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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Please point out to me the infallible Church teaching that there are souls in hell.

But if the Lord do a new thing, and the earth opening her mouth swallow them down, and all things that belong to them, and they go down alive into hell, you shall know that they have blasphemed the Lord. And immediately as he had made an end of speaking, the earth broke asunder under their feet: And opening her mouth, devoured them with their tents and all their substance. And they went down alive into hell, the ground closing upon them, and they perished from among the people. (Numbers 16.30-33)

Then shall the kingdom of heaven be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: Behold the bridegroom cometh. Go ye forth to meet him. Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out. The wise answered, saying: Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye rather to them that sell and buy for yourselves. Now whilst they went to buy the bridegroom came: and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage. And the door was shut. But at last came also the other virgins, saying: Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answering said: Amen I say to you, I know you not. Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour. (St. Matthew 25.1-13)

And a certain man said to him: Lord, are they few that are saved? But he said to them: Strive to enter by the narrow gate: for many, I say to you, shall seek to enter and shall not be able. But when the master of the house shall be gone in and shall shut the door, you shall begin to stand without; and knock at the door, saying: Lord, open to us. And he answering, shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are. Then you shall begin to say: We have eaten and drunk in thy presence: and thou hast taught in our streets. And he shall say to you: I know you not, whence you are. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth; when you shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God: and you yourselves thrust out. (St. Luke 13:25-28)

As Sodom and Gomorrha and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. (St. Jude 7)

But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted. Woe unto them! For they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves and have perished in the contradiction of Core. These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves: clouds without water, which are carried about by winds: trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots: Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion: wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. (St. Jude 10-13)

And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved. (Creed of Pseudo-Athanasius)

For before we reign with Christ in glory, all of us will be made manifest "before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has won through the body, according to his works, whether good or evil"(260) and at the end of the world "they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but those who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment" (Lumen Gentium §48)

Vatican II Theological Commission, in response to a request to make it clear in Lumen Gentium that men are damned: "In no. 48 there are cited the words of the Gospel in which the Lord Himself speaks about the damned in a form which is grammatically future." (Acta Synodalia, vol. 3, part 8, pp. 144-145)

In fact even if it was be a matter of that obedience that concretely must be extended to the divine faith, this obedience would not have to be limited to the truth express defined by decrees of Ecumenical Councils or of the Roman Pontiff and this Apostolic See, but it must extend all over the world also to the truth that they give the ordinary magisterium of the Church, diffused, which are taught as divinely revealed, and therefore from the common and universal catholic consent of the theologians are thought as pertaining to the faith. (Bl. Pius IX, Tuas Libenter)

I likewise accept Holy Scripture according to that sense which our holy Mother Church has held and does hold, whose [office] it is to judge of the true meaning and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures; I shall never accept nor interpret it otherwise than in accordance with the unanimous consent of the Fathers. (Creed of Pius IV)

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