Since the Pope now visits Britain, why can’t he get a dispensation from the Lord also to visit hell, in which he firmly believes (see below)? There must be many there (in his view) who would long to see even one wave of his holy hand! He might even stay there and administer to the ‘lost souls’. Who are the lost souls? All of us billions who are not Roman Catholics!:-

“The intolerance not just to other religions, but to other types of Christianity, is unfortunately fostered by the upper echelons of the Church. In August 2000 a Church declaration (called Dominus Jesus and endorsed by the Pope) announced that the Catholic Church represented the only ‘valid’ and ‘genuine’ Christian episcopate. Any other type of ordination – either Anglican or Non-Conformist – was simple heresy. Even to many Catholic onlookers it appeared like something from the Middle Ages. The inspiration for such announcements is invariably Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a man who heads what is called the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (an organisation that acts as the guard dog against pluralism and tolerance). It doesn’t take long to realise that Roman Catholicism is excruciatingly conservative and – like Italy itself- acutely hierarchical.” (‘The Dark Heart of Italy’ by Tobias Jones, 2003)

As stated, the Pope believes firmly in eternal hellfire, as he showed before he realised the damage this would do him. He later tried to tone down his ill-advised ‘eternal’ pronouncement, but it was really too late… we know what he really believes, because The Sunday Times (March 27, 2007) reported “The fires of hell are real and eternal, the Pope warns“: ‘Hell is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, the Pope has said.’: “Hell “really exists and is eternal, even if nobody talks about it much any more”, he said.”

The damage-limitation exercise which followed later on was reported by the Catholic News Agency, as follows: ” In reply, the Pope called heaven, hell, and purgatory “fundamental themes that unfortunately appear rarely in our preaching,” journalist and church expert Sandro Magister reports. Pope Benedict speculated that the condemned might not be numerous, describing how thoroughly they would have to have destroyed themselves: “Perhaps there are not so many who have destroyed themselves so completely, who are irreparable forever, who no longer have any element upon which the love of God can rest, who no longer have the slightest capacity to love within themselves. This would be hell.” (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/what_the_pope_really_said_about_hell/)

The obscurantism of Pope Benedict XVI almost takes ones breath away, except that we are inured to the Middle Age theology and backward-looking morality that the Papal visit to UK brings into focus yet again. In the Pope has any real investigatory capacity and critical intelligence, he would realise how much damage he is doing to the people of many countries who have no real defense against the cynical indoctrination in which they are brought up. Consider it, children are taught to fear hell at an early age by most priests, and not a few of them learn that to speak up about sexual abuse is to risk eternal damnation and hellfire. Too much in this religion is full of empty words, anti-rational teachings about sexuality and gender, and unsupportable beliefs about the past that one almost despairs of the human race which cannot so far completely eliminate it.

