At Mass on Sunday, the Gospel posited that a significant amount of people will go to hell, so they might want to wise up before it’s too late.  Interestingly, a Gallup survey says about 60 percent of Americans believe in damnation, Evangelicals leading the league.

 

The priest sermonized about the prospect of Gehenna, but gently.  These days, the Catholic Church rarely pounds home theological negativity, preferring to encourage good behavior from the pulpit.

 

It’s tough enough to get folks in the pews. Telling them a fire pit may await doesn’t make it easier.

 

The hell thing, of course, has been around since human beings harnessed fire to cook food and keep warm.  Back at the first Thanksgiving time, the Puritan sermonizers spent hours threatening their flock with eternal suffering if their knee socks were too low.  Plymouth was a tough place.

 

In the modern world, miscreants are running wild seemingly without restraint. None of the 15 horrendous human beings profiled in my book “Confronting Evil” repented.  Not one.

 

To me, it just doesn’t stack up that a person can consistently harm others with no final judgment or consequence.  I hope that is not the case.

 

Because if it is, we are all living in a meaningless world without true justice. And that would be a hell of a thing.

 

See you this evening for the No Spin News.