Pornography of success. The Pope blew up the Catholic world by declaring that hell does not exist. What have you achieved?

Most Christian believers will tell you that Hell is a place of punishment for sinners and evildoers. Does this idea have biblical basis? According to Romans 6:7 “He who has died is freed from sin” If a person’s sins are cleansed by death, then what is Hell?

6:23 says, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” Notice that there is no mention of condemning sinners to eternal torture, they simply do not receive the reward of eternal life.
Likewise, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that the punishment for those considered wicked is not torture by fire, but destruction. John 3:36 states, “You will not see [eternal] life.” Jude 1:7 mentions "everlasting fire" but only in the context of Sodom and Gomorrah, which is literally the everlasting fire of God's wrath.

But if a place of eternal torment is indeed intended to be an essential component of Christianity, it is certainly strange that the Bible does not address it.
From a Christian point of view, the idea of ​​hell is not only extraordinarily cruel, but completely excessive. Will God, described in the Bible as the “God of truth,” subject a sinner to endless punishment if he is just and impartial?

1 John 4:8 says that God is Love. Will a loving father torture his child forever as punishment, even if the child has done something serious? Deuteronomy 19:21 famously states “an eye for an eye” is the basis of equal punishment, which does not fit with the idea of ​​endless torment as retribution for the sins of a short earthly life.

In Jeremiah 7:31: “They built the high places of Tophet in the valley of Ben Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in fire—such a thing cannot enter into my mind.” If the idea of ​​burning a person in fire is so unappealing to God that he doesn't even entertain it, then what is hell?

The prophet Jonah was in the “belly of hell,” and David insists that God will be with him even in hell. Even Jesus appears in hell after dying on the cross. This doesn't make sense because the Bible repeatedly states that hell includes separation from God. So why is David confident that God will be with him there?

In fact, if God is with David, why is he in Hell? The answer is that the meaning of various Greek and Hebrew words together is translated by the term "Hell." For example, Hades, the Underworld, Tartarus, and Gehenna all have very different meanings in their original context. Hades and the underworld, roughly equivalent words in Greek and Hebrew, cannot be translated as the "place of torment" that is usually meant by the word "hell" today. A better translation might be "grave" or "life after death."

Much confusion and misunderstanding was caused by the early translators of the Bible persistently interpreting the underworld, Hades and Gehenna from the word “hell”, causing significant confusion.
If “Hades” and “Underworld” do not correspond to the modern perception of Hell, “Gehenna” remains. ("Tartarus" is also sometimes translated as "hell", but this term only appears once in the Bible, and not in relation to humans).

“Gehenna,” from Matthew 5:30: “If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away from you. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go to hell. “It's scary, isn't it? This all boils down to a debate over the exact meaning of Gehenna. The word itself is translated from Greek as "valley of the sons of Hinnom" and refers to an actual valley near ancient Jerusalem. The valley first appears in the Old Testament as the site of fire child sacrifices by the pagans, which continues until at least 2 Samuel 23:10, which describes how Josiah ravaged the place so that “no man could bring his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech.” "

By the time of Jesus, the term was used figuratively and refers to a place of fiery destruction. The Valley of Gehenna essentially became a place for burning the city's garbage and the bodies of criminals and disgraced people. This tradition is quite old, but does not support any physical evidence that souls were sent to Gehenna. In any case, none of the references to Gehenna suggest any kind of eternal torment. Of course, the fires of Gehenna are described as eternal, but Jesus specifically warns that they will be used to “destroy both soul and body.”

So is the idea of ​​hell completely alien to the Bible? Never. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus records how the couple experienced a dramatic role reversal after their deaths: Lazarus is carried away with the angels into a blissful existence in the bosom of Abraham, while the rich man is tormented in a blazing fire.
However, it is important to note that the Bible does not present this story as real. This parable can hardly be called a serious Christian teaching about the afterlife.

The Bible also contains a reference to eternal torture by fire in Revelation 20:10-15 "To be tormented day and night forever and ever" which refers to the "lake of fire and brimstone" where the subjects include "death" and "Hell" which are not are in fact people capable of experiencing actual suffering. In other words, it's symbolism. Just like in the parable of the sheep and goats, which is contained in the Gospel of Matthew. The story, which hovers somewhere between a parable and the simple sermon of Jesus, speaks of the Last Judgment, when sinners will be cast out “into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

This section of the sermon/parable is a fairly straightforward and obviously non-fictional story of both the rich man and Lazarus. The parable ends with an obvious reference to endless torment: “Then [the unrighteous] will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.” For these reasons, sheep and goats are considered in the concept of hell.

However, many theologians argue that this interpretation of the Sheep and the Goats contradicts a number of other biblical verses that explain the fate of the unrighteous at the Last Judgment as fiery destruction through the "second death".

If the unrighteous are destroyed, they will not be able to suffer forever. Some biblical scholars argue that a fire that is described as eternal does not mean that the wicked will burn there for all eternity. Most likely, the punishment means complete destruction in holy fire. In other words, eternal punishment (“aionios kolasis”) simply means immediate destruction.

The interpretation of "aionios kolasis" of eternal death is a contrast with the "eternal life" of the righteous. Like “pruning trees” - John 15:6: “Unless you abide in Me, you are like a withered branch; and such branches are collected and thrown into the fire and burned. Punishments in general are death as a form of punishment.

If Hell existed, what would it really be? Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Cyprian were among those who believed that hell was a literal place of fiery torment. Origen and Gregory of Nyssa disagreed: hell is simply separation from God. While the idea of ​​eternal damnation by fire can be found in the apocryphal second-century Apocalypse of Peter, the idea was not dominant in Christian thinking until around the fifth century AD.

The Greek philosopher and mathematician Plato, who is credited by the French historian Georges Minois with "the greatest influence on traditional views of hell" of all the early philosophers, argues about the afterlife that sinners there will be punished or rewarded in proportion to their actions in life.

Regardless of your views on the existence of Hell, sin requires a specific punishment - according to Plato. This concept has no biblical support, but the philosopher's ideas can be found in many popular Christian versions of the afterlife, most notably Dante's Inferno.

In modern times, many Christian denominations have moved away from St. Augustine's concept of Hell as a physical place underground. Even the venerable Catholic Church, represented by Pope John Paul II in 1992, declared that Hell is simply a state of “ultimate self-exclusion from communion with God.”

Ancient Egyptian religion, for example, shows a cave containing a "lake of fire" where the souls of sinners were punished for their crimes. Early Mesopotamian religions also believed that the underworld lay underground. A particularly interesting comparison is Hell in Zoroastrianism.

In early Zoroastrian texts, the souls of sinners after death are condemned to eternal punishment in the underworld. Arda's book Viraf describes hell as a pit full of fire, smoke, stench and demons. Souls are tortured depending on the severity of their sins in life, and all this is presided over by Angra Mainyu, a great evil spirit who laughs and mocks the unfortunates in hell, instead of their Creator God.

This sounds amazing. The Zoroastrian hell "Tartarus" is filled with demons and ruled by the devil. There is something to be surprised about, because the sinner, damn it, is punished, while the demons of Zoroastrianism delight in developing inventive tortures for each specific sin. Indeed, Arda's book Viraf is distinctly reminiscent of Dante's Inferno.

Even the subtle evidence of Hell in the New Testament looks strange compared to the Old Testament, which clearly has no concept of Hell at all. Scriptures such as Job 3:11-18 suggest that death is simply the ending of life: “Why was I not destroyed at birth, and died when I came from the womb. Now I would be lying in peace; I would sleep in a state of rest.”

Ecclesiastes 3:19 is even more skeptical about the afterlife, noting sourly that “the fate of man is like that of animals; the same fate awaits them both: man has no advantages over animals. Everything is meaningless."

Even at the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis 2:16-17 and 3:19, Adam and Eve's punishment for violating God's instructions does not carry the threat of hellfire, but the promise that they will eventually die, "for dust you are and to dust you will return."
If Adam and Eve were in danger of being tormented forever, they would have been warned about it, right? Is God lying when he tells them they will return to dust if his plan was to lock them in the oven? When Cain kills Abel, God condemns him to wander the earth and even forbids people to kill him.

Hell is nothing more than a scare tactic. Many churches and denominations cling to the idea of ​​hell. But why? It cannot be denied that throughout history, the idea of ​​hell has been used as a scare tactic to keep people in line.

An 18th-century preacher named Jonathan Edwards became famous for his sermons, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” that God could “throw the wicked into hell at any moment.” So terrible was his depiction of hell that other clergy had to rush to the aid of the distraught parishioners. Even in our time, the theme of “belief in hell” comes complete with descriptions of the cries of the damned and the smell of burning flesh.

One author describes how a small child screamed in church, confessing that he was “afraid of hell.” , used this doctrine as a pretext for committing barbarism. Before sentencing a group of Protestants to be burned alive, she allegedly stated: "As the souls of heretics will burn forever in hell, there could be nothing more right for me to imitate Divine vengeance by burning them on earth."

Those who smoke

will not necessarily die early from lung cancer.

Not everyone,

who did poorly at school,

will become cashiers in a wine and vodka store.

You can also peek at your neighbor’s cards,

if he doesn't see.

I learned: there is no heaven

Not being late for school doesn't mean

eventually become smart or happy.

Rudeness, politeness or thoughtfulness -

not the road to eternity, but simply such properties.

And also

It is not enough to know all of Pasternak by heart,

to get married happily.

I learned: there is no heaven

for those who go to bed without washing the dishes.

I learned: there is no hell

for those who are breastfeeding children up to one year old.

There is only my neighbor Oksana,

smoking and breastfeeding.

Polite, funny, doesn't wash dishes,

medalist, excellent student, single mother,

passionate fan of Pasternak.

I meet her at the liquor store

where she sits slouched at the cash register

and learns English.

Always greets, always smiles,

remembers my dog's name,

offers cough tablets,

the day before yesterday she cheated me out of fifty dollars

and wished me a good evening.

Her eldest son Mstislav is playing at the counter

nicknamed child, last name has no one to leave with,

Stoic by nature, terrorist by vocation,

Zodiac sign: Leo.

He plays the cello

and low sounds reach the sky,

close at this time

to all visitors

wine and vodka store.

Today, only the lazy have not heard that in order to achieve something you definitely need to get out of your comfort zone. But something must be achieved. Our culture glorifies measurable success - how much money you have in your account, books published, articles, hits, people in your company, etc. "The problem with most people is that they feel unhappy because they haven't succeeded yet. They are unhappy because they think that without it they will never be valuable in themselves." This is a very important and very controversial place - the pedestal of success. Millions of people (and this idea is still not alien to me) believe that they will receive a ticket to the right to live happily only if... Read above about measurable success.

One of the key points is the attitude towards failure or error. For many, a mistake is something that cannot be allowed to happen at any cost or that cannot be shown to significant people (or anyone at all) under any circumstances. This is a shame, the downfall of him as a person and, in general, the end of the world.

Often this thought is simply paralyzing, because the person is completely identified with the result. Anyone. And the easiest way not to make mistakes is not to do it. It takes a lot of time to understand, realize, feel that you are much more than a failed marriage, a failed project or an error in calculations. When this happens, you gradually begin to perceive failures and mistakes as a challenge from fate. And every time you are free to decide for yourself whether to accept this challenge or not.

However, most do not understand that their image of success is not at all realistic, since there is real success pornography. Our mass media lives on this. She takes a success story and paints it in the most attractive colors. Rrrraz and the man on top. It's so easy to sell. Rich, powerful and famous. Just some kind of hypnosis, a real porn industry. And today, not only has a whole generation grown up with us, having learned what sex is from porn sites, success is just as grotesquely turned inside out. And this is a nightmare, because pornography and real sex are as different as happiness and success.

The image of success that is sold to us is “Achieved it!” Here I mean pornography as a stimulating image that is not connected to reality. No matter how much we dismiss the “high”, we are all worried about the question “Is my life filled with meaning?” It is impossible to escape this question. And, it would seem, this is the meaning! Specific and measurable monetary success is the most popular and its impact should silence any doubts. If I have achieved, I am worth something and can go through life with a real ticket. But in reality everything is completely different.

How many of us think that success means, for example, pressure, and much more than before? You are always afraid of losing what you have. You face envy and hatred. When you stumble and fall, it turns out that this is just what someone was waiting for. From the time of the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare to this day, people love to see the great fall from their pedestal.

This is not even a “I achieved it and now I’m here” situation. While clients stand in line to see me, I am a respected specialist. Once the line dries up, I have nothing to prove my importance. If I'm on television, I'm panicked that my ratings will drop and I'll get kicked out. If I'm a big businessman and my company stops making money at a sufficient rate, my shares will fall. If I'm a celebrity, as soon as people stop writing about me, I become invisible. I dont exist.

And was it a success? I have achieved that paradise that those who are commonly called “ordinary citizens” dream of. Sometimes they say to me: “Well, you are a person from TV.” What will happen to me when the TV stops showing me? Will I end up in hell?

It turns out that there is some axis between the feeling of happiness, inner peace and a satisfied ego. If we please only the ego, we may not see peace.

A person who defines success in terms of measurable output - money, number of articles, cover photos - is very different from someone who feels meaningful when he does what he likes. What brings him satisfaction and interest. The work itself does not devastate such people, does not take away energy, but gives it. This is the difference between pornography and reality.

There are people in finance who make huge amounts of money, but they live under constant pressure. Every moment they have to make decisions worth hundreds of millions, and decisions must be made in a split second. At the same time, people often get used to a standard of living that they will not be able to maintain if they stop. Or they will want to “get off the train” - this is a serious addiction.

Inner peace is a function of two things: whether a person does what he really likes and how much his existence does not depend on what he does, on quantitative indicators and on external assessment.

“How much” is a very important word; it shows the degree of your financial security, of course, and also whether you have a life outside of success - outside of the area in which you succeed. This determines whether success will be your nightmare or your source of happiness. If a person spends most of the day doing what he likes, it fills him with energy.

What have you achieved?

One of the problems today is the grotesque image of success that the press screams about. Today, the factor of age is added to this. The world is being changed by young people: Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google when they were not even 30, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook at 26. And the pressure to do something incredible, revolutionary, amazing is almost unbearable.

On the other hand, the endless reality show of success that we see on TV is just a symptom. The world is divided into gods and mortals. Immortals are those “who are shown on TV.” The reality show format takes ordinary mortals, puts them through a media grinder and oops - a new pantheon. We are specifically shown losers at the casting. For what? To emphasize that these are the most ordinary people. We see the process of turning a person into a god, and the thought “it’s so simple” is hammered into our heads. This is the pornography of success.

It's so tempting to think that success is what will allow me to live at peace with myself, but in reality, success only makes life more demanding. And it turns out that in order to succeed, you must please the public, even at the cost of abandoning yourself.

At the beginning of life, each of us was the center of this world. From Freud to Winnicott, everyone talks about the feeling of a baby being loved for its very existence. One of our fantasies is that we will be loved again for the very fact of our existence when we are adults. And so I achieve success and understand that people are interested in my porn film, and not at all what I feel.

Instead of feeling surrounded by love, I feel lonely. There is a narrow circle of friends who love me, but the rest love their own fantasies, which they project onto my image. We want so badly to find a safe place, but the reality is something else. In reality, I am an adult, no longer protected by universal love. At best, I will continue to be admired as long as I play my part.

That is why it is so important to separate your roles, to be able to take off the mask and remain naked - today I am simply, without ranks - alone or with loved ones. Thomas Kaufmann, the most famous tenor in opera, says that the biggest problem in this career is when you go on stage and fill it with your voice, the audience admires you madly. And then the performance ends, the lights go out and you are left alone, completely devastated. Therefore, Kaufman began the habit of immediately after the concert changing into simple clothes and returning to himself.

The question is who am I? A successful person who suffers from panic attacks all the time and is addicted to newspaper headlines - they will not write - or I truly enjoy what I do. Even with complete satisfaction from the work process itself, danger always lurks if there is no balance between the professional area and other areas of life.

Since my work, for example, can be swallowed whole, I stop all the time to ask myself: “Who am I if my work is taken away from me?” A very serious question. Those of us who have nothing but professional success are in danger, because success is a very fragile thing. Aristotle said: “Happiness is living in accordance with your nature.” I agree with him. But how can we live in accordance with our nature when modern discourse is pushing us out of our comfort zone with all its might?

For example, if I see more than 15 clients a week, I feel uneasy. As it is, I enjoy every meeting because I don’t do more of what I want. Leaving your comfort zone? I won’t even think about it!

On the other hand, I am an artistic person and love audiences and applause, so I conduct webinars, trainings and online courses. This is a huge amount of work on creation, preparation, promotion, set of trainings, a colossal expenditure of energy that I give to the group... But for me this work itself is such a delight that I know why I am doing all this. And I definitely don’t want to give this up. Doing this, spending time working with groups, means for me to be in my comfort zone.

The meaning of a happy life is to listen to yourself and hear yourself. The central question that makes sense to ask yourself is “What gives me a feeling of success in everyday life?” If this requires me to fully exert myself 24 hours a day, it’s worth asking myself if I really want to live like this. Just don't tell me about "no choice." Eat. There are simply questions that I am sometimes afraid to ask myself.

Today, a huge army of “success specialists” talk about how self-actualization means success. Moreover, the one that is in glossy magazines. There is some kind of perversion in this. Self-realization means being at peace with yourself, understanding who I really am. Equating self-realization with success is a substitution of concepts.

Inner peace does not mean that there is no need to stress at all. It's just that the effort may be different. For example, in Kenya the most popular sport is long-distance running because that's how Kenyans are built with their long legs and thin ankles. And somewhere the popular sport is wrestling or weight lifting - the people there are stocky and squat. This does not mean that they all necessarily need to switch roles and suffer pain every minute of the marathon, just to get out of their comfort zone.

- Well, that’s it, since I left my comfort zone, wealth and luck should now fall on me, as if from a cornucopia)))

- Someone deceived you. Then any idiot who puts a nail in his foot should immediately become lucky and rich.

Uninvented conversations.

Just over a month ago, Russian media spread the news that “the head of the Patriarchal Commission for Family Affairs, a representative of the “Russian Orthodox Church” (“ROC”) Archpriest Dimitri (Smirnov) advised hitting children “in the face” if they swear. This is how the priest answered the question of a student at the Moscow orphanage “Pavlin” about how to wean someone from using obscene language. "It's very simple,- said the archpriest, and remembered how one of his boys once cursed in front of him. “I punched him in the face, and now he hasn’t cursed for five years.” In his opinion, swearing is a language spoken by “all drunks, thieves, drug addicts.” “I can help: hit me in the face - and that’s it, it’s cured instantly,- he added. “Why say bad words when the Russian language has 500 thousand beautiful words - they were created for poetry”. At the same time, the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church added that “punching a child in the face” is an effective method, but it is better to do without it.

Source: https://m.lenta.ru/news/2019/09/22/baams/amp/

Even if we accept the idea that this was said by Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov in a half-joking form, then taking into account this circumstance we have an outrageous case of improper upbringing of our children by a representative of the non-profit (non-profit?!) organization “Russian Orthodox Church”.

But most of all, I was personally outraged by another recent incident related to the hiking trip to Moscow from Yakutia by the eccentric Alexander Gabyshev, who proclaimed himself a “shaman”, who suddenly dreamed that “Putin is a demon, and he must be expelled from the Kremlin.”

Priest Andrei Batashov, commenting on these events, told reporters on camera: “This is all a gag! Faith must be correct, but this is a collection of people who do not understand what they represent... And then, so to speak, all power is from God, Right?!"

BBC NEWS journalist: “Is Russia a secular state?”

Priest Andrey Batashov: “Well, it’s clear that it’s secular! But from a spiritual point of view, all power comes from God! That is, well, it means that if the Lord appointed such a ruler, then this is what this country needs!”.

One can only sadly regret that our people have such teachers of morality and such preachers of spirituality!

As for “spiritual literacy,” which both priests and believers draw from one officially approved written source - the Bible, I want to say right away that the statement: “all power comes from God!”- from the point of view of true Christianity, is a kind of “innuendo” that previously misled millions of people around the world and continues to do so today. It’s easy to understand what a “non-agreement” is in Russian using the example of a well-known proverb: “An old horse doesn’t spoil the furrow!” Everything seems to be fine, the old experienced horse is no worse than the young one. Ah, no! This same “uncircumcised” proverb, that is, written down or spoken in full, frees us from illusions: “The old horse doesn’t spoil the furrows, but it doesn’t plow deep either!” The difference, however, between an old horse and a young one is very significant.

Likewise with the statement "all authority is from God". This is also an omission. In its uncircumcised form, the meaning of this saying is completely different: “all power (which does not resort to deceiving the people)- from God, and who takes people for fools and promotes the prosperity of slave owners, moneylenders and swindlers - from the devil!”.

In the Bible there is a direct speech of Christ, which proves that not all power is from God, and that which is “not from God” is "power of darkness".

“And Jesus said to the chief priests and rulers of the temple and the elders who were gathered together against Him, “As if you came out against a thief with swords and staves to take Me?” Every day I was with you in the temple, and you did not raise your hands against Me, but now your time and the power of darkness…» (Luke 22:52-53).

Earlier, Christ said to the same audience: “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you cannot hear My words. Your father is the devil; and you want to do the lusts of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks his own way, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which of you will convict Me of unrighteousness? If I speak the truth, why don't you believe Me? He who is from God listens to the words of God. The reason you don't listen is because you are not from God. On this Jews They answered and said to Him, “Are we not telling the truth that You are a Samaritan and that You have a demon?” (John 8:43-48).

What happened next, we all know... The Jews brought Christ to the Roman procurator Pilate, he did not find any guilt in the arrested man, however, at the request of the Jewish “high priests” (CUSTOMERS OF THE CRIMINAL ACTION!) he was forced to put Christ to a painful death.

Thus the words of Christ: “Now is your time and the power of darkness...” (Luke 22:53) found 100% proof. The death of the Savior itself then shouted: “People, remember forever what happened, but, most importantly, remember forever the face of the power of darkness, which dictates its will even to Rome!”

So, we now know how events developed then, and what Christ, the founder of true Christianity - the apostolic movement for the salvation of the oppressed, deceived by the authorities, legally enslaved and, moreover, sick people, managed to say to his disciples during his lifetime.

Further, it will be easy for us to understand why it was on the territory of Rome that a parody of true Christianity arose - “Paulianism”. the founder of which was a certain Jew Saul (Shaul), who allegedly believed in Christ and therefore was called “the Apostle Paul.” For what purpose this Jew became a false Christian and led the pseudo-Christian movement he created, these words of his explain: “Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God; the existing authorities have been established by God. Therefore, he who resists authority resists God's institution. And those who resist will incur condemnation upon themselves..."(Rom. 13:1-2).

This is nothing more than disinformation calls for people to continue to be submissive to any authority...even if it is the authority of Adolf Hitler, the real incarnation of the devil!

So, based on the above, we can conclude: if today the so-called “Russian Orthodox Church” preaches, like “the Apostle Paul”, that “all authority is from God!”, then this is, firstly, a lie, and secondly, This is not Christianity, but “Paulianism”! And whoever claims this is a false Christian.

More than a century ago, in 1907, “Paulianism” was exposed as false Christianity by our great Russian thinker Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, who personally translated all four canonical Gospels from Greek into Russian. Count Leo Tolstoy then wrote a detailed story on the topic: “Why are Christian peoples in general and especially the Russian people now in distress”. His story is still relevant today, because just as Russia then had Roman “Paulianism” instead of true Christianity, so it still has it now!

This fact is confirmed by the statements of another priest from the “ROC”, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin: “The main problem of modern Orthodoxy and, strictly speaking, Russia (because there is no Russia without Orthodoxy) is that we have forgotten how to be slaves. Christianity is a religion of conscious and voluntary slavery. Slave psychology is not some kind of hidden subtext, but a norm of attitude for an Orthodox Christian...”.

My personal opinion: the word “mugface” is in no way suitable for children, but it is even very suitable for the faces of such priests!

I started my article with news: “Archpriest Dimitri (Smirnov) advised hitting children “in the face” if they swear”, and I want to finish it with a reminder that all of Christ’s disciples were taught not only to admonish the foolish with the Word, but also to heal various ailments of people by the Holy Spirit!

If only today’s priests could gain such worldly wisdom and begin such medical practice! Otherwise, it is not clear what their “priesthood” is?! Where is their possession of the power of the Holy Spirit? What is transmitted to them through the rite of “ordination”? "Power of Darkness"?

In an interview with his longtime atheist friend Eugenio Scalfari, the Pope said that Hell does not exist and that sinful souls simply “disappear.” This statement by the Pontiff denies the 2000-year-old teaching of the Catholic Church about the reality of Hell and the eternal existence of the soul, writes.

The interview between Scalfari and the Pope was published on March 28, 2018 by La Repubblica .

The interview is entitled: "Dad: It is a great honor for me to be a revolutionary." (Il Papa: "È un onore essere chiamato rivoluzionario").

Scalfari asked the Pope: “Your Holiness, at our previous meeting you told me that our species will disappear at some point and that God, with his creative power, will create new species. You never told me about souls who died in sin and will go to hell to suffer forever. However, you told me about good souls who are devoted to God. But what about the bad souls? Where will they be punished?"

The Pope replied: "They are not punished. Those who repent receive God's forgiveness. But those who do not repent and cannot be forgiven disappear. There is no hell, there is the disappearance of sinful souls."

This innovative approach of the Pope is in principle contrary to the concept of Holy Scripture.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “The teaching of the Church confirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death, the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishment of “eternal fire.” The main punishment of hell is eternal separation from God ".

The Catechism goes on to say: “The statements of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility imposed on man in view of his freedom and eternal destiny.” It is said: “Enter through the narrow gate, for entering through the wide gate is easy and leads to destruction.”

“Since we do not know either the day or the hour, we must follow the advice of the Lord and constantly ensure that at the end of the path of our earthly life we ​​can deserve to enter the feast and be among the blessed, and not go into the eternal fire, into darkness , where "people will cry and gnash their teeth."

Just almost a decade ago in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI said in a homily: “Jesus came to tell us that he wants us all in Heaven, and this Hell, about which so little is said in our time, exists and is eternal for those who close your hearts out of love."

As for the human soul, the Catholic Church teaches that it is eternal, immortal. This position is repeated countless times in the Catechism.

The very next day after the publication in La Repubblica, which agitated most Catholics, the Vatican categorically disagreed with the content of the article.