PopeWatch: Hell, Damnation and Pope Francis

[41] Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.

Yet another fruit of Pope Francis’ policy of giving interviews and then never giving any sort of explanation after the feathers hit the fan. From Mahound’s Paradise:

On to the Scalfari piece. It’s an editorial reflection in La Repubblica on what the journalist wants to see happen in the Church, so it’s not a new interview, per se. But he includes a part where he describes the Pope’s thoughts on the issue. Here is the relevant passage:

[…] Whoever has had the grace to meet Pope Francis knows that the egoism of the most dangerous enemy of our species. The animal is selfish because it is only guided by his instincts, the most important thing is their own survival. Man is also driven by socializing and he therefore feels love towards the other, in addition to the survival of the species to which he belongs. If egoism wins the upper hand and the love for others is suffocated, it darkens the divine spark which is in him and condemns himself.

Francis’ answer is unambiguous and clear: There is no penalty but the annihilation of that soul. All others live on to share the the happiness in the presence of the Father. The extinguished souls have no part in this feast, with the death of the body is its end and this is the motivation of the missionary Church: to save the lost. This is also the reason why Francis is through and through, a Jesuit. […]

This theological view is called Annihilationism, by the way, and it is the view of some sincere Protestant Christians. In fairness, it has some Biblical support (though I think the weight of Biblical evidence is strongly against it.) But it has never been a teaching of the Catholic Church. Indeed, it is a clear heresy. The current Catechism of the Church states:

(1035) 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.” (Matthew 25:41) 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 Scalfari editorial came out a few days ago, in Italian of course. And as far as I can tell, it hasn’t been picked up by many of the Traditionalist blogs, let alone any mainstream sources. We picked it up from The Eponymous Flower through Pew Sitter. Once again, it is vulnerable to the criticism that there’s no proof Pope Francis actually said it. And once again, the usual suspects, many of them well-intentioned, will say that caution is urged. We should be careful when inputing heresy (at second-hand, from an atheist) to the Vicar of St. Peter. And so on and so forth, etc. etc. Enough!

We have a bad one here guys, a real bad one. A Dig Up the Body of Your Papal Predecessor, Put His Corpse On Trial, Convict him and Then Throw It Into The Tiber, honest to goodness Bad Pope.

Go here to read the rest. Annihilationism has always been rejected by the Church for the very good reason that what we know of Hell has been supplied to us direct from the mouth of Christ and He states that eternal fire is the fate of the damned. This is not congenial to many moderns who tend not to accept temporal consequences, let alone eternal consequences, for evil behavior, but for a Catholic the matter is settled. If Pope Francis said what he is purported to have said, the Church has a very bad problem indeed.

Father Robert Barron is also dead wrong on hell. He says we don’t really know what hell is like and most of what we think of it comes from Dante’s Inferno. He goes on to say that he thinks hell is nothing but being eternally separated from God.
Ground control to Father Barron and Pope Francis. Hell is a very real place. It all right there in the Bible.

The truth is: Most of what we know of Hell and its eternity comes from the very lips of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And he uses terms that are unequivocal. Pope St. John Paul II, in his book, “Crossing the Threshold of Hope,” pg. 185, says it succinctly:

… the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew’s gospel [Christ] speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment (cf. Matt. 25:46).

The CCC 1035 concurs:

The teaching of the Church affims the existence of Hell and its eternity.

Most importantly, Scripture itself could hardly be clearer:

In Revelation 20:10, St. John describes Hell (”the lake of fire,” more specifically) in relation to the Devil and the False Prophet of the end times in terms difficult to misunderstand:

And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Then, in Revelation 20:14-15, St. John again mentions this same “lake of fire” and explicitly and specifically declares that humans will go to the same place—and that means “for ever and ever.”

This is the second death, the lake of fire; and if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown in the lake of fire.

Revelation 21:8 says it as well and includes all those who die in mortal sin:

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their lot shall be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

In Matthew 25:41 and 46, Jesus says just as heaven represents eternal life, Hell represents eternal punishment:

Then he will say to those at his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, in to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels…
And they [the unrighteous] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

Matthew 13:41-42, 47-50:

The son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep aand gnash their teeth...

So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.

The Fatima Children Were Shown Hell By Our Lady

In 1917, during World War I, the Virgin Mary appeared to three children at Fatima, Portugal on the 13th of each month from May through October. During here appearance on July 13th, 1917, she showed these three young children, ages 7 to 10, a vision of Hell.

“The Blessed Virgin Mary opened her hands, and “rays of light seemed to penetrate the earth, and we saw as it were a sea of fire.

Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. (It must have been this sight which caused me to cry out, as people say they heard me.)

The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repellent likeness to frightful and unknown animals, black and transparent like burning coals. Terrified and as if to plead for help, we looked up at Our Lady, who said to us so sadly: “You have seen Hell where the souls of poor sinners go.”

Thus, when you say the rosary, say after each mystery:

“O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy Mercy.”

After this vision, the children lived lives of prayer (especially before the Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Rosary), sacrifice and penance for sinners so that sinners might be converted and saved from the fires of Hell that God allowed Mary to show them.

http://www.traditionalcatholicpriest.com/2015/02/03/hell-real-5-lady-fatima/

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