell make any difference to salvation? If someone is a good Catholic with the single exception that he does not believe in Hell, or believes in Hell but does not believe anyone really “goes” there, does that have implications for his soul? If not, why does it matter?

On the flip side, if a person heartily and completely believes everything the Church teaches about the afterlife, but does not live according to the New Commandment of Christ, does that have salvic importance?

So why even bother with the first, which doesn’t matter, when so many struggle daily with the second, which does?
 
drpmjhess said:
I’ve never seen it because I don’t have cable, but friends have told me that EWTN is basically a fascist right-wing Catholic network. Would they support Becky Fisher’s “Jesus Camp” and her desire to turn children into little Christian jihadis? (Assuming, of course, that EWTN and Prot Fundamentalists don’t mutually hate each other, which they might well.)

Petrus
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Why are you offering opinions and throwing barbs about a subject you are admittedly (as though we could tell by reading your posts) ignorant about?

If you actually cared, you’d go to ewtn.com anyway, it isn’t that hard to type.
 
drpmjhess said:
That’s a silly idea. “Hell” and “heaven” as usually portrayed by mission preachers are projections of primitive human fears and hopes.
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And yesterday I met a kid who believes a fairy is going to reward him for allowing his body to get rid off an old tooth. But neither that, nor what you posted, is true.

In this case, your personal beliefs are irrelevant. Doctrine in this case is supreme. Hell exists. Heaven exists. Neither is empty.-
 
drpmjhess said:
St Gabriel,

If hell is to be spoken about from the pulpit, there needs to be some content. Can you offer an account of hell based on evidence? Can you explain what hell is? What the temperature is? What kind of demons inhabit it? How many tines their pitchforks have? Where it is? (You talk about people being led “there” so it must be a place.) Can you explain what happens there, and how we know this? It might be more convincing to congregations if there were in fact some detail about hell, but I have yet to hear any. If we have not content to offer the faithful to scare the pants off them, then perhaps it is better to drop the subject.

Petrus
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That sounds exaxctly what Satan would say to people pondering whether or not to discuss Hell.

And asking what temperature it is highlights how silly you are with regards to this. Read The Diary of St Faustina if you actually care about Hell.

If not, keep shooting from the hip and rolling the dice with your soul, and good luck.
 
drpmjhess said:
Children make up a lot of things, including false stories of pedophilia, visions of hell, etc. I just don’t buy the gloom and angst and navel gazing of conservative Catholicism. If they want to believe that they and their relatives are drifting into hell, that’s their prerogative. Just don’t include my relatives and all the wonderful people in my parish who are earnestly living good and true and holy lives.
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What you believe is irrelevant.

It is simple. Hell exists, souls can end up there. You or I could be next.

Whether or not you believe it really doesn’t matter. You can disavow a lot of Church teachings, and you’ be just as wrong then too.
 
TMC said:
Let me ask this: does one’s beliefs about Hell make any difference to salvation? If someone is a good Catholic with the single exception that he does not believe in Hell, or believes in Hell but does not believe anyone really “goes” there, does that have implications for his soul? If not, why does it matter?

On the flip side, if a person heartily and completely believes everything the Church teaches about the afterlife, but does not live according to the New Commandment of Christ, does that have salvic importance?

So why even bother with the first, which doesn’t matter, when so many struggle daily with the second, which does?
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I appreciate the question, let me try to answer it.

“my” salvation (or damnation), depends on how I respond to the grace I am given. In other words (to a degree, or totally, depending on your view) is up to me.

The salvation of those I love dearly, yet I see ignoring Catholic doctrine, I have little power over.

My distress when pondering and posting about hell never stems from a concern about my salvation. (before I get hammered this is not to say I do not work out my own salvation with fear and trembling, I do). My distress is for those I love and have little influence over.

To answer your question TMC, this, is why I worry.
 
He_Man said:
Why are you offering opinions and throwing barbs about a subject you are admittedly (as though we could tell by reading your posts) ignorant about?

If you actually cared, you’d go to ewtn.com anyway, it isn’t that hard to type.
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I didn’t know they had on-line content. I have EWTN, but whenever I turn to it is the old nun praying or a televised Mass, so I didn’t really have a feel for its content.

I don’t know that I would go all the way to “fascist” but the website makes it pretty clear that EWTN is well right of center and has some puzzling things posted there. For example, the “FAQ” on altar girls admits they are approved, but then provides a list of the reasons that they are a bad idea and ends by pointing out that your parish is not required to allow them.

The entry on Communion in the Hand is similar.

Odd, to me, for a Catholic entitity to cast aspersions on the Church’s practices.

The FAQ on the Creation begins admits that it is OK to think that evolution is possible, but says it not OK to think that it is proved. It then goes on to assert that “The scientific evidence for bodily evolution is almost non-existent.”

But in other places it is more moderate. Denies Feeneyism, for example. The part explaining salvation comes from the Church is moderate, I would say.
 
TMC said:
I didn’t know they had on-line content. I have EWTN, but whenever I turn to it is the old nun praying or a televised Mass, so I didn’t really have a feel for its content.

I don’t know that I would go all the way to “fascist” but the website makes it pretty clear that EWTN is well right of center and has some puzzling things posted there.
But in other places it is more moderate. Denies Feeneyism, for example. The part explaining salvation comes from the Church is moderate, I would say.
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I have a difficult dicerning the concept of “left” or “right” when it comes to the Church. The Church teaches objective Truth. Not a spectrum of belief. The Church is not a politcal party.

Thus I would say EWTN is either, correct or wrong on it’s content. Not right or left. EWTN is not infallible, Church Dogma is, of course. However, I’d say EWTN represents church teaching as well as any other organization on earth. EWTN tips heavily in the “correct” catagory.

IMO near 100%.
 
Mijoy2 said:
Thus I would say EWTN is either, correct or wrong on it’s content. Not right or left. EWTN is not infallible, Church Dogma is, of course. However, I’d say EWTN represents church teaching as well as any other organization on earth. EWTN tips heavily in the “correct” catagory. IMO near 100%.
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The National Catholic Reporter is a good corrective to EWTN.
 
Mijoy2 said:
I have a difficult dicerning the concept of “left” or “right” when it comes to the Church. The Church teaches objective Truth. Not a spectrum of belief. The Church is not a politcal party.

Thus I would say EWTN is either, correct or wrong on it’s content. Not right or left. EWTN is not infallible, Church Dogma is, of course. However, I’d say EWTN represents church teaching as well as any other organization on earth. EWTN tips heavily in the “correct” catagory.

IMO near 100%.
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I agree that left and right are not really applicable to the Church, but I have fallen in to using them as so many others do. Some use traditionalist and progressive, but the meanings of those is unclear, too.

That said, it is certainly true that there is a spectrum of belief in the Catholic Church. For example, the Church teaches that you may believe in the literal historical accuracy of one or both of the Genesis creation accounts, or you may believe in the Big Bang and evolution, or you may believe some hybrid special creation theory. Where you fall on that allowed spectrum can lead to others labeling you.

So there IS some content on EWTN (and elsewhere) that can fall within the bounds of orthodoxy without being exclusively and definitively “right or wrong.”

To say that the earth was created in six days 6000 years ago is within the Church’s teachings. To say that it is 4 billion or whatever years old is, too. The one you choose to assert or agree with says something about where you are on whatever you call the spectrum. The same goes for altar girls, latin mass, etc.
 
The Church doesn’t need balancing. Either something is correct, or it isn’t. It is pretty simple. In something said is in keeping with the teachings of the church, it is truth. if not, it is false.
 
He_Man said:
The Church doesn’t need balancing. Either something is correct, or it isn’t. It is pretty simple. In something said is in keeping with the teachings of the church, it is truth. if not, it is false.
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I said EWTN needs balancing, not the Church.
 
drpmjhess said:
I said EWTN needs balancing, not the Church…
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Balance to what?

Does support or decrying Rome somehow need a balance?

NCR seems really big on telling Rome how wrong Rome is to deny the priesthood to women, EWTN agrees with Rome.

What ‘balance’ is needed there?

NCR supports Liturgies that don’t follow the Instructions issued by Rome and the USCCB, EWTN follows them to a tee.

What ‘balance’ is needed there?

So what ‘balance’ is needed between promoting disobedience over obedience?
 
drpmjhess said:
NCR is a great paper, doing its part to bring the Church into the 21st century.
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The Church is already IN the 21st Century, In fact I went to a Catholic Mass just last week. That would not be possible if the Church had ceased to exist on 12/31/2000.

So yes, the turn of the millenium did not pass without the Church, in fact, it could not, the Church will be present for all time.

So why exactly was NCR needed to do some that already happened?
 
drpmjhess said:
NCR is a great paper, doing its part to bring the Church into the 21st century.
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Think about this drpmihess, the wonder of Truth is that Truth does not change, it is immutable. The Church, which is our eyepiece and earpiece to Truth must also be immutable. Therefore whatever century we are in or looking forward to, is without meaning with respects to this Truth.

This is the beauty of Catholicism. Other wise, if things change (grow more liberal, got watered down etc) it would be frightening to predict the Church in the 22nd century. With our Church, we need not worry, it will be the same. Thank God.
 
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