“Vatican scrambles after pope appears to deny existence of hell.”
“The controversy came as Pope Francis washed the feet of 12 prisoners at Rome’s Regina Coeli prison on Holy Thursday. Among the inmates were two Muslims, an Orthodox Christian and a Buddhist. He told them: “Everyone has the opportunity to change life and one cannot judge.”
It was the fourth time since becoming pope that he held mass in an Italian prison. “I am a sinner like you but today I represent Jesus … God never abandons us, never tires of forgiving us,” he added.”
OK, and where’s the problem?
Since ‘nihil sine Deo’, where’s the difference between ‘disappearing’ and ‘becoming definitively separated from God’?!?
If I’m not mistaken – and I’m not, many people belonging to the same Catholic church once behaved as if sinners were able to buy ‘respite tickets from hell’, for themselves or for their friends and family…
“The Council of Trent instituted severe reforms in the practice of granting indulgences, and, because of prior abuses, “in 1567 Pope Pius V canceled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions” (Catholic Encyclopedia). This act proved the Church’s seriousness about removing abuses from indulgences.”
Humans are biased. We tend to interpret what we are told and to bend everything we learn towards what we want to believe.
How about going back to basics.
God loves us.
Simply because He had made us in His own image.
And, just like any other reasonable parent, He knows that His children are far from being perfect. Hence He must have had perfected a method to correct our transgressions.
On the other hand, eternal damnation doesn’t make much sense, does it?
What loving Father could envision any number of his children suffering till the end of time, whenever that might come?
What about a simpler alternative than trying to out-guess God?
“For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.“
1 Corinthians 2:11
Pope Francis’s words make a lot of sense. To me!
There’s also very little difference between his interpretation of hell and that expressed by Pope John Paul II.
How can anything continue to exist when separated from the all encompassing God?
What loving Father would give up, for good, any number of his children? Regardless of their transgressions…
Who has done this and carried it through, calling forth the generations from the beginning?
I, the Lord—with the first of them and with the last—I am he.”
Isaiah 41:4
You see, adding the fact that we’re all sinners to the possibility of an eternal hell would lead us to the conclusion that we’re all doomed. For the eternity.
If God would allow it, of course.
Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
Then how about us striving to minimize our sins here, while we still have this opportunity, and leave the rest to somebody who knows better?
nicichiarasa 