Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Hell, no


A Melbourne father says his five-year-old son was barred from enrolling in a local Catholic school because of his surname – Hell.

I wonder what Catholic Priest Father Maximilian Hell would think of that decision. Perhaps the Pope should sack Sydney's senior bishop George Pell because his name rhymes with hell.

Interesting, too that the new Pope believes hell is a real place The last one didn't. Some say he does now!

5 comments:

Lucia Maria said...

I don't think you can infer from that comment that the last Pope didn't believe Hell was a real place.

Swimming said...

During his weekly address to the general audience of 8,500 people at the Vatican on July 28, 1999, Pope John Paul II rejected the reality of a physical, literal hell as a place of eternal fire and torment. Rather, the pope said hell is separation, even in this life, from the joyful communion with God. According to an official Vatican transcript of the pope's speech, Pope John Paul II noted that the Scriptural references to hell and the images portrayed by Scripture are only symbolic and figurative of "the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. " He added, "Rather than a physical place, hell is the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy." He said hell is "a condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life."

Lucia Maria said...

I don't disagree with any of that, as life in the hereafter is not physical. What the Pope was really showing was that we separate ourselves from God and when we die, we continue to be separate. It may as well be a place because of that, even if Hell does not exist in physical realm.

Anonymous said...

The long serving leader of the catholic church in the philipines (80% catholic) would be turning in his grave.
"Cardinal Sin"

Anonymous said...

David
I think we should look to a higher authority.
Jesus.

I think his comments on Hell (Gehenna) bear some thought.
After all if the Christians have got it right, He made the place.

MikeNZ