The secrets of Fatima, can be reconciled to a loving God (theodicity)?

Yes Carmel I have long found the best way to read scripture is as literally as possible. It is like the tracks for a railroad. When Scripture talks of fire it means fire, when it talks of a worm that never dies it means a worm that never dies.

 

I think the discussion here was not about Hell but about the secret of Fatima revealed in 1941. I understand that someone wanted to make the connection between punishment an Hell to prove I am wrong when I said that I do not believe in a God who punishes his sons. Apart from the fact that my questions or objections have not been properly answered, they were not related to the problem of if God can punish people in Hell but to the idea of whether or not God actually punishes people living on earth or if He can ameliorate evil. This is not an easy question. Regarding the doctrine of the Church about Hell I do not see why I am so wrong when I said, and agree with what my Church teaches me, that the ultimate punishment for sinners is the eternal separation from God. If there are physical torture or not I think is not the major theological problem here. I do not think so. As I did not think that Limbo was an actual place where the non-baptized babies where going to stay eternally. The Church modified its view about it and, since, 2007, there is not such a place. Why could not the same apply to the details of the physical torture on Hell? Something that, by the way, is difficult to imagine when we will be resurrected with a different body.

But, people, this is deviating attention to the major thing we were discussing here. Conclusion: I do not think God punishes directly people when living on earth. But, of course, you do not have to think like me.

 

Hell as a place or a state

Writing in the 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia, Joseph Hontheim said that "theologians generally accept the opinion that hell is really within the earth. The Church has decided nothing on this subject; hence we may say hell is a definite place; but where it is, we do not know. " He cited the view of Saint Augustine of Hippo that hell is under the earth and that of Saint Gregory the Great that hell is either on the earth or under it.[57] On the other hand, Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) said that "we must see that hell is not an object that is 'full' or 'empty' of human individuals, but a possibility that is not 'created' by God but in any case by the free individuals who choose it".[58] The Catholic Faith Handbook for Youth, with imprimatur of 2007, also says that "more accurately" heaven and hell are not places but states.[59] Capuchin theologian Berard A. Marthaler also says that "hell is not 'a place'".[60]
Many have in the past considered hell to be a place.[61] Some have rejected metaphorical interpretations of the biblical descriptions of hell,[62] and have attributed to hell a location within the earth,[63] while others who uphold the opinion that hell is a definite place, say instead that its location is unknown.[64]
Other Catholics neither affirm nor deny that hell is a place, and speak of it as "a place or state". Ludwig Ott's work "The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" said: "Hell is a place or state of eternal punishment inhabited by those rejected by God".[65] Robert J. Fox wrote: "Hell is a place or state of eternal punishment inhabited by those rejected by God because such souls have rejected God's saving grace. "[66] Evangelicals Norman L. Geisler and Ralph E. MacKenzie interpret official Roman Catholic teaching as: "Hell is a place or state of eternal punishment inhabited by those rejected by God. "[67]
The Catechism published by Pope Pius X in 1908 defined hell by using the word "state" alone: "Hell is a state to which the wicked are condemned, and in which they are deprived of the sight of God for all eternity, and are in dreadful torments. "[68]
Pope John Paul II stated on 28 July 1999 that, in speaking of hell as a place, the Bible uses "a symbolic language", which "must be correctly interpreted … Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. "[69] Some have interpreted these words as a denial that hell can be considered to be a place, or at least as providing an alternative picture of hell.[70] Others have explicitly disagreed with the interpretation of what the Pope said as an actual denial that hell can be considered a place,[71] and have said that the Pope was only directing attention away from what is secondary to the real essence of hell.[72]
In a homily that he gave on 25 March 2007, Pope Benedict XVI stated: "Jesus came to tell us that he wants us all in heaven and that hell, of which so little is said in our time, exists and is eternal for those who close their hearts to his love. "[73][74] Journalist Richard Owen's interpretation of this remark as declaring that hell is an actual place was reported in many media[75]

 

As you see, many interpretations are possible and I, with many other Catholics, think Hell is a state of inmense spiritual suffering rather than a place.

 

But, ironically, many decide to interpret private revelations and they do not take them literally

 

Padraig,

Does that mean Joey Lomangino WILL get his eyesight back or will he see with eyes of faith? This idea of interpretation has always bothered me. When Fr Gobbi said the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will occur by the great jubilation of the year 2000, can someone explain this to me? what did he mean? Or, was it just a false apparition/locution?

 

And this is where you seem to go off the tracks Jose.
You apply the same literal fundamentalism to Catholic prophesy that Proestants apply to the Bible.

If literal prophesy contradicts Church teaching (or logic) then obviously we have to take a symbolic or allegorical approach to the prophetic statement.

I maintain that your literal acceptance of the above largely contradicts CCC 1473 - therefore it is wise for us to use other valid methods of interpretation.


We also have to remember that the above prophecy is not simply "Our Lady's words".
They are the Seers words. There is an "intervening" human intermediary that is always weak and whose utterenaces are limited to local culture as Cardinal Ratzinger states:

“Interior vision” is not fantasy but ... has its limitations. He sees insofar as he is able, in the modes of representation and consciousness available to him. He can arrive at the image only within the bounds of his capacities and possibilities. Such visions therefore are never simple “photographs” of the other world, but are influenced by the potentialities and limitations of the perceiving subject.

This can be demonstrated in all the great visions of the saints; and naturally it is also true of the visions of the children at Fatima. ... neither should they be thought of as if for a moment the veil of the other world were drawn back, with heaven appearing in its pure essence, as one day we hope to see it in our definitive union with God. Rather the images are, in a manner of speaking, a synthesis of the impulse coming from on high and the capacity to receive this impulse in the visionaries, that is, the children. For this reason, the figurative language of the visions is symbolic..."

Seems pretty clear to me that we should by all means start with the literal sense - but realise that most will in fact be symbolic and limited to the cultural horizons of the Seer herself.

 

Joey already sees with his eye's of faith and has from the time he met Padre Pio, as he testifies to. He will physically see with eye's that have no optic nerve soon (he turns 83 in October). No one can say for sure why the Triumph did not occure in the year 2000 or since. The one thing i know is that Our Blessed mother has held the hand of God back, through her loving Immaculate Heart, and our Lord has withheld his justice because of her appeals to Him. However, Mary knows that justice must take place and we can sense, from the signs of our times, that we are very very close to major tribulations prior to the Warning, Miracle and chastisements. Some do not believe in Father Gobbi, some (like me) do.

 

Most "Catholics" are not Catholic today. Just ask yourself this question to prove my point. Find 5 "Catholics" you know who do not have a problem with one or many of these Church doctrines: abortion, contraception, sterelizatoin, masturbation, divorce and remarriage, fornication, adultry, drunkeness, missing Mass on Sunday or Holy Day of obligation, just to name a few. All of these are mortal sins. One moral sin on your soul upon death prohibits one from heaven. Now ofcourse one is not going to believe in a literal hell when they know that their life style would condemn them to hell according to the Churches teachings.... so they convince themselves or perhaps the Evil One has convinced them that there is no such thing as hell.

 

Why cannot heaven/hell be both a place and state of soul - to match our human nature?

 

Fatima,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I was a big follower of the MMP until that message and have no explanation for it either. I agree with your other points and hope you are right on Joey . I keep thinking on the presentation and Simeon and the Jews wandering the desert for 40 years. God seems to stretch us to make us patient.

 

Jose CCC 1473 largely agrees with you here.

But to answer your aside "Something that, by the way, is difficult to imagine when we will be resurrected with a different body."
Yes the Church teaches that all the dead, just and unjust alike, share three characteristics in common of a Risen Body: identity, entirety and immortality.

However there are four more qualities that distinguish the just from the unjust: impassibility, glory, agility and subtility.
So your difficulty is solved if you understand that impassibility is a gift not given to the unjust by God. See here: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12792a.htm

I do not have a problem if God withholds his gifts from those who do not wish to be His friends.
Do you?

 

Jose, I’m going to try and explain the best I can, I hope you understand it.

God certainly punished Adam and Eve didn't He? He certainly punished their son Cain and banished him and he became an outcast.

He punished all those in the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah.

During the times of the Pharaohs, it says in Genesis that ‘God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
This hardening of heart is a last ditch effort on God’s part to get Pharaoh out of his pride and onto his knees to repent. Pharaoh did not repent, but held onto his pride and anger; therefore God went forward with the plagues etc…and Pharaoh’s kingdom was destroyed and he died defeated.

In our time we have the explanation of God’s Divine Mercy because of St. Faustina’s life and Diary. She would undoubtedly say that this ‘hardening of heart’ that God does now—through sickness and hardship etc. is God’s DIVINE MERCY bringing us to our knees before we are a total loss. He loves us so much he is willing to allow us to fall –to save us.

The question must be why wouldn't God send His Mother? She was the one chosen before all time for this time in history. Even the Popes are saying we are living in the time of Revelation. So, as the Woman Clothed with the Sun who is called to destroy evil before it all hits the fan---she is showing and telling us through a means that is certainly NOT UNUSUAL for the Church (since the first apparition was recorded by St. James before his martyrdom through a letter he wrote which the Vatican still has).

Our Lady is this loving Mother who brings God’s mercy and warns us that “the cup is running over and God is not going to take anymore. This is a time of grace, when it is over, chastisements will come.” These are no less than what was in the Old Testament and in every single chapter!!

Yes, God tests our Faith, just like he did Abram. When Abram knelt down and worshiped properly, GOD exalted him and renamed him Abraham and gave him promises that were so wonderful! For those he tested and they failed, he cast them out. (Yes, God knows your heart and he will cast you out if you are unrepentant and totally stubborn.)

If you can understand that right now there is no way the whole world is going to convert….so God through these years has sent his Mother and she is asking those who believe to consecrate (like a lightning rod to She and the Holy Spirit) themselves to her so she can ‘guide them’ through these times, AND so she can present them to the Heavenly Father to appease his wrath (and God DOES HAVE WRATH!) and present them as children who love and adore him he WILL WAIT LONGER before the events will proceed.

One of the things I see is that you don’t think we are living in the end times.

A time of Divine Mercy, a time of purification and decision. The wheat is being separated from the chaff. IF YOU CAN SEE THAT –THEN ALL IS SO MUCH CLEARER….

 

Another line of thinking is that the flames of hell are actually a mercy from God ,so great is the suffering of the loss of God.

 

• I know that, after my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Acts 20:29-30
• "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them." Matthew 7:15-20
  

When I was 19 and training for the priesthood I lost my faith.

The main reason I lost it was because I allowed myself to hate.

However looking down the years I realise that there was another reason, that a worm had eaten my Faith from within.

What was the worm. Well it was a worm with many heads but I think the teeth of the worm was the lost of belief in the mystical, the holy...or to put it another way the numinous. This came about as a result of Christian/Catholic liberal scholarship at that time.

PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS

"For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate. Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic, there is no conclusion of any kind from which they shrink or which they do not thrust forward with pertinacity and assurance" Encyclical "On the Doctrine of the Modernists" by Pope Pius X, SEPTEMBER 8, 1907

These reasons suffice to show superabundantly by how many roads Modernism leads to atheism and to the annihilation of all religion. The error of Protestantism made the first step on this path; that of Modernism makes the second; atheism makes the next" ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE MODERNISTS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X, SEPTEMBER 8, 1907



An instance of which was that Jesus Christ's miracles could be 'explained' in a human way. For instance at the miracles of the loaves and fishes people simply shared what they had at Christ's urging. The Hebrews crossed the Red Sea because of a Tidal Phenomena. ..and so on..

This Spirit of the World reached very deeply into every sphere of Church life. Thus the Blessed Sacrament was shunted off to a side altar, prayer was less important than social action, the priest was no more 'important' that the lay person, Devotion to Our Lady was a 'Distraction' and on and on and on..

I thought I was very modern and up to date while the worm of doubt was basically eating me alive.

The basic root cause of the problem was that we were creating God in our own image ;rather than permitting God to create us in our own image.

I sense the same spirit , the same sad old worm here. Therefore because 'I'., ...'Cannot accept' (Now where have I heard those words before 'cannot accept'..Satan said this before his fall didn't he) God as shown in the Catechism or scripture I remake God in my own image.

Another way of looking at this is that we bring God down to out own miserable level. Instead of the Holy Spirit being a jack in the box , He becomes put in a box.

Instead of Jesus being a , 'Sign of contradiction' He becomes an emasculated, contemporary , acceptable pink sludge.

So if I do not like the idea , for instance of hell ,I simply remake it into something I can accept. Instead of attempting to ascend to God I press the elevator button to bring God down to my level.



But this is simply the foolishness of the Liberal/ Progressivist worm . To accept it is to be eaten alive by the worms of your own doubts.

IT IS THE VERY OPPOSITE TO WHERE TRUE MARIAN DEVOTION TAKES US.

IT IS THE DEATH OF FAITH.

 

This is a profound post & I am going to reflect on it today - lots of food for thought.

The evil one wants the elimination of faith and the removal of the mystical from the Church.

 

couldn't have expressed it better. quite happy now that I didn't even try.

 

Miners used to use a canary to tell when there where poisonous gases about that could overcome them.

I think a good spiritual canary is Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and an openess to her apparitions. When they die it's time to get out of whatever spiritual mine we are in as quickly as possible.

The best antidote to any spitual poison that fflicts us is the roasry, the roasry and more of the rosary.

Pray the rosary.

 

Fatima, I just quoted some Catholic theologians and Popes, JPII among then, talking about Hell as a state of the soul. The thing is not so easy. i will extend this view soon in my last post in this forum.

 

Dear all,

This is my last post in the forum.

I came here when I was banned by MDM. The reason was I questionedthe inconsistence of some of her messages and showed people the impossibility of some claims. I found a thread here regarding MDM and was interested in the views of many participants here and enjoyed the conversations.

Later, I made the mistake of questioning Medjugorje. I brought some problems I clearly saw regarding this apparition and the economic profit some seers were making of it. I presented proofs that they were acting (I have a list of videos when you can see this and analyze by yourself). I questioned the fact that the Virgin was following Ivan all over the world and appearing to him in arranged shows every day. What for? I did not say that the Virgin cannot do whatever God allows Her to do, but that I found absolute unnecessary and ridiculous the supernatural event this guy is having every day and that add anything to what we all know. I talked about the proofs of the immense profit this person was making with this apparition’s business. Some told me about the fruits and I answered that Islam has the same fruits in terms of conversions. Then somebody was feeling uneasy and told Padraig there should be no place for me in this forum and I was banned.

Later, when BXVI renounced and before the election of Francis, I asked Padraig to allow me again to participate in this forum. I told him, as he once called me, I am like Thomas (you can now understand my Avatar) and I question everything. Jesus never said to Thomas that questioning and doubting was a bad thing, actually you can read in many magisterial documents of our Church that reason should go in parallel with faith. I reckon, my scientific background has a great deal with my way to look at things.

When I came back to the forum there was an interesting conversation about Garabandal. Glenn was becoming moderator and he was posting a great number of infos about this apparition. I have been interested in the Garabandal phenomena since, at least, ten years. I think I have read everything published on this. Although I have never been sure about the divine origin of this apparition I could see that something supernatural was going on there (levitations, ecstasies etc…). A big red flag was waving in front of me when the Virgin was supposedly talking about evolution with one of the seers. This called me again to actively participate in the discussion. Peter B. brought some other examples of seers talking about evolution and I was questioning those, mainly the writings of Maria Valtorta showing that first, the way in which Jesus was taking about Biology was nonsense and, second, that the information that supposedly she was not able to have in those days to describe Palestine in time of Jesus, was actually available for her. I even found the same description of one of the cities and surrounds in some archives of a famous history book. Peter B. said that this was not proof that Maria Valtorta copied this information but, for me, it was proof that what some people wrote in books about Maria Valtorta was wrong! The information existed by that time and it was easy accessible. That is why I said that it would have been worth a visit to the personal library of this woman!

I spent a big part of my time explaining that there is no contradiction between evolution and the Catholic Faith. I hope somebody found this helpful.

Yes, I question everything but only what should and can be questioned. I do not doubt about the dogmas of our Church. Among the theological writings of BXVI one can find the statement that theology can be done freely and everything can be discussed if we do not trespass the boundaries drawn like a circle by the dogmas.

I found extremely interesting the discussion with Peter B. He is a cultivated person who knows this and you can see it in the way he writes. From other people I found in this forum I cannot say that. They are like fundamentalists not able to accept any different point of view that the one they have learned and fix in their minds. Take for instance the last discussion about Hell. The vision of Hell as a place for physical punishment where the demons are literarily afflicting terrible torments is a medieval image. Society has evolved and physical punishment afflicted to law’s transgressors has disappeared in our modern estates. We can find it only in the medieval Islamic and fundamentalist nations. The transgressors are confronted with separation from the society and, in some countries, with the capital punishment, something that, although allowed by the Church, it is seen by theologians and church people far from optimal. The normal and accepted punishment deserved by people who acts against the law is jail and it would be for us horrifying to know that prisoners could be tortured by their guardians, why is so difficult to think in the same why about Hell? Pope JPII abolished the vision of Limbo as a place and even a state, and his thinking about Hell were in the same sense than that of many Catholic theologians: Hell as a status of the soul that is separated from God eternally. This is enough suffering, I guess.

Continue...