UPDATE: Why would a nice priest go to hell?

If I’m not mistaken, this is the photo that was taken of the three Fatima children just after the vision of souls falling into hell like snowflakes shown to them by our Lady of the Rosary, as our Lady of Fatima called herself. The eyes tell the story, as does the clutching of the rosary beads. We know what happens to snowflakes when they get near fire, don’t we? We don’t want anyone going to hell, do we?

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UPDATE: Justin sends in this photo, which, after research, says is the photo taken on 13 July. They don’t look happy at all:

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Universal salvation is a heresy asserted by those who, apparently, have never even once read the Gospel. Cardinal Hans Urs von Balthasar (///Adrienne von Speyr) did not want people to assert this. But he is their hero for claiming there is no hell should one hope that all men be saved. We know that all are redeemed, and since we don’t know who will or will not be saved, we are in anguish that all men be saved, though we know that not all will, in fact, be saved.

I’m no follower of the extremely imprecise terminology used so very ambiguously by his Eminence. He gets the title, even if not the red hat.

Let’s use some clear terminology, shall we, my fellow priests and bishops, lest we lead our flock to hell, as if it were thought anyone could do anything, as if there were no hell? Let’s just take one chapter of Matthew:

• “Lord! Lord! Open up [the gates of heaven] for us!” But, having answered, He said, “Amen, amen, I say to you, I do not know you” (Matthew 25,11-12). [The most frightening words than one would ever hear.]
• “Throw this worthless slave out, into the outside-darkness. [Can't be more cast out and inescapably enveloped in eternal darkness than that, can one?] There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25,30). [This comes about with frustration, eternal frustration, no?]
• “And all the nations will be gathered together before Him, and He will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matthew 25,32). [No purgatory after that. Just heaven or hell.]
• “Amen I say to you, inasmuch as you did it not to one of these least ones, you did it not to me, and these will depart into eternal punishment” (Matthew 25,45-46). [And it all comes crashing home.]

All these are parables and therefore false, or just a warning, right? Wrong.

The first two are from parables, but parables reflect reality, don’t they? Our Lord is not an idiot, is He?

The last two are not from a parable, but from a description of how things will, in fact, be, at the last judgment. To say this is untrue or just a warning is to call our Lord a liar. But it is Satan who is the father of lies, no?

And so, why would a nice priest – a consensus builder, always prompt with the sacraments (at least Mass, at least on weekends), and always there for meetings, even for the committee arrangement of this or that spiritual or corporal work of mercy, just pack off and go to hell, condemned by our Lord, when all along he thought — and everyone else thought — he was just, well, such a nice priest?

He would go to hell most likely for being so very nice instead of being charitable in all truth. An exam of conscience is in order. One of these days I’ll have to publish a more comprehensive list.

• Did I lead people astray in the confessional or in answers to questions outside the confessional, telling them that such and such grave sin was no sin at all, just to be nice? Did I offer them “internal forum solutions” when these are not solutions at all, and only keep people in their sin? Did I absolve them even though they did not at all want to repent and try to change their lives with the grace of our Lord? Did I neglect offering the sacrament of reconciliation?
• Did I celebrate the sacraments just to draw attention to myself, so that when I protest to Christ that I prophesied in His name, that I absolved sin in His name, and that I even acted in His Person during Mass, all in His name, He will just reply: “Get away from me, you evildoer; I never knew you.”
• Did I use the priesthood as a power play, so that women got the idea that since it is all about power, and nothing more, then they can become priests too, just so as to get away from the male-oppressive-hierarchy? Did I neglect that I am to be a father to the family of faith, so that I was just an administrator of power, and not of true service, pointing the children of the family of faith to Jesus.

I’m sure we can all think of more reasons, but this is enough to get started, no? To aim at purgatory instead of hell would probably only get us as far as hell, so let’s aim at heaven, so that perhaps we might get to purgatory!

Next: Why would any priest go to purgatory?