Does anybody in the hierarchy still believe that not all dogs and people go to Heaven…at least immediately?
Following the announcement of John Paul II’s death, apparently all Holy Fathers now go directly by courtesy line to “the home of the Father.” And there have already been murmurings of “santo subito” about Francis. In his funeral homily, Cardinal Re asked Francis to “bless the whole world from Heaven” (emphasis added), while Cardinal Parolin assured congregants April 27 that “Pope Francis extends his embrace from Heaven.”
Would it not be more truthful to say “X has died,” “X has gone to God,” or that “X has gone to the Judgment Seat of God?” without necessarily presaging the outcome? Hebrews 9:27 says, “it is appointed for men once to die, and after death the judgment.” It does not say, “it is appointed for men once to die and then Heaven!”
Many popes have warned about a “loss of the sense of sin.” Our current ways of speaking eschatologically arguably prove that. Yes, Scripture assures us of a loving God. It also assures us, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31)—and not just if you are Hitler or Stalin.
When he saw God, Isaiah’s first reaction was to think himself “doomed” because of his sins, until his lips and heart are cleansed by the ember-bearing angel (Isaiah 6:1-7). Genuine sanctity does not stoke presumption. The greatest saints had the most refined sense of sin—not because they were scrupulous but because the nearer they approached being “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), the more they recognized how imperfect they were. That is the true humility of which saints are made.
I mention Isaiah because the episode of his prophetic vocation has been bowdlerized by Dan Schutte and sung with gusto Sundays at lots of Catholic parishes. Apart from the arrogance of singing in God’s name (the verses are all God speaking), the refrain selectively leaves Isaiah 6:1-7 on the cutting room floor, picking up at verse 8b: “Here I am, Lord!” In other words, “I’m ready and waiting!” omitting the sense of unworthiness before divine holiness.
Catholic eschatology recognizes that one must be “spotless and blameless” (2 Peter 3:14) to appear before the living God. We should be honest enough at least to give lip service to the confession we are all sinners (Romans 3:23). How one squares that admission with instant Beatific Vision remains unexplained.
Again, we hope all men are saved. But as we cannot be sure of that, our expressions ought not to suggest that.
We used to enumerate the “four last things always to be remembered” as death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. It seems judgment now receives passing reflection from short-term memory, while Hell clearly succumbed to amnesia.
And there’s no doubt these issues work together. The rise in practical universalism—“we ‘hope’ (wink, wink) all men will be saved”—is not the result of enormous popularity of the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar or Wacław Hryniewicz. It is very much the new ecclesial “party line,” one advanced not so much by promotion as by omission, what’s not said when speaking of the “Global Entry” line to the “home of the Father.”
Such approaches betray evangelization, ostensibly the mission and task of the Church in contemporary times. Jesus’ Gospel does not promise a celestial rose garden. It repeatedly warns of judgment, of separation of grain from chaff, wheat from tares, fruitful fig trees from barren ones. The Last Day is not presented as a universal victory celebration but as a time of definitive division, when some “will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). And Jesus warns against presuming we’re on the “right” side, because it is those on the left who are surprised their self-assessed goodness does not tally with the Lord’s assize.
Again, we hope all men are saved. But as we cannot be sure of that, our expressions ought not to suggest that.
We used to enumerate the “four last things always to be remembered” as death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell. It seems judgment now receives passing reflection from short-term memory, while Hell clearly succumbed to amnesia.
And there’s no doubt these issues work together. The rise in practical universalism—“we ‘hope’ (wink, wink) all men will be saved”—is not the result of enormous popularity of the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar or Wacław Hryniewicz. It is very much the new ecclesial “party line,” one advanced not so much by promotion as by omission, what’s not said when speaking of the “Global Entry” line to the “home of the Father.”
Such approaches betray evangelization, ostensibly the mission and task of the Church in contemporary times. Jesus’ Gospel does not promise a celestial rose garden. It repeatedly warns of judgment, of separation of grain from chaff, wheat from tares, fruitful fig trees from barren ones. The Last Day is not presented as a universal victory celebration but as a time of definitive division, when some “will go to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). And Jesus warns against presuming we’re on the “right” side, because it is those on the left who are surprised their self-assessed goodness does not tally with the Lord’s assize.
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