What people say and what they really believe are often different.   There was the famous English free-thinker, Hobbes.  He used to stridently assert his whole life that there was neither God nor angel, still less was there a devil or hell.  Despite all his strident insistence, however, he had the greatest dread of evil spirits; even in his old age he was afraid of sleeping alone in a room.  What he openly denied, he secretly believed.

So it is with Hell.  Some, starting with people interpreting Hans Urs von Balthasar, began to comment that we can hope Hell will be empty.  Many people run from that supposition and think Hell will be empty.  That thinking is not too far from thinking there is no Hell.

We know better.

The index of the Writings of St. Maximillian Kolbe have very few mentions of Hell, however, he said that the Buddhists taught that there is a heaven and hell, but their teachers do not believe it.

St. Kolbe reported in his letter that he told the teachers who said this that they were deceiving people to teach in something they don’t believe in.

The buddhists replied, “nothing can be done about that.”

I agree with Kolbe:  

“It is not right to teach about things that are untrue.  If Heaven and Hell do not exist, everyone should know the truth.  But if they do exist, then they must apply to everyone, because before God all men are equal..”Maximillian Kolbe at letter 1268

Similarly, Fr. McBrien, the late theologian priest of Notre Dame University and author of the book Catholicism, wrote in that title that the Church never taught anyone went to Hell.  Countless people, festered by McBrien’s short talk ran with the notion that Hell is but a scare tactic, and no one goes there.

We should have no sympathy for these liars who would diminish the reality of Hell.  The possibility of death.  Our Lady warned us at Fatima that hell was real and showed the little children the vision of people tormented there.

The saints have constantly warned us.  Indeed, if you have been in a state of mortal sin before, you know… hell is real because you began to experience it here.

What good is it to prevaricate on this?  

Fr. Hardon would reply to these inane quips, with “If Hell is empty after all these years, then we must ask what crime does it take to go there?”

“No Catholic theologian in the United States has made a larger contribution to the reception of Vatican II than Richard McBrien did,” the Rev. Charles E. Curran, a professor of human values at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Curran…  who was a Catholic priest and was active on the board of the National Catholic Reporter would of course praise the likes of such stench.

But let’s get deeper here — let’s assume that the Hell is just a “scare tactic” for a moment..   Maybe these people are right, right?

Maybe those people who criticized St. Alphonsus Ligouri’s terrifying sermons on sin and punishment were right — scare tactics not needed and he was being “Dramatic”….

Maybe Bishop Barron’s response that when Our Lady showed the vision of Hell to the little children at Fatima, that it was just a private revelation.  Meaning, I suppose in my opinion on reading that response back then, was that Our Lady’s revelation was not a definitive teaching.