Free Republic

Posted on November 21, 2019November 17, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Why Hell is Eternal and Other Teachings on Hell This is the thirteenth and final installment in a series on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.The teachings of the Lord on Hell are difficult, especially in todayÂ’s climate. The most difficult questions that arise relate to its eternal nature and how to square its existence with a God who is loving and rich in mercy. As a closing reflection on Hell and on the Four Last Things, let us ponder a series of questions.1. Does...

Posted on November 20, 2019November 17, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Images of Hell This is the twelfth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. Hell, Fra Angelico, Museo di San Marco, FlorencePart of what makes Jesus’ teaching on Hell difficult is the severe imagery He uses. In pointing to Hell, he seems to point to its deepest pits. He warns of eternal fire, undying worms, and wailing and grinding of teeth. Rather than lingering on philosophical descriptions or on the more subtle aspects of suffering, Jesus goes to the deepest...

Pope: Life, Death, Nothingness, Resurrection At the Angelus, Pope Francis proclaims the Christian faith of the Resurrection before the "doubt that touches mankind of all times ... after this earthly pilgrimage, what will become of our life?  Will it belong to nothingness, to death? "  The "clear certainty of Jesus on the Resurrection is entirely based on the fidelity of God, who is the God of life".  A round of applause for a Spanish blessed and a Portuguese saint.  An appeal for South Sudan and Bolivia. Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Life, death, nothingness, resurrection: today, before the Angelus prayer, Pope...

On a trip to England, I attended an Evensong service at Christ Church, Oxford. The worship was deeply moving, and the liturgy was beautiful.At one point we recited the Apostles’ Creed, which says that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried: He descended into hell: the third day he rose again from the dead.”Why does the Creed state that Jesus “descended into hell”?Why does the issue matter?Dealing with a tough text Our conversation centers on the following sentences from 1 Peter, among the most difficult to interpret in all of Scripture: “It is better, if it is...

I examine Surah XL: The Believer, in which Muhammad uses the threat of Hell to terrify his followers into blind allegiance, and distorts the story of Moses and the Exodus.

It is no secret that America is polarized. This is a fact that is manifested in so many different ways. Traveling down the highway to Chicago, for example, I came upon two successive billboards that I thought were striking examples of our divided culture. The first billboard caught me by surprise: it consisted of an electrocardiogram of a heart that suddenly stops beating. The caption read: When you die, you will meet God. As we were passing through the snowy night, I was unable to catch more details of this billboard. I do not know who put it out or...

Ron Reagan was not on stage Tuesday night for the Democratic presidential primary debate, but his provocative plug for a prominent atheist group earned him the top spot on Google after he declared himself a "lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell." Reagan, the 61-year-old son of the late President Ronald Reagan, made the pitch for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a group that targets religion in public schools and government across the nation. “Hi, I’m Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist,” he said in the 30-second spot, "and I'm alarmed by the intrusion of religion into our secular...

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. ( 2 Peter 2:1)The Apostle Peter warned us, that just as there were false Prophets who led the congregation astray, time and again, in the Old Testament, in our times we would have their counterpart, false teachers. God’s people can only live on Truth, “…Man shall not live by bread alone, but by everyWord that comes from the mouth of God…”. Therefore...

On Hell: Clarity Is Mercy in an Age of “Dare We Hope” On July 13, 1917, Our Lady vouchsafed to the three children at Fatima a vision of Hell (this is the content of the “First Secret”): Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. 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...

And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. ( 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12)And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds...

The topics of heaven, hell, purgatory, hades, life-after-death, the judgment, etc., are not among my favorites. There is a particular reason for this: everybody thinks they know more about this than they do and most people assume the Church says more about this than it does. Much of the problem, I think, lies in the fact that we torture the faith into geographical shapes, when it belongs in relational dynamics. That is to say, we think that describing heaven and hell (and other such terms) along with the rules for how they work (as places) somehow states something important and...

Youtuber Elijah Daniel has pulled a lot of stunts since he started creating content, but his latest act as Mayor of Hell has a lot of people talking. Daniel purchased Hell, Michigan, for Pride Month and used the opportunity to rename the town Gay Hell. Gay Hell, which is about 20 miles northwest of Ann Arbor, has been on sale for years. Daniel says he can't disclose how much he paid to be mayor for two weeks as he is in the process of purchasing the town permanently. In 2017, Daniel was also Mayor of Hell and banned heterosexual people...

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic leaders who say hell is empty are basically calling Jesus ‘liar’ May 30, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – To suggest that hell is empty amounts to calling Jesus a liar, LifeSiteNews co-founder and editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen told a recent gathering of Catholic pro-life and family advocates in Rome. That hell contains human souls who have rejected God is established by the Lord in scripture and held by the Catholic faith since its beginning. “Jesus himself says to us, “Broad is the road that leads to destruction and many there are that go there,” said Westen. “And he said, “Narrow...

The president argued on Twitter that Mr. Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election — which found no conspiracy between Moscow and Mr. Trump’s campaign but did not exonerate the president on obstruction of justice — was conclusive and that Congress and the American people did not need to hear from Mr. Mueller. “Bob Mueller should not testify,” he said. “No redos for the Dems!”

If you think of American Christianity as a pendulum, we’re currently at the opposite extreme from the First Great Awakening. When Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he compared human beings with spiders, dangling by a thread over the fires of God’s just judgment, upheld only by His mercy. Accounts from the time tell of listeners who clung to the pillars of their churches, lest they fall through the floor into the Lake of Fire. Like I said, we’re no longer in this territory these days. In fact, according to Professor Michael...

In part one of this post, I looked at the vision of Perpetua—one of the earliest authentic Christian documents to describe directly a Purgatory-like state and to highlight the efficacy of prayer petitions for the dead. Others writing during the patristic age also expounded upon this idea in more or less detail, among them St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, St. Augustine of Hippo, and St. Caesarius of Arles. One of the most clear references to Purgatory appears in a late 4th century work by Saint Gregory of Nyssa, entitled: “On the Soul and the Resurrection”. St. Gregory writes: “For...

Do Not Be Deceived: Hell Is Real Msgr. Charles Pope • February 27, 2019 • Last Judgment – Michelangelo Buonarroti (1541)There is a verse from the Letter to the Hebrews that deserves attention because it is a more common problem than many imagine:See to it, brothers, that none of you has an unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness (Heb 3:12-13).When most of us read a text like this, we think only of obvious...

The panic attacks started after Chloe watched a man die... The median Facebook employee earns $240,000 annually in salary, bonuses, and stock options. A content moderator working for Cognizant in Arizona, on the other hand, will earn just $28,800 per year. ...Writing utensils and paper are also not allowed, in case Miguel might be tempted to write down a Facebook user’s personal information. This policy extends to small paper scraps, such as gum wrappers. Smaller items, like hand lotion, are required to be placed in clear plastic bags so they are always visible to managers. ...Fearing for his safety, Randy...

Many of us like to blame God for our difficulties. The reason is that it absolves us of responsibility for our bad choices. It also ensures we won’t recover. Nations are groups of individuals clumped together, primarily by geography. In a democratic nation, if a majority of the voting population chooses wisely, the entire nation will benefit from those choices (even those who oppose the choices). In a democratic republic, such as the United States, we are one step removed from our responsibility. We don’t choose the policy directly; we choose the people who in turn choose the policies and...

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. ( John 9:1-3)The Gospel of John contrasts the two kinds of blindness which afflict humanity. We see at the outset that the first kind of blindness comes as a result of original sin. One of the consequences of the fall of man, is...