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[ Do you go to St. Mary's Oratory in Wausau, where the Institute of Christ the King has the Traditional Mass? ]

No, I go to St. Mary's Ridge, WI where the Institute of Christ the King has the Traditional Mass. See the beautiful church, the gorgeous surrounding countryside, and even a photo of my oldest son at his First Holy Communion in the photo gallery here:

http://www.institute-christ-king.org/cashton/index.html

Speaking of this, any of you intrepid souls who have wanted the traditional Latin Mass in a truly rural setting, think about moving to be with us. Several families already have and there are several more in the wings. You can contact me at:

djpalm64@yahoo.com

[ You're going to "get in trouble" with some for getting Seattle Catholic to post your article on their website. ]

It's too late.....I'm already in trouble with the New Inquisition (you know, the one that is constantly chiding us "integrists" for expressing ourselves without Church authority, while at the same time they have none either ;o)

[ If I had only waited a few days for them to post it.... Oh well, it was worth it. :-) ]

It's funny because Monday morning I logged on to SeattleCatholic.com to get Peter Miller's e-mail address and see if he'd like to host the article. And there were the links to it on FreeRepublic! But he wanted to post it anyway, so we went ahead with that (and we were able to correct the missing phrase in Canon 212 that "heyheyhey" so charitably pointed out.)

But thanks again for your hard work. Keep the Faith.

In Christ,

David

Thank you "m" and all who have expressed their thanks. I'm glad the article was helpful.

Thanks especially to "pyro" for his hard work in transcribing it for the FreeRepublic community (Ah! I've used the "C" word! Shame on me ;o)

By the way, the entire text is now on-line in a single place at:

http://www.seattlecatholic.com/article_20040406.html

[ I am starting to believe that the Pope will allow Boston, Los Angeles, and other liberal areas be literally God-forsaken, so that they may fruitfully be compared to the more orthodox areas.]

I forgot to add one more detail. How does this theory hold up in the face of the Arlington, VA example, in which a string of orthodox and fairly forceful bishops has now been followed by what appears to be the ecclesiastical equivalent of an Al Quaeda agent? Honestly, I fear for us here in the La Crosse diocese and who we'll get to replace Bishop (now Archbishop) Burke. Some things are turning around here. Are we going to get a subversive now to put a stop to that, like they did in Arlington?

"johnb2004" wrote:

[ Well said. Too often, words like yours are misread as disloyal. ]

Thank you, John. What an unpleasant reality we are faced with, eh?

God bless,

David

[ Well, John Paul II and many others disagree with you ]

Indeed. But it is my contention that, should some one of these "many" attempt to harmonize this modern speculation with the unanimous views of the Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Councils that have preceded him, he would be unable to do so. At least Hans urs Von Balthasar was unable to do so in his book "Dare We Hope...."

[ Harmful? That we pray there are no souls in hell? Doen't the Church pray that all men be saved? If we're sure that some men are certainly going to perish, then shouldn't we pray for the salvation of "some" souls, rather than "every" soul? ]

The Church does not pray that there are no souls in hell. She prays for the salvation of every individual soul, since each man has the potential to be saved and God desires none to perish. This does not overturn the fact that some will not be saved, as Scripture and Tradition attest.

I outlined a number of harmful practical results of creeping universalism in my article. There are others, but those are sufficient to make this line of speculation imprudent, to say the least.

[ I'm sure you're one of those who also believes that unbaptized infants with absolute dogmatic certainty will never see God. How do you have such certainty? Because Gregory of Nazianzen says so? ]

"I'm sure you're one of those.....How do you have such certainty?" Hmmmm. From whence do you get this certainty about my views?

Another question in return is how you can assert that there is uncertainty with regard to human souls in Hell in the face of the unanimous and repeated witness of 1900 years of Fathers, Doctors, Popes and Councils. Can you cite even one magisterial or traditional source prior to, say, 1960 that supports the modern speculation? I'm not saying one doesn't exist, but I have yet to see it. If not, on what Catholic principle is a question or "hope" inserted where the unanimous Catholic Tradition finds no place for one?

[ Did Christ come for all men, or just for a few? Since we can only be certain that there are souls in heaven (canonized saints), Christian Hope would prompt us to be silent on the fate of anybody else.

To acknowledge the existence of hell is not the same thing as saying we are certain that there are souls present there. ]

To clarify some points, the "dare we hopers" do not argue that Hell is empty; they acknowledge that Satan and his angels will be there for all eternity. Their argument is that Hell could, hypothetically, be empty of *human* souls and they say that we are permitted to hope that this is the case.

"sinkspur" is correct that Christ died for all men and that all men have the potential to be saved and are given sufficient grace by God to be saved.

"sinkspur" is also correct that we have certainty that certain individuals (canonized saints) are in heaven. And it is true that we cannot have certainty that *any given individual* is in Hell.

However, contrary to the "dare we hopers", we can indeed have *certainty* that Hell is not empty of human souls. Scripture contains many passages that teach this directly (I cited some in my article) and these passages have consistently been interpreted by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church as depicting actual reality and not just potentialities (as the "dare we hopers" would argue). To interpret Scripture contrary to this unanimous consent of the Fathers falls under the anathemas of Trent and Vatican I.

We may also add magisterial witnesses too numerous to catalogue which bolster this certainty that there are human souls in Hell, although again we cannot know specifically who is so affected. I cited the very smallest sampling in my article.

Finally, we can add on top of all of this the private, but approved, revelations to various saints throughout Church history that testify to this reality.

Thus, the reality of souls in Hell is taught infallibly by the Catholic Church, by virtue of her ordinary univeral magisterium. This give us certainty, apart from the need of any ex cathedra pronouncement to this effect.

Hope is a theological virtue. We may not, therefore, hope for something that is manifestly contrary to Divine revelation. Ergo, the "dare we hopers" are wrong. The best one could say is that "hope" is here synonymous with "wish", that we might "wish" that no one goes to Hell. This might be theologically permitted, but I continue to question whether the Catholic Tradition really justifies such speculation and I'm adamant that in our present historical context it is manifestly harmful.

God bless,

David

[I am starting to believe that the Pope will allow Boston, Los Angeles, and other liberal areas be literally God-forsaken, so that they may fruitfully be compared to the more orthodox areas.]

It is not within His Holiness' discretion to do so. It is his duty before God to appoint only holy, orthodox, and courageous men to the episcopate. If men of bad faith and character "slip through", then it is his duty before God to remove them and replace them with men who meet the above description. And if His Holiness finds that he is getting bad recommendations, then it is his responsibility to find new advisors.

This is basic common sense, not to mention stock Catholic Tradition.

Excusing the failure of the Roman Pontiff to select good bishops and to remove bad ones, through reference to a kind of hidden scheme in which he "punishes" the Church by purposely afflicting them with false shepherds, is not only perverse, it turns Catholic moral theology and the Church's perennial Tradition on its head.

Hello, all:

I am the author of the article. I'm glad that most of you, at least, are finding it helpful or at least thought-provoking. So far the feedback I and the editor of NOR have received has been overwhelmingly positive.

I do need to make one correct, though. "heyheyhey" wrote that "The author is a liar", based on his finding that a sentence was missing from the quotation of Canon 212. The issue of rash judgment aside, he is correct.

I checked my sources and indeed the fault lies with me, not with Fr. Harrison or This Rock magazine. I was well aware of the phrase and I had discussed with a number of priests and canon lawyers just what "due reverence for the pastors" means when writing such articles. Alas, I missed that phrase when I transcribed the quote from the magazine article. Mea culpa.

That being said, my article did show due reverence to His Holiness and the other pastors, unless one equates "due reverence" with "fawning sycophancy". But the former is a Catholic attitude, the latter is not.

God bless,

David