medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
World Mercy Congress 'Catches Fire'
The End of Hell?
Saturday April 5, 2:57 am ET
By Dan Valenti
Read fuller report on the web at
http://thedivinemercy.org/news/story.php?NID=3132
ROME, April 5, 2008 /PRNewswire/ -- Is hell the weigh station to heaven?
In a stunning ecumenical moment at the Catholic Church's first-ever World
Congress on Divine Mercy, Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, bishop
of Vienna and Austria, told a rapt audience of 8,000 that God's love places
no limit on his mercy toward humanity, even to the point of imposing a
temporal limit on hell.
Quoting St. Isaac the Syrian, a 7th-century holy man revered in Russian
Orthodoxy as "famous among saints," Bishop Hilarion noted that "God does
nothing out of retribution. Even to think that way about God would be
blasphemous. Even worse is the opinion that God allows people to lead a
sinful life on earth in order to punish them eternally after death. This is
a blasphemous and perverted understanding of God, a calumny of God."
That teaching runs counter to Catholicism's view of hell as a destination of
permanent damnation. And yet the "radically beautiful" teaching, as one
delegate put it, was not only allowed by congressional organizers working in
the name of Pope Benedict XVI, it was invited.
Bishop Hilarian was speaking at invitation from the World Mercy Congress
international executive team, headed by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of
Austria, a man seen by many Vatican watcher as a potential successor to Pope
Benedict.
The bishop said that Divine Mercy shows "God's full love," and for that
reason, St. Isaac was "quite resentful of the widespread opinion that the
majority of people will be punished in hell, and only a small group of the
chosen will delight in Paradise. He is convinced," the Bishop added, "that,
quite to the contrary, the majority of people will find themselves in the
Kingdom of heaven, and only a few sinners will go to Gehenna [hell], and
even they only for the period of time which is necessary for their
repentance and remission of sins."
Many observers were encouraged that the Vatican would include this teaching
as part of the congress, seeing in it a hopeful sign of rapprochement
between East and West. As one delegate put it, the congress, having the
courage the invite Bishop Hilarion, had "caught fire."
warmly shaking hands. Schonborn is acting on Pope Benedict's behalf in
moderating the plenary sessions of the Congress.
Benedict opened the congress on Wednesday, April 2, with a Mass in St.
Peter's Square on the 3rd anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II.
The congress' plenary session are being held in St. John Lateran Basilica,
the cathedral of the Pope in his role as Bishop of Rome. The Congress
concludes Sunday, April 6 in St. Peter's Square.
Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev: "S Isaac the Syrian, a theologian of love and
mercy"
Paper delivered at the World Congress on Divine Mercy, Lateran Basilica,
Rome, 4 April 2008
Paper is here
http://www.insidethevatican.com/newsflash/2008/newsflash-apr8-08.htm
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