Canonization of the Damned: Part II

A number of folks didn’t seem to cotton to the idea of canonizing anti-saints, as can be seen from the comments to the prior post and the original post.

I provided some responses here, but I thought one person’s response struck close to the mark of what many people are likely to feel on the subject, and I thought I’d respond to it here.

A reader writes:

What possible purpose could there be for us to know in this life who is damned? The purpose of knowing who is in heaven is not merely to satisfy curiosity but to give us certain knowledge that particular individuals can intercede for us in a special way because they are in God’s presence.

I also think “canonizing the damned” would create too big a temptation to “write off” people who haven’t yet been “canonized as damned” but seem –to us — to qualify. Those people then, who may have achieved salvation through final repentance, would be deprived of our prayers if they are in purgatory.

I know that there is a huge temptation to unofficially canonize saints (i.e., “I just know Mom went straight to heaven”), and that is a temptation that must be fought; but I can’t help but think that it would be an even worse temptation to unofficially canonize “anti-saints,” and that may be one reason why the Church has never done so. Not even with Judas, whose salvation just might be the ultimate “Surprise!” awaiting us in heaven.

It’s certainly true that if my interpretation of what Jesus says about Judas is wrong then he could be in heaven. I would be very surprised, but also glad, as I desire not the loss of any soul.

I also agree that it is problematic to unofficially canonize anti-saints. We may legitimately form the impression intellectually that, given what we know about an individual, it does not look likely that they made it (i.e., because they appeared to be a person with the faculty of reason who nevertheless lived a life of apparently knowing and deliberate grave sin right up to the end), but we can never know what happened in the privacy of their own mind in the last few seconds of their life, and God can work miracles even then.

But the case of Judas is different. In his case we aren’t simply guestimating based on the person’s observed manner of life. We have a statement by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself that appears to pertain directly to the fate of Judas. Our Lord obviously meant something by it and meant people (at least some people) to understand it. That changes matters. It is therefore legitimate to us to treat the damnation of Judas differently than we treat that of anybody else.

As far as what might motivate the Church to define the damnation of certain souls and whether it would be prudent for it to do so, it doesn’t strike me as a particular risk that defining Judas and potentially a few others as damned would discourage people from praying for those in purgatory. In fact, it seems to me that, if anything, it would do the opposite. Here’s why:

We live in an age in which the great majority of people take their own salvation for granted. By defining that Judas is in hell, the Church could hold him up as an example (which is what Jesus was doing, after all) of how hell is a real possibility.

This would force people to take a new look at the salvation of their own souls, and the souls of others. It could lead to renewed attention to what happens after we die, renewed evangelization, renewed praying for those who have died (though this would not benefit the damned, obviously), renewed attention to the need for confession, and renewed attention in general to our own need for grace. In short, in a society like ours, defining the damnation of a few individuals could do a world of good . . . and result in fewer people actually going to hell.

There would, of course, be costs as well (e.g., the media would have a violently negative reaction), but there would also be plusses, like those mentioned above. Whether the plusses outweigh the minuses in making such a definition . . . is for a wiser head than mine. 🙂

Episode 1.5: The Snakehead Menace

This story about a pond in Maryland that was recently drained after a Chinese snakehead fish was found in it . . .

. . . gives me the opportunity to point to one of my favorite Scrappleface stories of all time.

(Along with another of my favorite Scrappleface stories, and one that isn’t even from Scrappleface. These two don’t have anything to do with snakehead fish. They’re just funny.)

Terminatorland

It is a little surreal living in a state where Arnold Scharzenegger is governor:

Even his critics find him a hard man to dislike. This is a governor who bombs around the freeways with his old motorcycle buddies every weekend, who loves a crowd and whose favorite word is “fantastic.” His wife is “fantastic.” [Loathsome, disgraced ex-governor] Gray Davis is “fantastic.” He even described a $4 million judgment against him in a campaign finance case as a “fantastic” decision. Criticism bounces off like rubber bullets. When John Burton, the Democratic leader in the State Senate, accused him of “pontificating,” the governor called him up and said: “That’s funny! Pontificate. Like the pope!” “Nothing fazes him,” Mr. Burton observed [ Author Jimmy AkinPosted on Categories Current Affairs5 Comments on Terminatorland

Canonization Of The Damned

A non-Catholic reader writes:

“…the Church’s official position is still that there are definitely people in hell, it just doesn’t claim to know which individuals are.”

Considering the church’s official position, wouldn’t this conflict with those the church declared “saints”? I mean, if they don’t know who is in hell, which is a fair assumption, how can they claim to know who is in heaven? We can assume that we know some are and, like you, I can safely believe that Peter, Paul, and the rest of the gang are there, but past that—I don’t know who’s there.

If the “infallible” church can say with certainty that Mother Teresa, Bernadette Soubirous, John Bosco, Vincent de Paul, etc. are in heaven, why can’t it say with just as much certainty the names of those whom they believe are in hell (Hitler, Stalin, Ivan the Terrible, Pol Pot, et al)?

Later, when it was pointed out that the Church utilizes miracles performed through the intercession of the saints as evidence that they are in heaven, the reader wrote:

First of all, we would have to assume that the church is correct in saying these “saints” are truly in heaven, regardless of miracles and personal testimonies (which again we would have to trust the church on). Secondly, miracles and personal testimonies aren’t truly indicators of salvation. Other pagan religions have their “holy men” who have mimicked the same. Mr. Akin stated that Judas and Nero could be said to be in hell, which, IMO, is a fair estimation. Yet, when the church claims to know with certainty who “made it”, but cannot say for sure who didn’t; well, it’s pretty presumptuous.

Since you’re non-Catholic, it’s understandable that you would not share the epistemology needed to have confidence in the Church’s canonization of saints. However, since the discussion was an intramural one among Catholics, you kind of need to be willing to “go with” that epistemology for purposes of this discussion. We could have a discussion of why the Church has the epistemology it does (it isn’t just making assumptions), but that is a different discussion than this one. (Discussions on blogs need to be fairly narrow in scope because of limitations of format. If we were writing chapter- or book-length entries in the discussion, we could try dealing with both at once, but blog entries are too short, so we need to stick to one issue at a time.)

Regarding the discussion at hand, I think it is possible for the Church to use its gift of infallibility to “canonize the damned,” or “anti-saints” as we might call them:

1) I think this is clearly possible in the case of select individuals like Judas and Nero, for whom we have special revelation regarding their fates. Since the Church has the power to infallibly define the meaning of the revelation given to the Church, it would be possible for the Church to use that infallibility regarding the meaning of the revelation connected with the fate of Judas and a few other individuals. Thus the Church could define that they are in hell; it simply hasn’t done so to this point.

2) I also suspect that the Church might be able to use its infallibility to define the damnation of other individuals. If it can define the dogmatic fact that a particular person is in heaven, this would seem to be prima facie evidence that the Church would also be able to use its infallibility to define that a particular person isn’t in heaven.

3) We could speculate on the evidential basis that could be offered for particular anti-saint definitions. There is an assymetry regarding the evidence we have for the fates of saints and anti-saints (i.e., we have intercessory miracles as evidence for the salvation of saints, but we don’t have the same for the damnation of anti-saints), but this is not an ultimately insuperable problem. Unfortunately, spelling out a detailed rationale would make this entry unduly long and so will have to wait for another time.

4) In any event, the matter is speculative since, as there has been no motivating factor for the Church to define the damnation of anti-saints, it has never done so.

Hope this helps!

"Compendium" Nearing Completion

This is a story you should pay attention to, because even though many haven’t noticed it yet, it’s going to make a BIG splash when it finally comes out.

The Church is preparing a new major catechetical document, tentatively called the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (that would be the CCCC, I guess). It’s meant to be a shorter version of the CCC, correcting one of the biggest problems that the CCC has: It’s too dang long!

A decision was made early in the editorial stage of the 3-C to have it present the faith in a non-technical, organic, at times almost poetic way that knits together Scripture, writings of the Church Fathers and major saints, and the documents of the Magisterium. This had some advantages, including forcing the reader to absorb the faith as an organic whole, without being able to as easily dismiss things that he doesn’t like (e.g., a liberal wanting to dismiss the relevance of Scripture or the Church Fathers to the faith).

The approach also has some disadvantages. One is that it made the 3-C so long that it was hard to get the thing as carefully written and edited as one might desire. Some things were not phrased in the best the way (in fact, some things still aren’t), and so they had to go back and to a bug release than toned up things like the etiology of homosexuality, for example.

The length also resulted in casting the net so broadly that it includes not only major, fixed points of Catholic doctrine that are infallibly defined but much material that, though official, is not nearly on the same level. By presenting the material as it does, the Catechism presents the faith in a “flattened” manner that puts each teaching on an equal level of authority, which isn’t the case. (E.g., some of the material in the social doctrine section is not on the same level as, say, the Trinity and transubstantiation are).

The biggest problem caused by the 3-C’s length is that it is simply too long for most folks to read. (The organic, semi-poetic writing style also makes it a rather difficult read if you aren’t used to wrapping your brain around Magisterial documents.)

The 3-C is still and ENORMOUS gift to the Church, and I am delighted that it was released in my lifetime. It has and will continue to do a tremendous amount of good for Christ’s Church.

Almost as soon as the 3-C was released, people began to wonder if it would be good for the Church to release a shorter version of the same thing. I wondered why some publisher didn’t, for example, skim out the “In Brief” sections of the Catechism and publish them as a book (assuming the proper rights could be obtained).

Well, apparently JPII was convined by the arguments for having a shorter version of the Catechism, and thus the 4-C is now in production. The mandate for its composition is as follows:

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church should contain, in a concise form, the essential and fundamental contents of the faith of the Church, respecting its completeness and doctrinal integrity, in such as a way as to develop a sort of ‘vademecum’ [handbook, compendium] that allows people, believers and non-believers, to embrace, in a single, overall glance the entire panorama of the Catholic faith. It will have as its source, model and constant reference point the current Catechism of the Catholic Church which, in keeping intact its authoritativeness and importance, will be able to find, in such a synthesis, a stimulus to be better studied and, more in general, a further instrument of education to the faith [Letter from JPII to Card. Ratzinger].

The story linked above indicates that the consultation process for the 4-C is now finished. It ended April 30th, and so hopefully we’ll be seeing the 4-C get released sometime soon (by which I mean, a year from now).

The new work will be about a seventh of the length of the current work (meaning it’s 70-100 pages long, depending on formatting), will have an appendix with major creeds and prayers, and–best of all–will be in a Q & A format suitable for traditional catechetical use and making it much easier to read.

Yee-haw!

“Compendium” Nearing Completion

This is a story you should pay attention to, because even though many haven’t noticed it yet, it’s going to make a BIG splash when it finally comes out.

The Church is preparing a new major catechetical document, tentatively called the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (that would be the CCCC, I guess). It’s meant to be a shorter version of the CCC, correcting one of the biggest problems that the CCC has: It’s too dang long!

A decision was made early in the editorial stage of the 3-C to have it present the faith in a non-technical, organic, at times almost poetic way that knits together Scripture, writings of the Church Fathers and major saints, and the documents of the Magisterium. This had some advantages, including forcing the reader to absorb the faith as an organic whole, without being able to as easily dismiss things that he doesn’t like (e.g., a liberal wanting to dismiss the relevance of Scripture or the Church Fathers to the faith).

The approach also has some disadvantages. One is that it made the 3-C so long that it was hard to get the thing as carefully written and edited as one might desire. Some things were not phrased in the best the way (in fact, some things still aren’t), and so they had to go back and to a bug release than toned up things like the etiology of homosexuality, for example.

The length also resulted in casting the net so broadly that it includes not only major, fixed points of Catholic doctrine that are infallibly defined but much material that, though official, is not nearly on the same level. By presenting the material as it does, the Catechism presents the faith in a “flattened” manner that puts each teaching on an equal level of authority, which isn’t the case. (E.g., some of the material in the social doctrine section is not on the same level as, say, the Trinity and transubstantiation are).

The biggest problem caused by the 3-C’s length is that it is simply too long for most folks to read. (The organic, semi-poetic writing style also makes it a rather difficult read if you aren’t used to wrapping your brain around Magisterial documents.)

The 3-C is still and ENORMOUS gift to the Church, and I am delighted that it was released in my lifetime. It has and will continue to do a tremendous amount of good for Christ’s Church.

Almost as soon as the 3-C was released, people began to wonder if it would be good for the Church to release a shorter version of the same thing. I wondered why some publisher didn’t, for example, skim out the “In Brief” sections of the Catechism and publish them as a book (assuming the proper rights could be obtained).

Well, apparently JPII was convined by the arguments for having a shorter version of the Catechism, and thus the 4-C is now in production. The mandate for its composition is as follows:

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church should contain, in a concise form, the essential and fundamental contents of the faith of the Church, respecting its completeness and doctrinal integrity, in such as a way as to develop a sort of ‘vademecum’ [handbook, compendium] that allows people, believers and non-believers, to embrace, in a single, overall glance the entire panorama of the Catholic faith. It will have as its source, model and constant reference point the current Catechism of the Catholic Church which, in keeping intact its authoritativeness and importance, will be able to find, in such a synthesis, a stimulus to be better studied and, more in general, a further instrument of education to the faith [Letter from JPII to Card. Ratzinger].

The story linked above indicates that the consultation process for the 4-C is now finished. It ended April 30th, and so hopefully we’ll be seeing the 4-C get released sometime soon (by which I mean, a year from now).

The new work will be about a seventh of the length of the current work (meaning it’s 70-100 pages long, depending on formatting), will have an appendix with major creeds and prayers, and–best of all–will be in a Q & A format suitable for traditional catechetical use and making it much easier to read.

Yee-haw!

Gus and Ambrose Hang Out

This story is kind of touching. The relics of two doctors of the Church–St. Ambrose and his most famous convert, St. Augustine–have been placed next to each other in Milan till the end of the week.

I can’t help thinking that the two of them must be moved by this up in heaven. I know I would be moved (figuratively, not just literally) if someone placed my relics beside those of one of my best friends, *sixteen centuries* after my death. What a testament to friendship!

On the other hand, I’m much less happy to see the Italians trying to make hay regarding the immigration issue in connection with all this. (Italians, like most Europeans, tend to be crazy regarding politics.) The comment by historian Giorgio Rumi that “Augustine’s descendants at this moment in time are probably queueing outside a [Milan] police station for a residence permit” is especially tasteless. Yes, it’s true that Augustine had a son before he was a priest, and so he may well have descendants today–or maybe not. However that may be, it’s supremely tasteless to raise the possibility in the way Rumi did.

The Population of Hell

A reader writes:

Do you think we can know for sure that there are people in hell (not that we know which particular people are there)?

The current Roman Catholic teaching seems to be that we don’t know if there are people in Hell (a la Hans Urs von Balthasar).

I wouldn’t say that Catholic teaching is that we don’t know. The situation has been muddied a bit recently, but as far as I can tell the Church’s official position is still that there are definitely people in hell, it just doesn’t claim to know which individuals are. The most recent, highly authoritative statement is still that of the Catechism, and it gives no hint of the “maybe everybody gets saved” position.

To clarify matters, consider the following positions:

1. Nobody is in hell.

2. *Maybe* nobody is in hell.

3. Some people are in hell.

4. Some people are in hell and we know who some of them are.

5. Boatloads of people are in hell.

6. Everybody is in hell except for the tiny remnant that *I* belong to.

7. Everybody without exception is in hell; Jesus died for nothing.

From what I can tell, the Church is willing to sign off on position #3, though not precluding the other positions listed, except for #s 1 and 7, which are right out. Positions #s 2-6 seem to be permitted (or at least tolerated), as evidenced by the fact that the pope named von Balthasar (a holder of position #2) as a cardinal and the CDF has allowed the Feeneyites (holders of position #6) to remain as Catholics without being subject to theological discipline and even (in the case of one group) being allowed to raise money as a Catholic organization.

As far as what *I* think, I’m an exponent of position #4. I think that we know at least two people who are in hell: Judas and one of the early Roman emperors, most likely Nero. This is because Jesus says that it would have been better for Judas if he had not been born (and if he ended up in heaven then that clearly wouldn’t be the case) and because Revelation speaks of the Beast (most plausibly identified as the Emperor Nero) being thrown into the lake of fire. The fact that these two gents are in hell means that *some* people are in hell, and thus position #2 is wrong.

In fact, I think that the von Balthasar position is hopelessly wrong for a number of reasons, and if I were pope it would be swiftly ejected from the permitted opinion list. If you like, I’d be hapy to explain why, but at the moment it’s getting late. 🙂