So there you have it, another RC who believes that everyone, Christian and non-Christian, will be in Heaven.
Actually, i think he disagrees with the Cardinal below*, in believing that somehow any who make it to Heaven will do so because they had a postmortem conversion, but without having to make their first communion, etc., perhaps in purgatory (but which presumes non-Christians were effectively Christian before they died), and which Ratzinger says may be involve “existential” rather than “temporal” duration (cf. Ratzinger’s book, Eschatology). It may be someone one experiences, but experiences in a moment.
*Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic in England and Wales recently expressed his hope and belief that God will save all people in an interview he gave for the Catholic Herald.
In an interview with The Catholic Herald this week, the Cardinal reveals his optimism for mankind as he sets out his vision of both heaven and hell.
Hell, he implies, may even be empty – conforming with Our Lord’s wish to save all souls. And heaven is a place where believers and non- believers may meet.
Q: And hell?
A: We’re not bound to believe that anybody’s there, let’s face it. But certainly in the Scriptures there’s a stark confrontation between heaven and hell.
But when Jesus talks about hell, it’s also exhorting people to repent, to turn away. It is in the context not of “you will be damned”, but “repent and turn to God”. I believe that hell exists and it is really the absence of God...
I cannot think of heaven without thinking of being in communion with all the saints and with all the people I’ve loved on this earth.
Q: It is sometimes said that there will be a separate heaven for Bavarians because they would not be in a state of eternal happiness if they had to share heaven with the Prussians. Will Catholics and Protestants be together in heaven?
A: I hope they won’t be separate. I think that the divisions manifest here on earth will be reconciled in some mysterious way in heaven. I’m not thinking just of Catholics and Protestants, but people of other faiths and people of no faith. We are all children of God.
Q: So we shouldn’t be surprised if we were to meet in heaven someone who was a Muslim or an atheist on earth?
A: I hope I will be surprised in heaven... I think I will be. www.romancatholicism.org/cormac-apokatastasis.htm