The End of Hell?
Sun May 25, 2008 9:22 pm (PDT)
World Mercy Congress 'Catches Fire' - The End of Hell?
Saturday April 5
By Dan Valenti
Read fuller report on the web at
http://www.insidethevatican.com/newsfla ... pr8-08.htm
ROME, April 5, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Is hell the weigh station to
heaven?
In a stunning ecumenical moment at the Catholic Church's first-ever
World Congress on Divine Mercy, Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion
Alfeyev, bishop of Vienna and Austria, told a rapt audience of 8,000
that God's love places no limit on his mercy toward humanity, even to
the point of imposing a temporal limit on hell.
Quoting St. Isaac the Syrian, a 7th-century holy man revered in
Russian
Orthodoxy as "famous among saints," Bishop Hilarion noted that "God
does
nothing out of retribution. Even to think that way about God would be
blasphemous. Even worse is the opinion that God allows people to lead
a sinful life on earth in order to punish them eternally after death.
This is a blasphemous and perverted understanding of God, a calumny
of God."
That teaching runs counter to Catholicism' s view of hell as a
destination of permanent damnation. And yet the "radically beautiful"
teaching, as one delegate put it, was not only allowed by
congressional organizers working in the name of Pope Benedict XVI, it
was invited.
Bishop Hilarian was speaking at invitation from the World Mercy
Congress international executive team, headed by Cardinal Christoph
Schonborn of Austria, a man seen by many Vatican watcher as a
potential successor to Pope Benedict.
The bishop said that Divine Mercy shows "God's full love," and for
that reason, St. Isaac was "quite resentful of the widespread opinion
that the majority of people will be punished in hell, and only a
small group of the chosen will delight in Paradise. He is convinced,"
the Bishop added, "that, quite to the contrary, the majority of
people will find themselves in the Kingdom of heaven, and only a few
sinners will go to Gehenna [hell], and even they only for the period
of time which is necessary for their repentance and remission of
sins."
Many observers were encouraged that the Vatican would include this
teaching as part of the congress, seeing in it a hopeful sign of
rapprochement between East and West. As one delegate put it, the
congress, having the courage the invite Bishop Hilarion, had "caught
fire."
warmly shaking hands. Schonborn is acting on Pope Benedict's behalf in
moderating the plenary sessions of the Congress.
Benedict opened the congress on Wednesday, April 2, with a Mass in St.
Peter's Square on the 3rd anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul
II.
The congress' plenary session are being held in St. John Lateran
Basilica, the cathedral of the Pope in his role as Bishop of Rome.
The Congress concludes Sunday, April 6 in St. Peter's Square.
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: "S Isaac the Syrian, a theologian of love and
mercy."
Paper delivered at the World Congress on Divine Mercy, Lateran
Basilica, Rome, 4 April 2008
Paper is here