The traditional doctrine of the Church on hell is no longer in style in the Conciliar Church. In the parishes, the modernist priests for some time now have relegated the belief in hell to the attic of the past, as if it was a concept invented in the Middle Ages by superstitious and weak spirits. The Pope himself, in a pontificate of nearly 22 years, has not to our knowledge, ever preached 'ex professo' about hell. Does this not seem logical in view of the spirit of "Universal Redemption", of "man's union to Christ by the Incarnation", of the "belonging of every man to the Church", which constitutes the base of the teachings of John Paul II?

Yet, on the occasion of a general audience to several thousand pilgrims meeting recently in Rome on August 28th, in the sad hall 'Paul VI', our present Pope embarked on the theory of hell.

"Hell", the Pope said, "is not a chastisement from God inflicted from the exterior, but is the ultimate consequence of sin, acting against the person who committed it. It is the situation in which someone definitely rejects the mercy of the Father even at the last instant of life, thus subtracting himself forever from the joyful communion with Him.

To describe this reality, Holy Scripture utilizes a symbolic language describing itself progressively. The New Testament projects a new light on the condition of the dead, especially in announcing that Christ, by His Resurrection, has conquered death and has also brought His liberating power to the kingdom of the dead. In having recourse to images, the New Testament presents the destiny to the worker of iniquity as an ardent furnace.

The images that Holy Scripture presents to us about hell should be interpreted correctly. They indicate a complete frustration and the emptiness of life without God. Hell designates, more than one place, the situation of those who freely and definitely separate themselves from God, the source of life and joy. In this way the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes this topic of the Faith: '. . . . this state of definite auto-exclusion of the communion with God and with the beloved which is designated by the word hell."

The Christian faith teaches .... that certain creatures have already said no to God. It concerns spiritual creatures which we call devils. Damnation remains a real possibility. But without a special divine revelation, it is not given to us to know if there are human beings who are definitely affected, and who they are.

The thought of hell, and especially the improper use of biblical pictures, should not create a psychosis, or a state of anguish, but represent a necessary and saving warning to our liberty within the announcement that the resurrected Jesus has conquered Satan.

Let us sum up the pope's thinking by underlining the three most contestable pronouncements:

1. The fire of hell would only be an image, a symbolic language.

2. Hell will not be a chastisement inflicted from the outside, but the ultimate consequence of sin.

3. We will not know, unless by a special divine revelation, if there is someone in hell.

The first two pronouncements considerably minimize the sufferings of the damned and oppose the teaching of all Tradition, by denying the reality of a fire in hell and even the reality of any chastisement applied from the exterior by God, But most of the affirmations of Holy Scripture about hell contain a direct allusion to a second pain, different from the one the theologians call the pain of loss. Our Lord and the Apostles speak of an inextinguishable fire, of an ardent furnace, of flames ... It is an object of Divine and Catholic Faith that the chastisements of hell consists in a twofold pain: the pain of loss, which is essentially the deprivation of the beatific vision, and a positive pain inflicted by God to the damned with the aid of an exterior instrument which Scripture calls 'fire'. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that this double pain of the damned is necessary because of the double disorder implied by each serious sin: to turn away from God, the only Supreme and Ultimate good, and to turn towards a creature to make it the ultimate end.

The first disorder is punished in all justice by the pain of loss, deprivation of the vision of God in His Glory. "Get away from me damned!" As to the second disorder, it corresponds to the other half of the same quotation: "Go to the eternal fire" (Matt. 10:41). "It is just that this disorderly love which directs the sinner towards the created goods be punished by a positive chastisement of which a created being would be the instrument" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentes, III, 144).

What is the precise nature of this mysterious fire? The Church has not defined it . But "the existence of an excruciating pain besides the pain of loss is a truth of the Divine and Catholic Faith" (A. Michel, Les mysteres de I'Au-dela, p. 50). All the ecclesiastic documents, in confirming the existence of pains, torments, chastisement of hell, present to our belief the double pain: pain of loss, and pain of the senses. Hence for example Pope Innocent III (who reigned from 1 198 to 1216), in a letter to Ymbert, Archbishop of Aries, which letter is enclosed in the 3^rd book of Decretals, establishes the distinction between the two pains: privation of the sight of God, which is the chastisement for original sin, and the torment of eternal hell, which is the chastisement for actual sin.

On the other hand "that the fire of hell be a real fire and not a metaphoric one, is a doubtless theological truth, based on the consensus of the Fathers, of the Theologians and of the Christian people, so that the opposite affirmation is at least foolhardy" (Josepho F. Sagries, S.J., in Sacrae Theologiae Summa, B.A.C., Tract. VI De Novissimis).

Secondly We must deplore the absence, in the papal statement, of the idea of God's Justice which necessitates the revenge of His scorned infinite Love. Although the Pope, quoting the Apocalypse, says that "each person will be judged according to their works", he is silent on the essential bond between the state of damnation and God's Justice.

To present hell uniquely as the situation of the sinner who is separated forever from the joyful reunion with God, is not a sufficient manner to speak even of the pain of loss. First, John-Paul II does not explain why and how it will be a suffering, and the worst of all. Secondly, he is silent on the idea of the penalty of Right, of Justice, of Duty, of the Order despised by the sinner.

It is, after all, an essential concept to understand the terrible reality of hell. The Divine Justice and Wisdom demands that the offense committed to God be atoned for. The pain, the chastisement, in reparation for the outraged Divine Love, does restore the proper Order in the Universe. Sin, in effect, is a certain kind of infinite evil: the sinner outrages the Sovereignty of God who has given him a spiritual nature and a spontaneous desire for eternal happiness, but for a precise and necessary end: that He, Himself, fully satisfies that desire, that He, Himself be loved as the Supreme Good and End. But the sinner utilizes this spiritual nature and this desire of happiness against God, rejecting Him as the True Eternal Good, and choosing a creature instead.

It is clear that this constitutes a disorder which is a supreme injustice, a theft of something that be- longs only to God. Thus it is appropriate that the Justice of God and His Infinite Wisdom demands, as reparation of this disorder, that the happiness desired by the sinner should be radically opposed. Thus pain is the merited chastisement. Being the penalty of the sovereign right of our outraged God, the chastisement reestablishes this outraged Order: it makes the sinner feel, against his own will, the effects of that sovereignty that he has so boldly repudiated.

Finally, just as serious in practice, John-Paul 11 affirms that "we have no knowledge if anyone is concerned about hell, unless from a special Divine Revelation". This sentence is scandalous and contrary to the sentiments of all the Doctors of the Church. Our Lord has said: "Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter that way. But narrow the gate and close the way that leads to life and few there are who find it" (Matt. 7:13). The Church, it is true, has never defined how many souls are saved, not even relatively to the number of the damned. But to publicly preach that it would be unknown if anyone is in hell (which presents the theory of an empty hell as a possibility) is scandalous, even foolhardy and completely contrary to the sentiments of the Doctors and of the Saints. It must be known that the Sacred Congregation of the Index, in a decree dated May 22^nd. 1772, has condemned the Chapter 5 of a book published by Father Gravina, S.J., In which the author pretended that: "It is probable that the number of the elect is far greater than the number of the damned." And pope Pius IX has condemned the following proposition (No. 17) in his famous Syllabus against modern errors : "At least we should have good hope of eternal salvation for all those who do not belong in any way to the true Church of Christ."

This condemnation does not deal directly with the number of the elect or of the damned, but we can draw at least this conclusion from it : those who do not belong in any way to the true Church of Christ are probably not saved.

Save to pretend, with the New Theology of Vatican II but against the entire Tradition, that every human being belongs to the true Church of Christ in a way or another, consciously or not, we may deduce (indirectly) from the proposition No. 17 condemned by pope Pius IX, that many human beings are probably not saved.

To draw a conclusion, we should ask ourselves: what is left of that salutary fear which has converted so many sinners and which is so justly, desired by God in a portrait of Wisdom and Goodness as well as justice, in this endeavor of John-Paul II to soften the suffering of hell by denying the pain of fire and by minimizing the danger of falling into it?

Is not the fear of hell in this life one of the most effective means to distance ourselves from sin? "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling" said St. Paul (Philip. 2:12). And the same St. Paul wrote to the Hebrews: "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb. 10:31).

John-Paul II remembered that hell is part of the teaching of the Gospel and of the Church. But what is left of the traditional teachings of the Church in the Pope's thoughts when he reinterprets Scripture and the Magisterium to conform to his liberal and ecumenical utopia?