Author Topic: Excommunication and Hell (Read 1744 times)

trickster · « **on:** July 14, 2014, 05:03:20 AM »

Whenever we heard the word excommunication in the past, we assumed that this was a judgement that the church has bound a person to go to hell and of course whateer is bound by the pope/bishop is also bound in heaven.

My updated understanding is that excommunication has no attached sentence to hell. It is only an official statement that one is not in communion with the Vatican of today.

What was the relationship traditionallly between excommunication and hell? Or was there?

Trickster
Bruce Ferguson

poche · « **Reply #1 on:** July 14, 2014, 05:34:37 AM »

There is anecdotal evidence that excommunication does not automatically mean that someone is going to Hell. For example;
A monk lying on his death bed confessed to stealing three gold pieces. Gregory forced the monk to die friendless and alone, then threw his body and coins on a manure heap to rot with a curse, “Take your money with you to perdition”. Gregory believed that punishment of sins can begin, even on one's deathbed.[25] However, this was done to help the monk to repent of his sin, and not out of a misplaced anger. The penance from St Gregory did in fact help him to repent, and afterwards St Gregory offered 30 Masses in his remembrance to assist his soul before the final judgment. He later appeared to his brother and said that he has been released and is in Heaven.[26] Eventually, Pope Pelagius II ordained him a deacon and solicited his help in trying to heal the schism of the Three Chapters in northern Italy. However, Italy was not healed until well after Gregory was gone.[27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_the_Great

Lighthouse · « **Reply #2 on:** July 14, 2014, 04:48:31 PM »

So, Twister, do you believe there is a Hell?

Matto · « **Reply #3 on:** July 14, 2014, 04:50:29 PM »

Didn't Saint Joan of Arc die excommunicated?

trickster · « **Reply #4 on:** July 14, 2014, 04:51:18 PM »

Quote from: poche

There is anecdotal evidence that excommunication does not automatically mean that someone is going to Hell. For example;
A monk lying on his death bed confessed to stealing three gold pieces. Gregory forced the monk to die friendless and alone, then threw his body and coins on a manure heap to rot with a curse, “Take your money with you to perdition”. Gregory believed that punishment of sins can begin, even on one's deathbed.[25] However, this was done to help the monk to repent of his sin, and not out of a misplaced anger. The penance from St Gregory did in fact help him to repent, and afterwards St Gregory offered 30 Masses in his remembrance to assist his soul before the final judgment. He later appeared to his brother and said that he has been released and is in Heaven.[26] Eventually, Pope Pelagius II ordained him a deacon and solicited his help in trying to heal the schism of the Three Chapters in northern Italy. However, Italy was not healed until well after Gregory was gone.[27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_the_Great

thanks for that update Poche.

bruce

Nadir · « **Reply #5 on:** July 15, 2014, 06:00:59 AM »

Quote from: Matto

Didn't Saint Joan of Arc die excommunicated?

Didn't Blessed Marcel Lefebvre die excommunicated?

Jehanne · « **Reply #6 on:** July 15, 2014, 07:11:26 AM »

Quote from: Matto

Didn't Saint Joan of Arc die excommunicated?

She received the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments prior to her immolation:

http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/joanofarc/section10.rhtml

If she was truly excommunicated, then she could not receive any Sacraments.

trickster · « **Reply #7 on:** July 15, 2014, 11:28:59 AM »

Quote from: Lighthouse

So, Twister, do you believe there is a Hell?

Surprise of surprises eh, yes I do. Why would you ask that?

Bruce

trickster · « **Reply #8 on:** July 15, 2014, 11:32:18 AM »

I am not really sensing an answer to my initial inquiry here. My sense is that there is no link between "excommunication" and "condemnation to hell" as automotically connected.

I don't know if this is a change of dogma due to the Vatican II council, or if there was no link prior. (i.e. could this have just been a popular myth understood by most of us?). I would say I thought this link was evident even to the 90s...

Bruce

MyrnaM · « **Reply #9 on:** July 15, 2014, 02:43:18 PM »

I have this very old 3 set volumn of "Radio Replies" great books published way before the Great Apostasy, published in the 1940's, also in the format of questions and answers; questions much like your questions.

This one here asks: Can the Pope send people to hell by excommunication?

Answer: No. Excommunication cuts a man off from the visible Church on earth. but no man can be excommunicated save for mortally sinful conduct which supposes that he has already cut himself off from God's grace and from the soul of the Church. If he dies excommunicated and without repenting, his own unrepented sin takes him to hell, not the sentence of excommunication.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895551594/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0895551594&linkCode=as2&tag=httpwwwchanco-20

If you purchase from Amazon, be sure to go to Amazon through this forum, link above under banner. Also you might find them on Ebay, also the books are online if you don't want to have your own copies.

Lighthouse · « **Reply #10 on:** July 15, 2014, 02:57:25 PM »

Good quote, Myrna.

Quote

I don't know if this is a change of dogma due to the Vatican II council...

The problem is that you are on a website where about 99% of the members do not believe that it is possible for Vatican II to change a dogma.

It's not that we don't understand you. Traditional Catholics all walked that mile and made that decision long ago. Why would we need to go over that ground again?
Some, maybe all, novus ordo people do not really believe in Hell in any kind of substantial way. The first thing you read about in their obituary is how wonderful that their dear loved one is now in arms of Jesus.

So how hard is it to avoid Hell? Almost no one there except Hitler and Nero? 50/50? Narrow is the way and few are those that enter in?

Cato · « **Reply #11 on:** July 15, 2014, 04:54:57 PM »

Excommunication forbids the administration of sacraments to the excommunicated. That person could still go to Heaven, but he would have to remain sin free from time of excommunication until death.

Nadir · « **Reply #12 on:** July 15, 2014, 05:39:34 PM »

The idea that excommunication = damnation is something I have never heard before. A complete novelty. And I've been in both camps and been around Catholic circles for 68 years.Yet you call it a "popular myth". Strange indeed!

Sigismund · « **Reply #13 on:** July 15, 2014, 07:54:18 PM »

Excommunication is an official act of the CHurch, but it isn't infallible.

Also, the Church might have to excommunicate a material heretic to make it clear to all that his teaching is heretical. If he is not a formal heretic, he may not even be in a state of sin becasue of it.

Jehanne · « **Reply #14 on:** July 16, 2014, 06:45:02 PM »

Quote from: trickster

I am not really sensing an answer to my initial inquiry here. My sense is that there is no link between "excommunication" and "condemnation to hell" as automotically connected.

Quote from: Pope Zachary (741-52)

"Wherefore in the name of God the All-powerful, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, of the Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and of all the saints, in virtue of the power which has been given us of binding and loosing in Heaven and on earth, we deprive N-- himself and all his accomplices and all his abettors of the Communion of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we separate him from the society of all Christians, we exclude him from the bosom of our Holy Mother the Church in Heaven and on earth, we declare him excommunicated and anathematized and we judge him condemned to eternal fire with Satan and his angels and all the reprobate, so long as he will not burst the fetters of the demon, do penance and satisfy the Church; we deliver him to Satan to mortify his body, that his soul may be saved on the day of judgment."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01455e.htm