The Church’s Teaching about Hell.

In C.C. 1033 of the Roman Catholic catechism the Church teaches that we cannot be united with God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbour, or against ourselves. If we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin, without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever, by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from God and the blessed is called hell.

While some cannot be convinced against their will that hell exists, conscience dictates to us that there is something beyond the grave. What waits for us is our reward or punishment for our lives lived out here on the earth. To deny this teaching of the Church is to deny the reality of sin, and what God had to do to remedy this problem. To deny hell, is to deny the need for forgiveness by the death and resurrection of Christ, which is to deny the foundation of our faith, and the foundation of the Church.

Some believe that this traditional view of hell is antiquated and meant to only scare people into believing, that the Bible doesn’t teach an eternal hell as punishment for the unrepentant. But the Bible is clear about hell, what they are denying is that it actually exists. I believe this is a way to blind people to seeing reality as it actually is. If we can convince the world that the Church is wrong about hell, then it loses it’s credibility and authority. However there is no way to actually prove that Heaven or Hell exists, so the fight then becomes to chip away at the Church’s teaching about hell in the hopes that enough people will reject it’s teaching, and thus causing doubt within people’s minds about this important reality.

Why some people want to outright deny this truth, holds them more responsible for their sins not less. It is one thing to privately deny the existence of hell, but when your goal becomes an agenda so to speak, to lead others astray, you are compounding your sin against the Church and God even further. Yes, God is the judge, but humans are brothers and sisters and need to hold one another accountable at times. Regardless of what you think of the times we are living in, God’s truth never changes, and if you are trying to save your own life, in the words of Jesus (Matthew 16:25) you will lose it! This is Mike.

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