Should We Teach Children about Hell?
An answer to a caller into Catholic Answers Live creates great anger!
I usually refrain from mentioning specific Catholic ministries on this Substack. I don’t want to be part of a war with Catholic apologists even though I disagree with most we see on various online platforms. As a parish priest, I work directly with those concerned about their relationship with God. Many of the online ministries focus on the theological understanding of Catholic teaching so they do not bring it daily to the personal level. That is why one can pontificate all day about what the Church teaches without any concern about how it is received by the faithful in the pew. One point of the Sacrament of Confession is to bring what the Church teaches to that personal level of living the faith.
Some struggle to live the Catholic faith in their daily lives and seek to know how to conform their lives with Catholic teaching. Some miss all the fine points of Catholic teaching and just live in a terrible fear of Hell. I believe it is an abomination how the teaching of the love of God gets distorted to focus on avoiding damnation. The mission of the Catholic is not to avoid Hell, it is to bear fruit on the journey to Heaven (cf John 15:5).
Online Catholic influencers can pontificate all day about what the Church teaches and many times they are not fully correct, especially when they reject Vatican II and embrace the Council of Trent as infallible.
One way to start an argument
If you want to start an argument about what the Church actually teaches about Hell, remind them that contrary to the adage that the Church has not declared anyone in Hell, she actually has—Judas and Cain by the Council of Trent.
That council’s explanation of Judas’ damnation will help a faithful Catholic understand how much what people actually teach about Hell is wrong. You can tell a wrong teaching is coming when you hear the words “These are the sins that can send you to Hell.” No sin sends anyone to Hell, it is rather an attitude of obstinate rejection of God’s mercy. That is what the Church actually teaches.
One of the ways to end up in Hell is to believe one is so bad a sinner that God could not possibly forgive him or her. If we believe the same about others, then that is just as bad. God is willing to forgive provided we seek his forgiveness. However, if we see God as an avenger, as the Council of Trent warns us, then we will succumb to despair of salvation which is believing our sin is so bad, it is outside God’s mercy.
God is willing to extend pardon, a conviction necessary to the sinner, lest perchance the bitter remembrance and acknowledgment of his sins should be followed by despair of pardon, as was the case of old with Cain (o) and Judas (p), both of whom held God to be solely an avenger and punisher of crime, and not also a God of clemency and mercy.
o Gen. 4:13.
p Matt. 27:4, sq.
—
Catholic Church. (1852). The Catechism of the Council of Trent (T. A. Buckley, Trans.; pp. 553–554). George Routledge and Co.; Part IV, Chapter XIV of the Fifth Petition, Question IV “Things required in him that seeketh to obtain Pardon for a Sin”
Many of these online ministries teach we must work hard to ensure our salvation and even though we may work hard, we still may not be saved. That is the teaching based on the idea that the vast majority of souls will be damned. The reality is we have no reason to believe that is infallibly true or false because we really do not know. What we do know is that our role is to lead people to know Christ and His promise for salvation.
How do we do this? By living his will for our life. What is his will? If you believe it to be primarily to avoid Hell, you are wrong. We find our true mission at the end of the Rite of Baptism:
May the Lord open your ears to hear his word and touch your lips to proclaim His faith to the praise and glory of God the Father.
That is God’s will that you live in relationship with Jesus Christ in a way that bears fruit in the salvation of souls including your own. That is simply living as a disciple of Christ. It does not require you to memorize the Catechism, Canon Law and every encyclical on the Vatican website.
It means we must be people of prayer and allow that prayer to transform our lives daily in service to Christ. We attend Mass weekly (or more) to hear the word of God and receive Him in the Eucharist. If we feel we are not ready or we cannot receive then we can seek a spiritual communion until we are able.
Catholic influencers must encourage people in the faith
If an online ministry leads people away from Christ or even His Church then it has failed.
The origin of this column actually comes from a reaction to one of the videos from the Catholic Answers Podcast on YouTube. I don’t follow Catholic Answers and one reason, and maybe Trent Horn can respond to this, I believe it follows a pattern where I see the Sola Scriptura of evangelicalism extended to Catholic documents. So, just like in Sola Scriptura one quotes scripture and teaches based on a verse of scripture, so it is in the Catholic form of Sola Scriptura where one cites Church documents to teach a point of Catholic doctrine. However, there is more to teaching the faith than citing documents. This was also Pope Francis’ point. Without denying what the Church teaches, we have to bring that teaching to a personal level and help people understand it in what theologians call Sitz Im Leben (situation in life). This is what a parish priest does, especially in confession. It is pastoral ministry.
In an episode of Catholic Answers, Dr Karlo Broussard who is a professor of Philosophy at Holy Apostles Seminary in Connecticut explains to a caller how one can teach children about eternal punishment in Hell. The caller rejects the idea of “the stick” of Catholic teaching that one can end up in Hell suffering for all eternity and hates even more we teach that to children.
Dr. Broussard explains how he believes it should be taught and how to do it. He said that children can understand punishment separated from the friendship of God and it being everlasting.
One person who is leaving the Catholic Church just because of this type of teaching, explained how this exchange from the Catholic Answers episode made him intensely angry.
The Church teaches the doctrine of Hell and I explained above how she also teaches that one must maintain an obstinate attitude against the mercy of God to get there.
Dr. Broussard is coming from the position that one can commit an act, die in that state and that he or she is condemned to be outside the friendship of God for ever. He adds this can be taught to children. He explains that since at death the person is a soul that soul can no longer change its mind and, therefore, is outside God’s friendship forever with no chance of repentance. That is his teaching and I can add that Pope John Paul II did not believe in it. He had a great devotion of St. Faustina’s Divine Mercy. She taught that after death, Jesus gives the soul an additional chance. Granted that is private revelation and not official Catholic teaching but it is also what the sainted pontiff believed. Professor Broussard is coming from universal philosophical principles which actually are still elements no one has experienced personally. We cannot rely on them as solid rock teaching or for that matter reject completely as well. They are teaching based on what we understand as humans but our understanding is not complete; it is as full as we can comprehend at this point.
So philosophically, he explains his position. Theologically and/or pastorally, we hold a less stringent position.
Here is the next question? Should Hell be taught to children?
Is there a Hell? Church doctrine says yes. Who goes there? The person who refuses to repent of sin, who chooses to be outside the kingdom of God. That person goes to Hell by his or her free choice. That is what the Church actually teaches. God does not send that person to Hell. The person chooses to alienate him or herself from God. That is the Church doctrine of Hell.
God predestines no one to go to hell; (620) for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end
620 Cf. Council of Orange II (529): DS 397; Council of Trent (1547): 1567.
Catholic Church. (2000). Catechism of the Catholic Church (2nd Ed., p. 270). United States Catholic Conference.
Is Hell a place where God punishes souls? Actually, no. It is a place where souls reject God for their own will. They create their own Hell by seeking not the will of God but to enter into a struggle for their world their way among others who seek a competing version of the same thing. Think of the worst anarchical society you can imagine and that would give you glimpse of Hell. That is what Hell actually is and more.
So those who go to Hell either refuse to submit to God’s will and reject his offer of mercy or feel they are such great sinners they are incapable of receiving God’s mercy. (Judas).
However, notice many online apologetic ministries focus on avoiding hell but our true focus should be on doing the will of God. We do that by simply being a person of prayer allowing God’s transforming grace to lead us to choose to be more and more disciples of his son His Son Jesus Christ.
I explain to my parishioners that simply the act of going to Mass on Sunday is a powerful witness, even though it is simply attending Mass for an hour once per week. Many, who do not believe see Catholics walk into a church for Sunday Mass and wonder what is so important in the church that would lead so many to be there.
This brings us back to the original question: Should children be taught about Hell? Well, just as the Catechism introduces us to Christ, maybe it is better to teach children and adults first the truth about who we are in Christ. We seek to live the call Christ gives to us at Baptism to be people who proclaim his faith through our lives first. We have a mission to lead people to Christ by living our lives as disciples of Christ.
If you are going to teach children about Hell, then you have to teach them that they actually have to work hard to get there. They have to literally reject every attempt by God to fill us with his grace. They must stand obstinate against him in their desire to manifest their own will. I know many apologists may disagree with me but I maintain that can be hard to do.
However, I met some Catholics who fit this description and to be honest they are rather scary. You can feel the hard-heartedness in their presence. Most good Catholics probably have never met such people.
Chances are a child is not ready as illustrated by the episode itself. Dr. Broussard refers the caller to one of his own articles and the article of another author because he does not have the time to explain this teaching on that episode. If the explanation is that complicated, then children are not ready to hear it because they cannot fully understand it.
I am not so sure that Jesus would approve either. He, after all, called us to accept the Kingdom of God like a child and if we understand that, then a teaching on Hell may be better when the child is older.
If you must teach on Hell. . .
If one must teach on Hell, then a simple explanation is “a place where people choose to be separated from God—the source of all that is good so that they can do their own will. Such a place, void of goodness, is where you truly do not want to go. However, do not worry because God is doing all He can to make sure you don’t. He even sent his son to give his life for you so that you would not end up there. So, let us talk about this Son who loves you that much.”
Another way is I taught confirmation students that God is light, if we walk away from God where do we go? Into darkness. God is the source of all that is good, if we walk away from God where do we go? We go to where good is not and that is the definition of evil.
Fr. Robert J Carr is pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA
The parish podcast is at CatholicAudioMedia.com
The newest edition of Fr Robert J Carr's latest book is now available. Christ in Our Humanity. You can find it here.