Our Sunday Vistor: "No one ever goes to Hell who has been truly loved by another"

Msgr. M. Francis Mannion is still at it, giving bum answers to good questions. In his regular column in Our Sunday Visitor (Nov. 16, 2003), he is asked: "My 25-year-old son was recently killed in a motorcycle accident. He was a very good man and a good son, and he had a lot of integrity. However, he was an agnostic…. Now, I worry about his salvation. I want to believe he is with God or at least in purgatory…. Should I worry that he might be in hell?"

Mannion answers: "If we love someone and hope for their [sic] salvation, God sees their merits and virtues far more deeply and perceptively than we do…. It is a holy and noble thought that no one ever goes to hell who has been truly loved by another human being in this life. What good we see in the lives of those we love, God sees all the more."

First, if God sees more good in those we love than we do, think of how much more bad God sees in them. Most people like to advertise their goodness, not their badness, but people cannot hide their badness from God.

Second, to "hope" for someone’s salvation has no bearing on whether he is actually saved.

Third, it is not "a holy and noble thought that no one ever goes to hell who has been truly loved by another…." Such a "thought" has nothing to do with authentic holiness. And if it’s noble, at best it’s a noble lie. We defy Mannion to find anything in Scripture or magisterial Church teaching that would affirm that "no one ever goes to hell who has been truly loved by another."

Mannion’s answer was most amusing in light of the previous week’s Visitor (Nov. 9), which inaugurated a sweeping re-design of the Visitor and included a feature called "Catholic Journalists You Know and Trust." That feature highlighted the Visitor’s regular writers, giving bits of their biography, and often their philosophy and their take on the Church. Greg Erlandson, the Publisher of the Visitor, gave this two-sentence quote on his understanding of what the Visitor stands for: "Catholics have a right to know what the Church teaches and why. Too often, personal agendas obscure the clear presentation of these truths." If Erlandson really believes that, we don’t know why he allows Mannion to write for the Visitor, for Mannion often gives us his strange "personal agenda," not what "the Church teaches."

Mannion is notorious for inventing new doctrines. In his Visitor column (July 16, 2000), he said: "To say that Judas’ sin could not be forgiven is to say that the power of Satan is greater than that of Jesus, that Jesus’ resurrection had limited power to redeem and was not able to grasp the soul of Judas. In truth, Jesus’ death and resurrection overpower the worst evil of which human beings are capable." What Mannion is saying is that ultimately man has no free will (Jesus "overpowers" our evil choices), and that everyone is guaranteed salvation, no repentance needed — all of which is clearly contrary to Catholic teaching. If Judas was saved — which we seriously doubt — he repented of his own free will; whether he was saved or damned has nothing to do with the preposterous notion that "the power of Satan is greater than that of Jesus."

Also in his Visitor column (April 14, 2002), Mannion said that "it is reasonable" to "speculate" that Hitler and Stalin are in Heaven because "Christians are called to solidarity with all their fellow human beings." Doesn’t Mannion know that "Christian solidarity" has nothing to do with how Jesus Christ judges Hitler and Stalin? Mannion also said that "Hitler and Stalin could only be in heaven if they were embraced there by their earthly victims." Where did Mannion get the ridiculous notion that mortal men decide Hitler and Stalin’s eternal destiny rather than Jesus Christ? To go to Heaven, Hitler and Stalin had to repent before death; the embraces of mere men are of no avail.

It’s obvious that Mannion has major problems with the Church’s doctrine of Hell — and feels free to promote his doubts in the pages of the Visitor. But Mannion’s strange concoctions are, as St. Paul put it, "fables" (see 2 Tim. 4:3-4).

Now, we can understand why Mannion would want to offer words of comfort to that mother whose 25-year-old son was killed in a motorcycle accident. But assuring her that because she loved him and because she thinks he was good that therefore he is in no danger of going to Hell is some other gospel, not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, the vast majority of mothers love their children and think they’re essentially good, but mothers don’t decide who goes to Heaven.

Rather, the mother of the son killed in the motorcycle accident should have been urged by Mannion to pray persistently that her son somehow did whatever it takes to be saved and/or that God will have mercy on her son (because God foresees all, He hears such prayers before the son’s actual death). The mother — who is a Catholic and surely raised her son to be a believer, but who died an agnostic without faith in Jesus — is right to worry that her son might be in Hell. By telling her not to worry, Mannion is causing the mother to deprive her son of needed prayers. And by broadcasting his weird opinions in the Visitor, Mannion is telling moms everywhere that it doesn’t matter if their children apostatize or commit unrepented mortal sins, that just so long as the mom loves her children and the mom (not Jesus) thinks they were "good," they go to Heaven.

Mannion’s column is called "Pastoral Answers." It’s precisely these kinds of bogus "answers" that cause real Catholics to be on guard whenever they hear the word "pastoral."

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If there's anybody in hell,

sinkspur, what's with the "If"?

"That all Christians are to be saved" (Pius II, Dz. 717[b])

St. Augustine, Sermon LXI on Selected Lessons of the New Testament
ON THE WORDS OF THE GOSPEL, LUKE XIII. 21 AND 23, WHERE THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS SAID TO BE "LIKE UNTO LEAVEN, WHICH A WOMAN TOOK AND HID IN THREE MEASURES OF MEAL;" AND OF THAT WHICH IS WRITTEN IN THE SAME CHAPTER, "LORD, ARE THEY FEW THAT ARE SAVED?"
1. "THE three measures of meal" of which the Lord spake, is the human race. Recollect the deluge; three only remained, from whom the rest were to be re-peopled. Noe had three sons, by them was repaired the human race. That holy "woman who hid the leaven," is Wisdom. Lo, the whole world crieth out in the Church of God, "I know that the Lord is great." Yet doubtless there are but few who are saved. Ye remember a question which was lately set before us out of the Gospel, "Lord," it was said, "are there few that be saved?" What said the Lord to this? He did not say, "Not few, but many are they who are saved." He did not say this. But what said He, when He had heard, "Are there few that be saved? Strive to enter by the strait gate." When thou hearest then, "Are there few that be saved?" the Lord confirmed what He heard. Through the "strait gate" but "few" can "enter." In another place He saith Himself, "Strait and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that go thereby: but broad and spacious is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which walk thereby." Why rejoice we in great numbers? Give ear to me, ye "few." I know that ye are "many," who hear me, yet but "few" of you hear to obey. I see the floor, I look for the corn. And hardly is the corn seen, when the floor is being threshed; but the time is coming, that it shall be winnowed. But few then are saved m comparison of the many that shall perish. For these same "few" will constitute in themselves a great mass. When the Winnower shall come with His fan in His Hand, "He will cleanse His floor, and lay up the wheat into the garner; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire." Let not the chaff scoff at the wheat; in this He speaketh truth, and deceiveth no one. Be ye then in yourselves among many a many, few though ye be in comparison of a certain many. So large a mass is to come out of this floor, as to fill the garner of heaven. For the Lord Christ would not contradict Himself, who hath said, "Many there are who enter in by the narrow gate, many who go to ruin through the wide gate;" contradict Himself, who hath in another place said, "Many shall come from the East and West." "Many" then are the "few;" both "few" and "many." Are the "few" one sort, and the "many" another? No. But the "few" are themselves the "many;" "few" in comparison of the lost, "many in the society of the Angels. Hearken, dearly Beloved. The Apocalypse hath this written; "After this I beheld of all languages, and nations, and tribes, a great multitude, which no man can number, coming with white robes and palms." This is the mass of the saints. With how much clearer voice will the floor say, when it has been fanned, separated from the crowd of ungodly, and evil, and false Christians, when those who "press" and do not "touch" (for a certain woman in the Gospel "touched," the crowd "pressed" Christ), shall have been severed unto everlasting fire; when all they then, who are to be damned shall have been separated off, with how great assurance will the purified mass, standing at the Right Hand, fearing now for itself the admixture of no evil men, nor the loss of any of the good, now about to reign with Christ, say, "I know that the Lord is great"!

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