Letters

Hell? (letter)

P.J. Jones

Contents - Dec 2000 - Buy a copy now Editorial: At the end of the Year of Jubilee: an audit - Michael Gilchrist ACU - when will the 'Statement of Conclusions' be implemented? - Michael Gilchrist Jubilee Congress of Families: Rome report - Anthony Cappello News: The Church Around the World C.S. Lewis: Christian apologist - Sarah Macdonald G.K. Chesterton: fresh and accessible today - Dale Ahlquist The 'new breed' of orthodox seminarians - Carter H. Griffin Australian Foundation to back new Pontifical University New Australian women's religious order - Sr Carmel Doherty Letters: Clarification (letter) - Bishop James Foley Letters: Priest shortage (letter) - Bernard O'Connor Letters: Spiritual Poverty (letter) - Joe Garreffa Letters: 'Creating Our Future' (letter) - Patricia Byrnes Letters: Toowoomba Diocese (letter) - Maria Lossberg Letters: Serious duties (letter) - Myles M. Kehoe Letters: Rainbow Serpent (letter) - Hans Klaver Letters: Positive response (letter) - Geoff Taylor Letters: The Church in China (letter) - Francis Vrijmoed Letters: Corrected translation (letter) - Hugh Henry Letters: Remembrance services (letter) - Richard Grant Letters: Women's ordination (letter) - Dr Frank Mobbs Letters: Misguided (letter) - Joyce Pearson and Marie Kennedy Letters: Wordiness (letter) - Kathleen Murnane Letters: Hell? (letter) - P.J. Jones Letters: Sermons (letter) - Gordon R. Coomber Letters: EWTN programs (letter) - John Lovegrove Books: 200 Years of Faith: A Multimedia Tour of the Holy Land - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'Biblical Holy Places: An Illustrated Guide' by Rivka Gonen - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: 'John Paul II's Book of Mary', compiled by Margaret R. Bunson - Anthony Cappello (reviewer) Books: 'Anti-Catholicism in American Culture', edited by Robert Lockwood - Michael Daniel (reviewer) Summer School of Evangelisation 2001 Reflection: The coming of Christ on earth - Pope John Paul II

What's happened to Hell? The question here is not about its nature - whether it is fire and brimstone, eternal deprivation of the vision of God, or endless viewing of TV commercials - but about the long-standing silence of the Church on the subject.

The absence of Hell from homilies during the past 30 years deserves comment and explanation. Before Vatican II, numerous Catholic priests made reputations through their frequent Dantesque descriptions from the pulpit of the eternal fire awaiting unrepentant sinners. Although these zealous Jeremiahs probably caused distress and over-scrupulosity even among the blameless, they provided salutary reminders that God is not mocked and must not be lightly dismissed as merely a God of love.

With the pendulum of attitudes to Hell now having swung from heavy emphasis to total neglect, it is as if a golden age of virtue has suffused the Catholic community, making Hell redundant. The word itself seems to have lost ecclesiastical correctness and been consigned to the dustbin with other four-letter words of ill-repute.

A priest once made the point to me more delicately. "Hell," he said, "is played down by the Church these days as too negative," from which it seemed to me reasonable to conclude that the Church has decided not to confront congregations with a topic about which they would rather not be reminded. Perhaps, also, mention of sin, obligations and other unpleasantness would encourage further defections.

One result of this continuing tenderness for people's sensitivities, however, has been the emptying of pews and the absence of the once familiar sight of queues at confessionals on Saturday afternoons - an enigmatic situation at a time not notable for public or private virtue, inside or outside the Catholic community.

Have personal-convenience con- sciences - what the Pope calls relativism - taken over?

It used to be said that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Would some fearless prelate or priest please inform us as to what has happened to Hell, and why?

P. J. JONES
Hamilton, NSW

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 13 No 11 (December 2000 - January 2001), p. 16