“ It’s been part of Catholic iconography, Christian iconography, but it’s never been part of teaching,” Nichols said on Friday.
Well, not so fast, Your Eminence.
Let’s be honest and recall the General Audience of Wednesday, 28 July 1999, when Pope John Paul II reflected on hell as the definitive rejection of God.
In his catechesis, the recently-canonized Pope said that care should be taken to interpret correctly the images of hell in Sacred Scripture, and explained that "hell is 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".
Yet, even though hell should be understood as a definitive and eternal separation from God, Pope John Paul went on to say that, after the general resurrection the bodies of the damned, being bodies not spirits, must be in "some place," in which they will receive the punishment of fire.
So, Cardinal Nichols, let’s just be precise and completely honest about what the Church has had to say about hell down through the ages.
And the simple answer to the question of what the Church explicitly teaches as happening to those who die rejecting God and His saving grace is: who knows?
On Good Friday, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica published a front-page essay by its founder, 93-year-old Eugenio Scalfari, a self-described non-believer, describing a conversation he’d recently had with Pope Francis. It was the fifth time the two men have met since Pope Francis’ election in 2013.
In it, Scalfari says he asked the Pope what happens to the souls of sinners, and described the pontiff’s response as, “A Hell doesn’t exist, what exists is the disappearance of sinning souls.”
Not long afterwards, the Vatican issued a statement casting doubt on the legitimacy of the quotation.
Spokesman Greg Burke said Scalfari’s piece was “the fruit of his own reconstruction,” in which the pope’s words “are not cited textually,” and warned that it “should not be considered as a faithful transcript of the Holy Father’s words.”
Although Scalfari’s recounting of the Pope’s more controversial words have often been dismissed by the Vatican as unreliable, it remains very curious that the Pope insists upon seeking out Scalfari for candid interviews.
And more to the point: the statements that which Scalfari has attributed to Pope Francis himself have never been publicly denied by the Holy Father himself!
In fact, this is not the first time Scalfari has quoted Pope Francis about his belief in the physical existence of Hell. In October of 2017, Scalfari wrote: “Pope Francis, I repeat, has abolished the places of eternal dwelling in the afterlife of souls. The thesis held by him is that the souls dominated by evil and not repentant cease to exist while those who are redeemed from evil will be assumed into beatitude, contemplating God.”
And even earlier in 2015, Pope Francis was again quoted by Scalfari: “What happens to that lost soul? Will it be punished? And how?
The response of Francis was distinct and clear: "there is no punishment, but the annihilation of that soul.”
Again, whatever the Vatican press office has to say about the matter, the simple fact is that the Holy Father has never publicly denied any of these statements himself.
In light of that fact, shouldn’t one conclude that the Holy Father probably did offer these explanations, even if Scalfari’s words are not the actual literal words used by the Holy Father himself.
So then, is there a Hell!
Yes, there must be.
What is it like?
Who knows?
But, let me ask another question?
Is there a Heaven?
Yes, there must be.
What’s Heaven like?
Who knows?
Let’s just hope and pray the Lord deems us worthy of Heaven and is generous in forgiving us our sins so we don’t have to even contemplate the horror of being apart from Him for all eternity.
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