Papal Office
Death Judgement
Heaven and Hell
Without doubt each person who reaches the use of reason
will go at death either to heaven or to hell.
There can be a temporary place for those who go to heaven, which is
called purgatory, the place where the saints without perfect cleanliness from
sin go for their purgation. However,
for this discussion We shall not deal with the topic of purgatory. From conception on, a person is alive
as long as his soul is united with his body.
If such a person in the womb or outside of the womb (after birth) dies
without the valid Sacrament of Baptism of Water before the use of reason (about
six or seven years of age) he will go to the Limbo of the Infants. There it
will enjoy natural happiness, but being without sanctifying grace it can never
enjoy the supernatural joy of beatific vision.
Once again, We are not dealing with this condition or state in this
discussion. We shall
treat with an obvious fact, that is, all of us will die, provided we are not
alive at the moment when the world ends.
Then God will judge the living and the dead. There are many causes of death, and of
those causes We shall give some consideration.
Death comes as a thief in the night.
Unless one commits suicide or is executed he generally does not know
when he will die. Since that is the
case, it is necessary for everyone to be ready for death at all times. Just what
is meant by being ready for death at all times? It means that one is always free from mortal sin, for even one
mortal alone is sufficient to place one in hell which has no end. Being free from mortal sin is had only when
one is in possession of sanctifying grace, the supernatural elevation of the
soul whereby it is capable of enjoying the beatific vision in heaven forever. One falls into mortal sin when he
violates a law of God in a serious matter.
Let us consider what enters into an act that makes a mortal sin. Catechisms define mortal sins as acts against
the laws of God in an “important matter with full knowledge of the evil and
full consent of the will.” Obviously, a person without the full use of reason
can neither do meritorious acts for heaven, nor can he do evil that merits for
him the punishments of hell. If perchance one falls into a mortal sin he remains in it until he
has repented for it and received forgiveness as God ordains. Forgiveness of sin can be sought and
expected only by those who place themselves in obedience to all of God’s
laws. Since the Ascension of Our Lord into
heaven He has His Church on earth, into which He commands every single person
to enter. No person who refuses to
enter the Church, that is, become a Catholic, can ask God for forgiveness and
expect forgiveness. His first act to
get out of mortal sin is to become a Catholic and to repent as God
directs. All this is part of Catholic
theology. Christ gave to those in His Church a
sacrament for the one purpose of freeing Catholics from mortal and venial
sins. They observe the divine command
to confess their sins to a representative of God, namely the Catholic priest,
and from him they receive absolution. Those outside the Church do not have
access to that sacrament, called, the Sacrament of Penance. Whether all normal adults know it or
not, they are either in the state of mortal sin or sanctifying grace. Those die in the state of mortal sin are
doomed to hell, while those in sanctifying grace are destined for heaven
provided they persevere in sanctifying grace until death. Death will find us either in mortal sin
or in sanctifying grace. God does not
make exemptions for persons. No matter
how high or low ones state in life may be, the test of mortal sin or
sanctifying grace is put to each person at death. There is an axiom which goes as
follows: It is a good and wholesome thought to often think of death. We
shall give you two incidents that will give caution to both those who are
zealous for their eternal salvation and for those who generally ignore the
means of salvation. The first incident is
as follows. A Religious Brother died,
and just before his funeral Mass the Religious brethren assembled in the chapel
where the body of the deceased Brother was lying in state. They began praying the Office for the Dead. As they proceeded a terrible voice came from
the coffin saying: “I have been judged by the just God.” The Brothers were amazed, and they had a
discussion as to the need to continue praying for one that seems to be in
hell. After some moments one
Brother urged that they still were not
sure if the deceased Brother was in hell.
At his suggestion the Brothers continued praying the Office for the
Dead. While the Office continued the corpse
arose a bit in the coffin, and he roared with a diabolic voice the
following: “I have been judged by the just God, and I am damned.” With that
clear sign that their deceased Brother was in hell the Brothers stopped praying
for him, and they interred him without prayerful rites. It is the pious belief, that those who give their lives to God as
priests and religious, that they will very likely go to heaven, but that is not
infallibly true. Every person, no
matter how well he is blessed, must struggle to make it to heaven. Just think that one of Christ’s apostles
very likely is in hell today and forever.
Judas betrayed Christ into the hands of His enemies and murderers, and
that after some years in close association with Christ and the other
apostles. If Judas had resisted his
greed for money when the first temptation came to him he would not have gone to
the point of betraying his Master for thirty pieces of silver. This sad ending is recorded in the
Scriptures which are, together with divine instruction, a true record of
history. We hear of cases where the wicked and
lukewarm people just continue their sinful lives saying that they will repent
just before they die. For those evil and careless souls We have an example of
history where a worldly and sinful man came to his moments before death. He saw his death coming, and he instructed
the woman who took care of him not to call any Protestant Ministers. He said he would not object to seeing
Catholic priests. The woman quickly
called two priests to his side. At
first the dying man spoke civilly with the priests, and when the topic of
eternal salvation came up he became furious, and he ordered the priests to
leave him alone. The priests suffered
the affront, and they urged him to make his peace with God before he leaves
this world in death. The gentleman became even more furious, and he demanded
that the priests depart from his presence.
Thereon one priest said to the other, “We better leave, for it seems
that he is now abandoned by God for his life long unwillingness to serve God
and thus get ready for death.” At the same time that We departed from
of the Novus Ordo Protestant Church, headed by bogus Pope Paul VI, We had the
good fortune, let us call it a special act of divine providence, whereby We
received a devotional booklet called NOVENA to the HOLY GHOST, composed
and published the Holy Ghost Fathers, 1615 Manchester Lane, N. W. Washington
11, D.C. with an imprimatur dated March 12, 1948. By the way, since the early
part of that year, that is in 1976, We have prayed that Novena every day
without an exception. That means that
We have prayed that novena without a break for twenty-nine years. At the same time, over those years, We made
very many copies on a simple copier. We
gave them out far and wide, and one person even produced a professionally made
copy, which We have for distribution right now. There is a three line poem at the start
of each day, and for the sixth day here is what it says: If Thou take Thy
grace away, Nothing pure in man will stay, All his good is turn’d to ill. At least that poem
gives a pious belief, sanctioned by an imprimatur under Pope Pius XII, where it
says that God may take His graces away from evil and undeserving persons even
before death. This is the belief,
expressed by the priests who were driven from a dying man’s bedside by himself
just when grace was needed most, that is, before his imminent death. Souls are lost not only for great and
fearful sins but also for sheer inertia.
They will do nothing in their estimation that is good, and they will do
nothing that evil. An illustration of
that state can be learned from the following incident. One cold winter
afternoon a school bus became stuck in the snow during a fearful snowstorm. It
occurred on a lonely road, so the bus driver told the children to remain in the
bus while he went to get help. Before the bus driver could get help he
was overtaken by the storm, and he died.
As time passed in the dark and cold bus, some of the children resigned
themselves to just sitting back and going to sleep. Fortunately, there were boys on the bus who knew that those who
are overcome by sleep, where it is freezing cold, die without even knowing the
danger. Hence, they forced the children
who wanted to sleep on the bus to jump around in the bus, going over the seats
and the like. They kept that up all
night, and the following morning when help came all the children were well and
happy. If they had followed the lazy
man’s course to sleep in those circumstances, the ending could have been
reversed, where all or nearly all would have perished without anxiety or pain. If one has
a slap-on-the-wrist concept of hell he will not fear it, and he will not work
to avoid it. We shall warn you of an
author as follows. We shall take a
quotation from a scholarly theology book (but too recent for an imprimatur)
entitled IOTA UNUM, by Romano Armero.
The book is sold by SARTOHOUSE, Kansas City, MO. It has 785 pages, and on page 700 one finds
the following watered-down definition or (explanation) of hell. “If one may
risk a metaphor, the condition of the lost (in hell) should be thought of as being
not so much an agony, as an infinitely long day of dimness and somber boredom.”
Catholic theology is very clear that there are two punishments in hell. One is the pain of loss, and the other is
the pain of sense. The book,
CATECHISM OF THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA of St. Thomas Aquinas, was written by R. P.
Thomas Degues, O.P. It has an
imprimatur dated 1922, and praised be to God forever, for it is available to
one and all. Buy it from Roman
Catholic Books, P.O. Box 2286, Fort Collins, CO 80522-2228. The price is
$17.95 plus $2.95 for the first book. The postage changes as orders increase. In the
above book you have the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas presented as a
catechism, that is, given in question
and answer. The Church teaches newcomers to the Church with catechisms, for
they make difficult doctrines both clear and generally easy to grasp. We quote
from the catechism of the Summa on pages 300 and 301. “What are the torments that the damned will suffer always? They are
twofold: the pain of loss and the pain of sense. What is
the pain of loss? It is the
privation of the infinite good, which is the beatific vision in heaven. Whence
is it that this punishment will be cruelly felt by the damned? It arises from this, that having arrived at the
term of their life they see the nothingness of all the things they sought in
life to the prejudice of the infinite good; they will then appreciate the
greatness of the good they have lost, and they will realize that they lost it
through their own fault entirely. Is not
this perpetual consciousness of having lost so great a good as the vision of
God called by the Gospel “the worm that never dies”? No;
one must understand these words of material fire; for they signify the pain of
sense. But how
can material fire act upon spirits or upon souls separated from the body? By a
special ordering of His justice, God communicates to this material fire the
preternatural power of serving as an instrument of His justice. Will all
the damned be tormented by the fire of hell in the same way? No, for
since it is used as an instrument of the divine justice, its action will be
proportioned to the nature, number, and gravity of the sins committed by each
one.” (End of quotation) The words
of St. Thomas are without ambiguity, that is, clear and to the point. The words of Romano Amerio, quoted above, in
scholarly jargon, deny the sufferings of hell as being “an agony.” All orthodox
Catholic authors speak with one voice, namely, that there are two punishments in hell, namely, the punishment of loss
and the punishment of sense. You may ask
why We deal with the topic of hell in a newsletter. It is to do for all of you what divine revelation is made to
do. It encourages us to live a life
that will bring us to heaven and at the same time to live a life that will keep
us from hell. Our
determination should be that we will never, even once, commit a mortal sin, for
even just one mortal sin on the soul at death means that the person will have
to suffer in hell forever. Furthermore,
the more mortal sins one has on his soul at death the more intense will his
punishments be. God will reward the
saved in all justice, and He will also punish the damned in all justice. The first
thing that We shall state in regard to sin is this. Merely being outside God’s one, holy, catholic and apostolic
Church, with a responsible conscience, is mortally sinful, and one can get out
of that mortal sin only by entering the Church. If a person should live without even one other sin, that sin of
refusing to be in God’s Church will bring him to hell. We are the Pope, the head of God’s one and
only Church, so you must be united with Us in the Catholic Church if you are to
get to heaven. Of course, as said
above, any mortal sin on the soul at death puts one in hell forever. It is a sad
fact; there are very few people, the world over, that are subject to Us in the
Catholic Church. Hence, We can say with
the mere use of human reason, that about 99.99 percent of the people on earth
today are all set up to enter hell. You
are entitled to despise Us or worse still, to curse Us, for the above judgment,
but you cannot change reality. All the
people on earth that did not get on the Ark with Noe, drowned in the flood, and
there were no exceptions. The work of
eternal salvation is a daily concern for every Catholic. The laws of God and His Church lead them to
live holy lives. However, those who
become careless and fall into mortal sin have the need to get out of those sins
as soon as possible, for nobody knows when he will die. We must be prepared, that is, be in the
state of sanctifying grace at all times. Those who commit a mortal sin must
have recourse to the Sacrament of Penance when that is available. When the
sacrament of penance is not available the Catholic in mortal sin can get out of
mortal sin by either an act of perfect love or the act of perfect
contrition. Those who are not, as God
commands, in His Church are unable to obtain forgiveness, until they obey God’s
command to be in his Church. For the
instruction of the non-Catholic, and the use of the Catholic, We here give the
form of a short act of perfect contrition. Oh, my God I am heartily
sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because I dread the
loss of heaven and fear the pains of hell, but most of all because they offend
Thee my God who art all good in Thyself and deserving of all my
love. I firmly resolve with the help of
Thy grace to confess my sins, to do penance and to amend my life. Amen. It
is important to know that neither forgiveness of sins nor increase in
sanctifying grace can be had without actual grace a) preceding, b) accompanying
and c) following out human actions. It
is fearful to advert to the possibility that one by his very evil life, may cut
off the flow of actual grace. Hence,
ask God not only for help to say the act of contrition (and the like) properly,
but also for actual grace to accompany it. We
feel that a solemn warning from Our Lord, Jesus Christ will convince you to
profit from this entire newsletter. His
words are taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew, chapter 16, verses 24
to 27. Our Lord said: Then
Jesus said to his disciples: if any man will come after me, Let him deny
himself and take up his cross and follow me.
For he that will save his life shall lose it: and he that shall lose his
life for my sake shall find it. For
what doeth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of
his own soul? For the Son of man
shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels: and then he will
render to every man according to his works.” In other words, He will
give both just punishments and just rewards according as we have lived our
lives here on earth. Without a shadow
of a doubt, every reader of this letter will eventually be either in heaven or
in hell, as he justly deserves. A
casual observation of how most people live shows that they are unaware that
each moment of life is given to man for the purpose of increasing in
sanctifying grace and merit. We shall
be rewarded in proportion as to how much sanctifying grace and how much merit
we have at the moment of death. After
death no Catholic can do anything about augmenting his degree of reward in
heaven. In the
Gospel according to St. Luke chapter 19, verses 12 to 26 one reads the account
where the Lord gave money to his servants to use during his absence. Some use it to great profit, and they were
rewarded, but the one who hid his treasure was punished as seen in the last
verse: “But as for those my enemies who would not have me reign over them,
bring them hither and kill them before me.” This
scenario is repeated in the Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 25, verses 14 to 30
with the example of talents. Those who
used their talents and made progress were rewarded in proportion as they
increased their gift. However, the one
who did nothing to increase his gift was treated by the master as follows: “Take ye away therefore the talent from him
and give it to him that hath ten talents.
For to every one that hath shall be given and he shall abound: but from
him that hath not that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away. And the unprofitable servant, cast ye out
into the exterior darkness. There shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” We want you
to take home two lessons from the parables above. God rewards the good, and He punishes the wicked, and he that
does nothing is clearly seen also as punishable with eternal damnation. Let us
live according to God’s laws and aspire to His promised reward. Any other life is not only a waste of time
but also a liability leading to eternal punishment in hell.DEATH
Doctrine On Hell
Pius, pp. XIII
Oct 24, 2005
Top of Pageto Papal Secretary
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