Pope Frankie "The Red": Hell is not a real place, just a state of mind.

[Anti Federalist]

Pope Francis denies that Hell is ‘a place,’ says it is ‘a posture towards life’

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/p...is-a-place-says-it-is-a-posture-towards-life/

The pope's latest scandalous comments contradict the teachings of the Church Fathers on the existence of Hell.
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Thu Mar 16, 2023 - 12:15 pm EDT

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In an interview to mark his 10-year anniversary, Pope Francis appeared to deny the existence of Hell, saying that “is not a place” but is instead simply “a state of the heart” and “a posture towards life.”

The pontiff’s comments formed part of a lengthy conversation conducted by Argentinian news site Perfil, one of a number of recent interviews the Pope granted journalists to mark his decade upon the papal throne. Touching on a number of topics he discussed with other reporters, Francis also spoke about his philosophical and theological thought, along with aspects relating to global politics.

As part of the in-depth discussion, Francis was asked, “What is your own interpretation of Hell and paradise, and what happens to people who go to Hell, and what happens to those who go to paradise?”

Giving a trademark lengthy, convoluted, and somewhat evasive answer, Francis appeared to deny the existence of Hell as an actual place. “Hell is not a place,” he said. “If one goes to attend the Last Judgment, and sees the faces of those who go to Hell, one gets scared. If you read Dante, you get scared. But these are media representations.”

Expanding on his answer, Francis described Hell simply as “a state” — a description which appeared to refer to a state of mind. “Hell is a state, there are people who live in Hell continuously.”

He clarified that he was not referring to suffering generally, but to “those who make a world of bad or sick self-referentiality, and end up living in Hell.”

Hell is a state, it is a state of the heart, of the soul, of a posture towards life, towards values, towards the family, towards everything. There are people who live in Hell because they seek it, there are others who do not, who are suffering. And who goes to Hell, to that Hell, to that state? They are already living from here.

Not content with appearing to deny the existence of Hell, however, Francis implied that there was no one actually in Hell — an about-turn in his argument that saw him appear to thus accept that Hell could be real.

“If you ask me how many people are in Hell, I answer you with a famous sculpture of the cathedral of Vézelay,” he said. Providing a description of the sculpture, Francis noted that the sculpture “has Judas hanging and the devil pulling him down, and on the other side they have the Good Shepherd, Jesus who grabs Judas and puts him on his shoulders with an ironic smile.”

“What does that mean?” he queried. “That salvation is stronger than damnation. This pilaster is a catechesis that should make us think.”

“God’s mercy is always at our side, and what God wants is always to be with his people, with his children, and not for them to leave him,” he ended.

His remarks echo those made in a controversial interview with atheist journalist Eugenio Scalfari, in which Scalfari claimed that Francis denied the existence of Hell and argued instead that “lost souls” were annihilated upon the death of the earthly body.

 

[ClaytonB]

This is Mount Etna in Sicily, which was an integral part of the trade-world of the Jews at the time of Jesus:

So, when Jesus uses the imagery of the "lake of fire" in "Hades", his (mostly) Jewish listeners, with broad exposure to Hellenistic culture and the Mediterranean trade-world, had a crystal clear idea of what he was referring to. Whether you believe hell is "literal" flames or not, the imagery is that of unendurable torment which you should be maximally motivated to flee as far as possible. Hell is one of those things that there's no point getting hung up on technical details about -- it's horrific beyond contemplation, so flee it. It can't get any simpler than that.

No matter how heretical the bishop of Rome may become, there are still Catholics who hold to the teachings of Jesus:



Softening the doctrine of hell is popular nowadays, because it seems to present God as "enlightened" to the many reasons why people wander off the path. "He became cruel because his father was cruel to him as a child. And then it just snowballed from there until he became what appears to us a monster. But really, he's just a misunderstood, abused 5-year-old who got stuck in his childhood abuse." This kind of all-purpose patronizing can be applied to any situation, any person, any life-story until you end up with the absurdity of trying to argue that Judas himself will escape hell because of some sob-story about how he ended up betraying the man he knew with certainty to be the divine Son of God for a pocket full of cash to be murdered for political purposes. This new view of God is opposed to the old, "unenlightened" God-of-wrath who is impatient and filled with irrational rage at all his creatures because they are so worthless and pathetic, while he is so perfect and awesome.

We sometimes hear people say, "I hope you burn in hell!" and this verbal utterance is itself hellish in nature, so it should not be found in the mouth of the believer. We should not confuse the human anger and hatred that finds its expression in words like these with the divine justice of God. They are two, wholly opposite things. God's holiness demands just punishment of evil. We can understand this because all of us have been injured and we understand that when authority intentionally corrupts justice and does not impose just punishment, the authority actually makes themselves an accomplice of the aggressor. God cannot do this because he is good. Therefore, he must punish evil. To do anything else would make him evil, and we hold that God is good, and Scripture also affirms this. At the same time, God is indeed merciful and does not want to see the wicked destroyed (Ezek. 33:11). He is so motivated by love, that he even gave up his only Son (John 3:16) to die on our behalf, and remove the punishment of our sins, if we believe in him.

Hell should cause everyone to reflect on the true gravity of their own sins. "I only stole a little." Every sin, every crime feels like a small thing to the one who is committing it, because they do not suffer the consequences of what they are doing. Someone else is forced to suffer the consequences, often in silence. But when you work out the recursive structure of this endless network of injury-begets-injury, you will realize the immensity of even one sin, you will realize that, indeed, just one act of disobedience can destroy an entire world, as Adam's disobedience has done. All the horrors of history, all the genocides and mass murders, all the war, pillaging, devastation, and so on, all springs from that one act of disobedience. And the same seed of destruction lies within each of our own sins. That's the true severity of sin!

The reality of eternal hell should be a comfort to us, not a source of loathing or consternation. Because God is just and loving and has provided the abundant sacrifice of his own Son, no one can "fall into hell" by accident. Those who go into the flames are those who fight God to the bitter end. Those who go into the flames do so eyes-wide-open. That God's justice in hell is boundless is a comfort because we know that the wicked cannot escape God's justice no matter how greatly they enlarge their crimes. No matter how big their lies, no matter how savage their murders, no matter how brutal their tyranny, no matter how carefully they have plotted and planned and calculated -- the mouth of hell opens itself even wider, the flames of hell are even hotter, and the belly of hell is even larger. The wicked cannot escape God's justice through their audacity. And this should bring great comfort to those of us who are trapped in a world that is characterized by the open-air audacity of unspeakable depravity. Let the reprobate be ever-so-audacious, they are merely stoking the fires of their own eternal torment!

“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
And establishes a town by injustice!
Has not the Lord Almighty determined
That the people’s labor is only fuel for the fire,
That the nations exhaust themselves for nothing?
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord
As the waters cover the sea.
(Habakkuk 2:12-14)

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

“The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

“But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

“He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

“Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

“‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

(Luke 16:19-31)

 

[Brian4Liberty]

...
God as "enlightened" to the many reasons why people wander off the path
...

God has become woke.

 

[Anti Federalist]

God has become woke.

They place a symbol of their sin and sodomy even above Christ in the pulpit.