Hell

Hellfire is Realer Than Real

To believe the sophistry that belief in a fiery Hell or a monstrous demon is irrational or unfitting of a reasonable Christian is the height of demonic pride.

Hell Is Real—and It Isn’t Empty

Bishop Robert Barron, the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles and a pioneer of online evangelism, is hardly prone to controversy. Yet the telegenic prelate stirred something of a firestorm back in June that continues to spill ink today. In fact, it isn’t a new debate at all. Commenting on the Gospel reading for June 25 … Read more

Does Hell Play a Role in Evangelization?

Does hell play a role in evangelization? If it does, then when and how? Catholics take many positions on this topic and they all impact the effectiveness of evangelization. To begin, let me situate this analysis by raising three relevant points. First, discussing hell can be emotional and difficult to face for obvious reasons, such as hell’s … Read more

Save Us From the Deniers of Hell

Anyone who wonders why the Catholic Church is in its present crisis need only read Dr. Scott Bruce’s “Do We Still Need to Believe in Hell?” The Wall Street Journal article (9/15-16/2018) recently appeared in its popular weekend review section. It was a rather typical yet brutal appraisal of the notion of Hell. The author … Read more

What We Know About Evil, Hell, and Final Damnation

“Hell is the place God created for the angels who rebelled against him. We say ‘place,’ but since angels are spirits the word ‘place’ is metaphorical. Hell is a condition but also a society of those who are separated from God. Having rejected God and having lost his angelic privileges to God’s company, the devil … Read more

The Heresy of Hell as Self-Inflicted

The brouhaha that erupted last month over the latest Scalfari interview with Pope Francis concerned whether the Holy Father really believes in the existence of hell. The Vatican press office was quick to deny Scalfari’s claim. Yet the controversy overshadowed only briefly a more contentious and longstanding debate in theological circles over eternal punishment. Since Pope … Read more

Amoris Laetitia and the Four Last Things

Hell—St. Teresa of Avila told her nuns to mentally visit the inferno during life so they would not be imprisoned in it after death. St. John Vianney sighed because the saints, who were so pure, cultivated holy fear while “we, who so often offend the good God—we have no fears.” At last month’s Rome Life … Read more

Have We Forgotten the Hard Sayings of Christ?

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire.” (Mk. 9:43) It requires no great insight in order to discern what the modern world would make of such a statement had it … Read more

Life as Preparation for Death

Shortly before taking leave of this world, Sir Winston Churchill, who had lived a very long and illustrious life, was reportedly asked about the state of his soul: “I am perfectly ready,” he said, “to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” Only someone of … Read more

Will Anyone End Up In Hell?

In Robert Speaight’s The Unbroken Heart, a novel sadly neglected in the long years following its publication in 1939, a character named Arnaldo has just been told of his beloved wife’s untimely death.  His reaction, by today’s standards, seems very strange indeed.  “It does not really interest me,” he confesses, “to know by what accident … Read more

The Harrowing of Hell

The second reading from the Office of Readings for Holy Saturday is taken from an ancient homily on Christ’s descent into hell.  It begins: “Something strange is happening—there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness.  The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep.”  The King fell asleep when … Read more

Sympathy for the Devil and Mercy for the Damned

And Lucifer approached the Throne, and from across the abyss there came a clamor, a wailing bereft of beauty, tone, and voice, as though a malignant choir had become suddenly awash in boiling oil. “Oh Great One,” he began, he who had been known throughout history as the Tempter, but who could tempt no more, … Read more

Hope: When A Loved One Dies in Sin

My mother died at age 27. She left a grieving husband and three little children: myself, age six, and my younger sister and brother, ages four and two, respectively. I remember my mother well, her death from pneumonia the day after Christmas 1934, and her funeral, the first I ever attended. I remember too my … Read more

…But do Bad Dogs go to Hell?

It was somewhat of a surprise when George died despite his old age, for he had seemed to live through everything—much pestering from our younger dog, Wolfie; consuming way too much chocolate, candy, and paper towels; chewing on a poisonous tick collar; jumping out of a moving (quite fast) pickup truck after another dog; surviving … Read more

The New ‘Brighton Rock’: Bad Romance

Last year, as I walked out of the theater after a showing of the 1947 gangster flick Brighton Rock, one of the men behind me had a question for his companion. “There was a lot of,” and he tried to put it delicately, “Catholic stuff in that. I mean…is that normal?” Both the 1947 film … Read more

Hell, Heaven, and Progressive Catholics

With another presidential election looming, it won’t be long before many self-described progressive Catholics start issuing countless statements about numerous policy issues. Though many such Catholics sit rather loosely with Catholic teaching on questions like life and marriage, their “relaxed” position on such issues is belied by their stridency on, for instance, economic matters. Woe … Read more

For God So Loved the World, He Created Hell

  Evangelical preacher Rob Bell has created quite a stir by suggesting in his recent book that there is no hell, because God loves us so much. But this is exactly backwards: There is a hell because God loves us so much. Nobody goes to hell except those who irrevocably prefer something else to God … Read more

A Hell of an Argument

One nice thing about being Catholic is that when a dimestore Origenist (who is pretty certain nobody’s going to Hell) goes up against dimestore Calvinists (who are certain they know just exactly who is in Hell), you don’t have to feel as though TIME magazine is arbitrating a dispute that never ever ever occurred to Christians before. Just … Read more

In Which We Deal with a Delicate Subject

A reader writes: I’m wondering if you could help me with a question about mortal sin. I recently learned that the Catechism teaches that masturbation, if done with full knowledge and consent, would count as a mortal sin. (I realize there are a few additional caveats.) Does this mean that masturbation is, in the eyes … Read more

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