Posted on 03/29/2007 5:20:08 AM PDT by Gamecock
FoxNews reported today that while addressing a parish in a suburb of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI clarified his view of hell. The Pope said concerning hell, [it] “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more,”
According to reports from the Vatican this “straightforward” language is in effort to eliminate confusion pending an upcoming release of the new Catholic catechism. One might wonder about confusion from a church that proposes that its doctrine does not change.
However, even the casual Catholic should remember the last Pontiff’s less literal view of hell. Speaking of hell, Pope John Paul II said that it 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”.
According to Catholic dogma the Pope is infallible and exists as the functional head of the body of Christ on earth. So how can we have such divergent views on the reality of hell?
Hell is not the only issue with which we seem to see some contemporary doctrinal progression from Rome. In October the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a “halfway house” between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by unbaptized infants and holy men and women who lived before Christ, was “only a theological hypothesis” and not a “definitive truth of the faith”.
It is a real shame that millions and millions of folks are walking lock step with the Pope as their authority rather than Scripture. In order to be a good Catholic your theology must progress with the evolution of Papal theology, even at the expense of former Pontiffs. How dangerous it is to be blown about by Papal winds. Not so for Christians who reject Rome’s magisterial view of authority and embrace the doctrine of Sola Scriptura where God’s unchanging, inerrant, infallible divine Word is the ultimate authority in the church.
Pope Benedict, bump.
Could you show me how exactly the doctrine of hell has changed? It was known as a state of permanent separation from God since Christ.
The definition of Hell has not changed. No one on this earth no what it is like, but I assure many who die in a state of mortal sin have found out.
The times when a Pope is infallible are limtied. When the speak to the press or when they are speaking off of or outside the chair a Peter they are not infallible.
I never cease to be amazed at some folks' ability to distort, falsify, and misrepresent what other folks have to say. It's bad enough (though expected) when the pagan media at ABCCBSNBCCNNWashPestNYSlimes does it. For alleged Christians, such as your author, to do it is beyond reprehensible.
Where is sola scriptura in the bible?
So he's met my ex?
Hmmm. This new catechism must be breaking news that only Erik knows about.
The one billion marching in lock step don't seem to have heard about a new catechism.
Maybe that should be Erik's headline.
Actually, I wish Erik had pointed out what he thinks the conflict is between the two statements he quoted.
Being a simple sort of fellow, I don't see the conflict that seems so apparent to him.
God bless the Pope!!
Ahhh, the "deflect something that makes you squirm to some sort of strawman without actually answer the topic at hand" technique.
"I never cease to be amazed..."
I'm always amazed by other "christians" who continue to lie, distort and commit calumny against Catholicism in order to promote their own.
It means they cannot stand on their own false doctrine.
not deflecting anything. Just show us in the Bible where
sola scriptura is written?
It's right next to the section of the bible that mentions altar calls and Wednesday night church.
Read and understand Yah'shua's words in Mark 4.
b'shem Yah'shua
Mk. 4:9 Then Yah'shua said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
Somebody doesn't understand Papal infallibility very well. Change that; doesn't understand it at all.
And the JP2 quotation was translated badly. The Italian word he used was piu, which usually means "more", as in ... "More than a place, hell ..."
His point was not that heaven and hell were unreal, but rather that they were so real that human experience of them starts right here on earth.
Erik's confused here, too. There are (or were proposed to be) two limbos, the "limbus patrum" ("limbo of the fathers") and the "limbus infantum" ("limbo of the infants").
Scripture alludes to the "limbus patrum" when it mentions Christ "preaching to the spirits in prison". The limbus patrum is empty since the resurrection.
The "limbus infantum" has never been anything more than a respected and commonly held theological opinion. If Erik wants to claim that it was something else, let him present the evidence that it was ever defined as dogma by the Church.
As usual, Protestant apologists set up strawmen to attack, because they know their case against what Christ's church truly teaches and believes is so flimsy.
You get sola scriptura out of that exactly how?
No one on this earth no what it is like, >>>
some living Catholics who walked this earth briefly saw hell.
I pray you seek the Ru'ach HaKodesh to illuminate the Word for you.b'shem Yah'shuaAsk for the Ru'ach Elohim to open your ears to hear the Word.
Ask for the metaphors to be revealed to you.
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