[D-fendr]

thanks for your reply. I greatly appreciate and rely upon you knowledge of the teachings of the Church. I am still very much a learner in this.

no one who positively repudiates the Church can be said to belong to the Church in any sense

If one repudiates, semi-quoting: The Church including ALL of the instrumental means of salvation operating in the world through Christ and the Holy Spirit, no matter where that may be occurring… I can see the meaning. I would equate this rejection, or at least include in it: denying the reality of Goodness, Beauty, Truth. And I imagine such a person would not know anything of his connection with the divine or with anyone else and would experience this life as being abandoned in a deep and dark well. Hell.

But there is still hope.

[bdeaner]

But there is still hope.

Until death there is always hope, thank the Lord. Hell is really the impossibility of hope. Much worse even than literal fire.