Posted on 03/27/2007 10:53:30 AM PDT by Mount Athos
Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope has said.
Addressing a parish gathering in a northern suburb of Rome, Benedict XVI said that in the modern world many people, including some believers, had forgotten that if they failed to “admit blame and promise to sin no more”, they risked “eternal damnation — the Inferno”.
Hell “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more”, he said.
The Pope, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was head of Catholic doctrine, noted that “forgiveness of sins” for those who repent was a cornerstone of Christian belief. He recalled that Jesus had forgiven the “woman taken in adultery” and prevented her from being stoned to death, observing: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”
God had given men and women free will to choose whether “spontaneously to accept salvation . . . the Christian faith is not imposed on anyone, it is a gift, an offer to mankind”.
Vatican officials said that the Pope — who is also the Bishop of Rome — had been speaking in “straightfoward” language “like a parish priest”. He had wanted to reinforce the new Catholic catechism, which holds that Hell is a “state of eternal separation from God”, to be understood “symbolically rather than physically”.
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, a Church historian, said that the Pope was “right to remind us that Hell is not something to be put on one side” as an inconvenient or embarrassing aspect of belief.
It had been misused in the Middle Ages to scare the impressionable with “horrific visions” of damnation, as described in Dante’s Inferno.
It had a pedigree, however, that went back to Ancient Egypt and the Greek idea of Hades, and was described by St Matthew as a place of “everlasting fire” (Matthew xxv, 41).
“The problem is not only that our sense of sin has declined, but also that the world wars and totalitarianisms of the 20th century created a Hell on Earth as bad as anything we can imagine in the afterlife,” Professor Bagliani said.
In 1999 Pope John Paul II declared that Heaven was “neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but that fullness of communion with God which is the goal of human life.” Hell, by contrast, was “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”.
In October the Pope indicated that limbo, supposed since medieval times to be a “halfway house” between Heaven and Hell, inhabited by unbaptised infants and holy men and women who lived before Christ, was “only a theological hypothesis” and not a “definitive truth of the faith”.
Timely visions
— “Outer darkness . . . there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” St Matthew
Hell on Earth? --> Going to Home Depot on the weekend when the NFL isn't playing.
If you truly want to understand, I recommend "A Father Who Keeps His Promises" by Dr Scott Hahn. May God bless you.
Is that a challenge? Shall I become the The Self-Annointed FR Grammar Stalker?
Do your worst.
Because the bible teaches the only way to salavtion and eternal life is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. I am sorry you feel I am judgmental but thems are the facts!
There are exploding lorries on other threads. The purity of American English is in great danger. Good that someone is on the job even if he could be a little more energetic.
I'd rather not read the garbage you read. Thanks for the offer.
I am more worried about the churches, myself.
"2. Some years ago, it declared its belief to be that hell does NOT exist, which means members of this church don't have to worry about this issue.
Hope you/they are not "unpleasantly" surprised postmortem.
Frank"
- I hope so too.
In the area of postmortem punishment, there sure are differnt opinions among church leaders around the world. For instance, The Russian Orthodox Church believes in Hell although it doesn't believe in Purgatory like the Catholics do.
The debate? I missed it, I guess. Who debated? The Pope? The Pope and who?
It is completely irrelevant. "Free Will" in contemporary Catholic teaching is just Pelagianism, anyway and denies the biblical teaching on the depravity of man.
>> The Bible doesn't say that.<<
Indeed it does. Mark 1:4, Acts 18:8, Acts 8:12, Acts 2:41, Acts 8:36, Acts 22:16, Romans 6:3-5, Mark 16:16
In every Biblical reference Belief ALWAYS precedes Baptism.
>> No, there are examples in Acts where entire households are baptized.<<
You’ll need to get specific, because each case is to be looked at specifically. The RCC doesn’t do that, instead lumps them all together. Scriptural exegesis is not a strong point of the RCC.
If you’re referring to Lydia in Acts 16, there’s no mention of whether or not she even had kids. Since she was a trader “her household” more than likely meant her servants who would travel with her.
If you’re referring to the jailer in 16:30, note that their response is first “believe and be saved” then his household is preached to, and they are baptized. it is obvious that the holy spirit worked in his house at that time, and brought salvation to all. Belief first, then baptism. (It’s also worthy to note that infants are not mentioned, so we have no way of knowing how old the members of his house were.)
If you’re referring to Acts 11:14 – it’s an instruction for the newly saved father to bring the good news to his family. Read verse 15 – “and as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell upon them”. Belief first, then baptism.
>> In Acts 2, St. Peter tells a Jewish audience used to circumcizing babies at 8 days of age, "The promise is to you and to your children". <<
Keep reading: “and everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
God calls, we respond – not the other way around.
>> You ought to stick with what the Bible actually says, and not how your Baptist tradition understands it.<<
Ball’s in your court to scripturally refute my position. I await your response.
Since it's lunchtime, I assume you meant "wurst."
Your belief bears no resemblance to Christian orthodoxy. You're welcome to it regardless, of course. Just thought I'd let you know.
Like everyone else, God is neurotic.
You have way too low a view of the holiness of God, and way to high a view of your own character.
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