Posted on 03/27/2007 10:53:30 AM PDT by Mount Athos
Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope has said.
Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, Benedict XVI said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to “admit blame and promise to sin no more”, they risked “eternal damnation — the Inferno”.
Hell “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more”, he said.
The Pope, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was head of Catholic doctrine, noted that “forgiveness of sins” for those who repent was a cornerstone of Christian belief. He recalled that Jesus had forgiven the “woman taken in adultery” and prevented her from being stoned to death, observing: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
God had given men and women free will to choose whether “spontaneously to accept salvation . . . the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind”.
Vatican officials said that the Pope — who is also the Bishop of Rome — had been speaking in “straightfoward” language “like a parish priest”. He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that Hell is a “state of eternal separation from God”, to be understood “symbolically rather than physically”.
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a Church historian, said that the Pope was “right to remind us that Hell is not something to be put on one side” as an inconvenient or embarrassing aspect of belief.
It had been misused in the Middle Ages to scare the impressionable with “horrific visions” of damnation, as described in Dante’s Inferno.
It had a pedigree, however, that went back to Ancient Egypt and the Greek idea of Hades, and was described by St Matthew as a place of “everlasting fire” (Matthew xxv, 41).
“The problem is not only that our sense of sin has declined, but also that the world wars and totalitarianisms of the 20th century created a Hell on Earth as bad as anything we can imagine in the afterlife,” Professor Bagliani said.
In 1999 Pope John Paul II declared that Heaven was “neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but that fullness of communion with God which is the goal of human life.” Hell, by contrast, was “the ultimate consequence of sin itself . . . Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy”.
In October the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a “halfway house” between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by unbaptised infants and holy men and women who lived before Christ, was “only a theological hypothesis” and not a “definitive truth of the faith”.
Timely visions
— “Outer darkness . . . there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” St Matthew
This might not be a popular opinion here, but I've always found a belief system wherein unbelievers are condemned to eternal torture a deeply disturbing one.
From my Catholic perspective...
Sin is separation from God. Sin becomes a habit, and a choice to not stand in communion with God. He allows free choice, and Hell is a place for those who do not wish to be with Him.
Is it hellfire and brimstone? Who knows - perhaps that's the way to describe the very terribleness of hell. I lean towards the idea that hell is the very despair, agony (physical and mental) and bleakness that occurs in very deep depression.
Perhaps not formally - I think it stands as a Mystery.
Archbishop Sheen compared original sin to a stream originating from a polluted place, with all of the water carrying the pollution of original sin.
As with other Mysteries, if you think you really understand it, then you don't.
The older I get,the closer I get to God and the further I get from the worldly concerns of the frivilous and trivial.That is a good thing.
I went to a Jesuit college and have much respect for the academic rigors the Fathers instilled in us.I never became a Catholic but the denomination certainly played a role in me coming around to a pro-life stance in the Eighties.
"Not that you can't get forgiven and stuff, just that it's too pat an answer. This is midieval mythology, designed to scare people into acting against their baser instincts, and it worked some. There was a lot less general knowledge back then, being as how the world was flat and all. A lot of people got burned at the stake then too, as if the concept of hell wasn't quite scary enough for people."
Maybe one of these geniuses can use nanotech to finally answer the question, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
No God wants Sinners to turn to Him and His Son for Redemption from their sins so they do not have to spend eternity in Hell.
Read the book of John and the Book of Romans. I will expound for you
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and come short of Gods Glory
Romans 6:23 The wages of sin is Death!
Romans 6:23....but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord
Romans 5:8 but God demonstrates his own love for us that While we were still sinners Christ Died for us!!
Romans 10:13 Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord willl be saved
Romans 10:9-10 That if you confess with your mouth "Jesus is Lord" and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you will be saved. For it is with your heart you believe and are Justified and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved!
And there should be no reason you would not be willing to accept the forgiveness of God Right NOW.
Please reread my post, I never bashed the entire Catholic church. I did however bash the priests who raped children and the church officials who covered-up for and transfered known child rapists for decades. There is no defense for them or their crime.
Yep. To 72 virgins...
"Hell and Satan exist?
Yep,right here on Earth.
Yet I truly believe a God of love and mercy would not condemn those of us whose sins have been chasing a few girls,cheating on a test or stealing candy from a store.
Hell is for those like Pol Pot,Hitler,Stalin,Saddam,etc.The REAL bad folks of which there are way too many as it is."
Where do you draw the line on good enough to escape hell and not quite good enough?
I know I'm coming late to this thread but I no longer believe in Hellfire. Several months ago I saw the premiere of a play at the National Theatre of Great Britain called "The Seafarer" by Conor McPherson in which the devil is portrayed as a drunken cardplayer. He gives a verbal portrait of hell that shocked me out of my wits. I will never get his description out of my mind and hopefully it will one day straighten me up!!
Thank you but I'll be reading the works of Peter, Paul, the Evangelists, St John, St Ambrose, St Athanasius, St Augustine, St Basil, St Catherine of Siena, St Francis, St Gregory the Great, St Jerome, St John of the Cross, St Theresa of Avila and St Thomas Aquinas... in addition to my Bible and Catechism.
After reading the accounts of hell from St. Faustina and Sr. Lucia from Fatima............my heart breaks that some souls go there for eternity.
Amen to that!
I assume you mean these:
CANON IX.-If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.
CANON XII.-If any one saith, that justifying faith is nothing else but confidence in the divine mercy which remits sins for Christ's sake; or, that this confidence alone is that whereby we are justified; let him be anathema.
You take these Canons out of context if you don't look at them in the light of the preceding paragraph (which is long and uncut and I apologize in advance for how this will look...):
CHAPTER XVI.
On the fruit of Justification, that is, on the merit of good works, and on the nature of that merit.
Before men, therefore, who have been justified in this manner,-whether they have preserved uninterruptedly the grace received, or whether they have recovered it when lost,-are to be set the words of the Apostle: Abound in every good work, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord; for God is not unjust, that he should forget your work, and the love which you have shown in his name; and, do not lose your confidence, which hath a great reward. And, for this cause, life eternal is to be proposed to those working well unto the end, and hoping in God, both as a grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus Christ, and as a reward which is according to the promise of God Himself, to be faithfully rendered to their good works and merits. For this is that crown of justice which the Apostle declared was, after his fight and course, laid up for him, to be rendered to him by the just judge, and not only to him, but also to all that love his coming. For, whereas Jesus Christ Himself continually infuses his virtue into the said justified,-as the head into the members, and the vine into the branches,-and this virtue always precedes and accompanies and follows their good works, which without it could not in any wise be pleasing and meritorious before God,-we must believe that nothing further is wanting to the justified, to prevent their being accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life, to be obtained also in its (due) time, if so be, however, that they depart in grace: seeing that Christ, our Saviour, saith: If any one shall drink of the water that I will give him, he shall not thirst for ever; but it shall become in him a fountain of water springing up unto life everlasting. Thus, neither is our own justice established as our own as from ourselves; nor is the justice of God ignored or repudiated: for that justice which is called ours, because that we are justified from its being inherent in us, that same is (the justice) of God, because that it is infused into us of God, through the merit of Christ. Neither is this to be omitted,-that although, in the sacred writings, so much is attributed to good works, that Christ promises, that even he that shall give a drink of cold water to one of his least ones, shall not lose his reward; and the Apostle testifies that, That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; nevertheless God forbid that a Christian should either trust or glory in himself, and not in the Lord, whose bounty towards all men is so great, that He will have the things which are His own gifts be their merits. And forasmuch as in many things we all offend, each one ought to have before his eyes, as well the severity and judgment, as the mercy and goodness (of God); neither ought any one to judge himself, even though he be not conscious to himself of anything; because the whole life of man is to be examined and judged, not by the judgment of man, but of God, who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts, and then shall every man have praise from God, who, as it is written, will render to every man according to his works. After this Catholic doctrine on Justification, which whoso receiveth not faithfully and firmly cannot be justified, it hath seemed good to the holy Synod to subjoin these canons, that all may know not only what they ought to hold and follow, but also what to avoid and shun.
It seems to me that the good Bishops were trying to reconcile the numerous mentions of God's graciousness for our good works to the Protestant idea that good works account for nothing in the plan of salvation (Rev 22:12 for one). Again, perspective... if we are God's children and we are born again into His Family... then Baptism is our birth, not our maturity in the faith. There is more to do and learn as we are raised in the faith.
Also, belief and faith are action words with God. Abraham walked faithfully with God for decades before God demanded his son as a sacrifice. Only after drawing back the knife did God make His Covenant with Abraham. It is not enough to believe who Christ is... if you believe, you will follow Him and do as He commanded. God, as a just and merciful Father, will reward your faithfulness to Him.
Your mother may have allowed you to touch something hot so you would know the danger of fire, or smoke a pack of cigarettes when you were curious so you would be made sick by it and lose your curiosity... Sometimes the best teacher is experience. Ask yourself... what is God trying to teach you?
Where do I draw the line between Heaven and Hell?
Murder.Rape,Child molesting.
That sort of thing.
Who is closer to the moon? Kareem Abdul Jabbar, or a dwarf?
You are correct, and the answer is "a"
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