athiests can go to heaven

Not sure if anyone has heard of this, but I am a little concerned at the controversy it has caused. I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this. I heard about it last night on a secular radio station,..it is providing quite the stir, as people ponder and lash out at what the Pontiff said. We know persecution is here and will intensify, I don't think this will help things. I think Pope Francis words are being misinterpreted and will add fuel to the fire, especially by those such as the MDM followers. Any thoughts?

http://www.denisonforum.org/cultural-commentary/722-pope-francis-says-atheists-can-go-to-heaven

 

I would say that many people, whatever their claim of "religion" is, go through life with SOME sort of relationship with God. Some get angry at Him, and then say they do not believe, some make Him out to be a clone of themselves, a god who agrees with every opinion and inclination they have. Almost ALL people seem to wrestle with God over their freedom of actions at some point. They do not want God or His Church's authority over them, and fight that. They are caught in the web of sin and do not want to leave it or take the step to get right with God. Anyway, they may go through a whole lifetime before conversion (I was converted at 35) and then when they come to the moment of death, have perfect regret and contrition and beg for mercy from Jesus. I believe that at that point, Jesus in His great mercy would probably save them, however, they would have to start out in purgatory and be purified before they could go to Heaven. If they spent their life trying to do good to their family and neighbors for the sake of loving others, it would be easier for them, even though they do not yet love God. As Jesus said, anyone who even gives a cup of water to one of His little ones will not lose their reward.

 

At the weekend i heard and atheist called Alan McBride talking on the radio.

'On October 23, 1993, Alan McBride woke up and took his daughter out for a bike ride. McBride loves to ride his bike throughout Belfast and out into the country whenever he gets the chance. Earlier that day he had gotten into a small quarrel with his wife, Sharon, as happens sometimes between loved ones. When he and his daughter rode off, his wife went to work at her father’s fish shop on the Shankill Road, an area famous for being the heart of Loyalism in Northern Ireland. When McBride came home, he received a phone call from a friend asking if he had heard about the bomb on the Shankill Road. McBride immediately headed over and saw ambulances and police cars. He saw that the entire fish shop was gone. The story that would later come out was that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) meant to place the bomb in a building where the Ulster Defense Association met, but the bomb exploded before the two bombers had the chance to put it there. Sharon was 29 when she was murdered.'

He talked quite opnely and sicerely about his forgiveness for the people who killed his wife Not only that but he said he understood wre the people who killed her were coming from.

I was not only immensely impressed by the fact that he forgave but he spoke in such sincere and measured tones about things that would drive a cat to a fury.

But being interviewed beside him was a Catholic gentleman who had most certainly not forgiven in fact it was east to see he was full of bitterness and anger and ...well spite.

It reminds me of the words of Jesus, that two sons were asked to do work , one said he would and did nothing the other said he would not wook and then worked his feet off. Jesus asks, 'Who then do you think did the will of my Father?'

'McBride says he spent that first year after his wife had been murdered in a daze of anger and sadness. His life had been turned upside down, and his last words with Sharon had been in anger. McBride grew up in a Protestant home with family members committed to Loyalist politics. But soon after his wife's murder, even in his anger, he began to realize that peace would not be possible as long as terrorism existed, and that is what he considered the Shankill bomb; an act of terrorism. McBride became deeply involved in work that supported victims and family members, and he became actively involved in a group called Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT).

'Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, became a target of much of McBride's outrage, not only because of Adams’s political agenda, but also because of his support for the men who killed McBride’s wife—in fact, Adams had helped carry the casket of the bomber who had died. McBride wrote several letters to the Sinn Fein leader, who finally responded. “Alan,” Adams began in his response, “I am sorry, but you must understand...,” and then went on to describe why he felt the IRA’s struggle was necessary. In remembering this, McBride says, “that's what everyone said, ‘but you must understand.’ No, I don't have to understand anything. It was wrong.”

A short time later, McBride was invited to Scotland to be on a panel speaking to psychologists at a conference on post-traumatic stress syndrome. On the plane he saw a man that he knew was a member of a Loyalist paramilitary group as well as a man who was a member of the IRA. The Loyalist man approached McBride and asked him if he wanted to have a drink when they arrived in Scotland. McBride told the man that because he was against terrorism of all kinds—not just by “the other community”—he could not have a drink with him unless they invited the IRA man. The man was surprised but he agreed to ask and the three of them went out. McBride recalls:

We talked about football for a while and then they asked me about what had happened to me, so I told them my story.

Afterwards the former IRA prisoner reached over to me, touched me on the hand and said: “What happened that day was wrong and I’m sorry.”

Nearly ten years after the Shankill Bomb I had finally heard someone from the Republican community say sorry and not go on to try and justify it. Heaps of times I'd heard Gerry Adams say sorry for the bombing... then he'd always go on to try and justify it. But the fact is that the Shankill bomb was wrong and I needed someone to say that, and when that ex-prisoner said that to me, he moved me to another place.

His story made me think, too. He'd seen the father of his best friend shot dead and had vowed to avenge that killing. That's how he became involved. And I have to accept—indeed I do believe—that while there are some IRA and loyalist paramilitaries who are pure evil and always would have ended up doing evil things whether or not the Troubles had happened, others became caught up due to circumstances. But I do think Sean Kelly [who murdered McBride's wife and was released through the Good Friday Agreement] is one of the purely evil ones.1​

Two years after his wife was murdered, McBride made a choice that would change his life. He moved to a mixed area that was in fact more Catholic than Protestant. He knew he did not want his daughter to grow up in a society where murders like her mother's were possible, and he knew that where and how he was living were somehow part of a culture he had to challenge.

McBride also campaigned “yes” for the Belfast (or Good Friday) Agreement. He did this even though the Agreement would mean the release of political prisoners, including Sean Kelly, the other bomber who killed Sharon. McBride thought the Agreement was best for Northern Ireland and the possibilities for long-term peace.

Today, McBride is a director of the North Belfast WAVE Trauma Centre and a board member for Healing Through Remembering, a nonsectarian organization dedicated to facing the past and finding a way for Northern Irish people to live together in light of what happened, not in spite of it. Despite all of McBride's work and his activism, he does not believe that he should forgive Sean Kelly, or that he needs to.'

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A person who dies an atheist can not get to heaven. That would be heresy. Good people do not go to heaven, holy people do. The difference is that good people can do good things (even in mortal sin), but a holy person does the will of God. A person in grave sin can do no action that merits grace (aside from repentance). Do not be fooled by anyone who teaches otherwise. I would suggest Ralph Martin's new book "Will May Be Saved".

 

Even if it is true who here wants to gamble with their soul on that! It's hard enough dealing with life when you put your faith and trust in God. I knew someone who was an atheist who believed if there was a God then he'd be given mercy. That's of course presumptive. As if God wants to be totally disregarded a creatures whole life and expect to inherit paradise. It's like expecting to inherit a fortune from relative that you never visited or had a relationship with. I'm sure like the good thief it's possible but rare. God is good but just.

God Bless!

 

Ah, but the "good thief" did not die an atheist, but believed in Jesus and was saved.

 

Did any of you ever hear of the brilliant and heart warming philospher Simon Weil? She is sometimes called , 'The patron saint of atheists'. I think her life is so instructive:





'Simone Weil was a mystic and an activist. She fought in the Spanish Civil War against the fascists and served with the French resistance during the Second World War. Born a Jew in Paris, she became a Christian after a mystical experience at the church where St. Francis prayed. But she was never baptized in the church. She self-consciously defined her faith in relation to a life outside organized religion. Weil didn’t want to be part of a religious institution that was limited by exclusion (maintaining the insider/outsider relation). Instead, she wanted to identify with those who were outsiders in society, especially the poor and victims of war. Her book, “Waiting for God,” is a brilliant exposition of her mysticism and activism.
Having suffered greatly in her own life, she wrote insightfully about suffering and compassion. Weil said, “Difficult as it is really to listen to someone in affliction, it is just as difficult for him to know that compassion is listening to him.” For Weil, compassion, like faith, is a mutual process.
She devoted herself to living in solidarity with the people of France during the German occupation. While living in England and working with the French resistance, Weil only ate the meager daily food ration that was given to the French people. Ultimately, hunger led to illness, and Simone Weil died at the young age of thirty four.
Solidarity with those who are suffering in the world was central to her faith. She wrote: “Human beings are so made that the ones who do the crushing feel nothing; it is the person crushed who feels what is happening. Unless one has placed oneself on the side of the oppressed, to feel with them, one cannot understand.”
When I was working on my doctorate about the role of religious institutions in impoverished urban areas, I lived in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District for several years. Many of the poorest and most marginalized people in the Bay Area are crammed together in a few blocks of dilapidated apartment buildings. It is common knowledge in San Francisco that the Tenderloin is home to “outsiders.” In the heart of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a large population of outsiders have been exiled to an inner city island of poverty.
Ironically, I formed deep friendships with many people who lived in the Tenderloin: ex-cons, prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves and poor people with HIV/AIDS. At some point, I stopped seeing them as outsiders, and saw them as friends. At that point, I became an outsider. Solidarity has a price. Like Simone Weil, when we identify with those people in our society who are generally regarded as outsiders, we risk becoming outsiders ourselves. Surprisingly, in becoming an outsider, I discovered that God is present everywhere. And if God is present in the darkest regions of our self and our world, where cannot God be? The world is constructed on the insider/outsider distinction, but God erases every arbitary boundary that separates us from one another and from God by drawing us into closer union and a deeper experience of love.'

 

I remember many years ago I used to go down everyday to mid day mass in St Mary's , the oldest Catholic Church in Belfast. St Mary's like the first three Catholic Churches in this city were all built by our Protestant sisters and brothers because the Catholic Irish who lived here were so poor they could barely eat , never mind build Churches.



I used to sit with the choir at the loft in the back of the Church. Because I am contemplative in my spirituality I never spent any real time getting to know people I just went for mass and to pray and sing, keeping myself to myself so to speak.

However there was a little Catholic Library at the side of the Chapel and I was fond of going down and picking up some Catholic reading material. The lady in charge was, I think Sexton of the Church, I did not know her name and we barely ever spoke .

So I was surprised one day when she came up to the choir loft and asked me to go down to the library to meet someone. She simply said that she had been speaking to him, 'But couldn't get anywhere'.

When I met the gentleman , a guy, I suppose in his fifties he said almost at once ,

' Don't believe in God and you can't change my mind'.

I looked at him and saw at once he was a deeply good person genuinely seeking the truth. So I said to him,

'You are not far from the Kingdom of heaven'.

He looked confused and so I referred him to the Gospel passage to which the Holy Spirit had drawn us both:

Mark 12:34
When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

As I said this and explained the scripture his eyes filled with tears and I could see he was deeply moved. I exchanged a few more words and left, never to meet him again.

But it seems to me that to him can be so aptly ascribed the words of Jesus,

Matthew 7:7
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.'


For it seems to me that the in seeking we at once find, that in knocking we knock against an open door and a good and generous heart will always find the road to heaven, however that may be.

George Herbert. 1593–1632

286. Love

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning 5
If I lack'd anything.

'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.' 10
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?' 15
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.

 

I think the Pope is right here. Somewhere in the Bible Our Lared says that his Father’s house has many rooms. If I am not wrong, one of the Desciples said that anyone who does what is right is pleadsing to God. These to me mean that yes, good people, who are outside the Church can go to heaven. What type of Heaven, I don’t know, but I leave that to God.

The best way I heard this question explained was to see it as Catholics can achieve the fullness of heaven (which links in to the belief that outside the Church there is no salvation).

Somewhere I read something about a convert to Catholicism who prayed all the time for his Mother’s conversion, but she died without converting. Afterwards, the man went to Jesus full of complaints about the loss of his Mother’s soul..how could you let this happen, when I was praying so hard for your mercy for her. Our Lord answered him along the lines that when his Mother died, because of his prayers, he gave her the grace to say “My Lord and My God” when she saw Jesus coming towards here and was saved by these five words. I think a lot about that. We never cal tell what Jesus will accomplish between this world and the next.

 

All good points, and I believe all true. But I also believe that someone can be converted at the moment of death, and I think that is what the Pope was referring to. Kind of like saying "I know you don't believe in God now, but do good so that at the point you DO believe, you will have more in your hands to offer Him when you ask parden"

 

I got this off 'Catholic Answers':

'For the Church's teaching on the salvation of non-Christians, see paragraphs 839-848 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, especially this section:

"This affirmation [no salvation outside the Church] is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience -- those too may achieve eternal salvation.

"Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men" (CCC 847-848).'

 

It seems to me that the understanding of the phrase , 'through no fault of their own', is key.

Some people will take this in one way, some in another. For instance my own home city is full of Churches and I suppose nearly everyone in one way or another has been in some contact with the Gospel message. So you could argue that yes anyone who is an atheist round here, its their own fault.

Yet Jesus said, 'Judge not lest you be judged'. So I would be slow to ascribe fault. I myself come from a loving Catholic family. I think this is why I took to the Faith because it was passed onto me my people who loved. But it seems to me many of we Catholics are not loving and so people simply often do not get see the see the Gospel message in all its glory. It is obscured by its weakness, its sinfulness.

Matthew 5:13

"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

That is no to say that sometimes, yes, atheists can be culpable, for we see instances in scripture such as the story of the rich young man were refusing to hear the Gospel is indeed culpable. But not I think always and everywhere.

I think a good example of where the Gospel message may have been obscured is in the case of child abusing priests. I mean we could hardly judge too harshly those who, having been abused as children by the very ones who were suppose to take care of them? Would it seem strange if many of them turned to atheism?

There are often so many things in the mix its so hard to tell. A good loving Catholic family is such a gift. So many have never had that gift.

 

Yes, exactly!

There is a truth to the old saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

I've been with hundreds of people over the past 20 years in their last days and hours, many who had an open hostility to religion and the life of the soul. It's so wonderful how God works on them, pulling out all the stops, to get them safely home with Him.

This is one of the reasons "Mercy" killing is such a tragedy. I firmly believe the Lord communicates with people in their final agony. The clues I see are great agitation, "wrestling" around in the bed, then, almost always, a great peace sets in. No way to know for sure what's going on, but I can clearly sense it is important work for the soul. So, when someone, in blind arrogance, decides to end that life, they deprive the soul of crucial time to set things right with God.

Recently I had a patient who challenged me regularly about my faith, threatened suicide and mocked God. This went on for over 8 months. The last month, I had an inspiration. If I had to listen to his boldly proclaimed rot, he had to listen to me as well. I got bold with him, and fireworks commenced.

The last time I saw him he started yelling at me, "I want answers! Why is this happing to me? Give me an answer!" I said, "Here's the only answer I have: Jesus loves you." I ducked for cover, expecting another volley of insults. Instead he smiled at me, and asked if he could go to Mass with me. We set a date, then he cancelled because he felt so bad. We set a date for the next week, but he died before we could keep it.

Maybe that little crack in the door, one good intention, let in enough grace to allow him to squeak into purgatory.

"Eternal rest grant him, O heavenly Father, and may perpetual light shine on him, and may he rest in peace."

 

Yes if He intended to go to mass but simply couldn't...so many things we just don't know. So many mysteries....

 

Don't like to see this:

http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/may/30/not-so-fast-vatican-contradicts-comment-pope-franc/

 

How strange; I never heard of such a thing before

I wonder what is going on?

 

Phillip, have you ever heard of the Vatican publically contradicting a Pope before?

 

Yes!

I looked over his actual words again, and here's what he said:

“[A]ll of us have this commandment at heart: Do good and do not do evil. All of us. ‘But, Father, this [person] is not Catholic! He cannot do good.’ Yes, he can ... The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! ... We must meet one another doing good. ‘But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!’ But do good: We will meet one another there.”

We'll meet there: doing good! Not up there, in heaven. Do good, and that's the beginning of your journey. It's not where we start from, it's where we end up that matters.

Here's a good article on the incident: http://www.osv.com/tabid/7621/itemid/10954/Understanding-what-Pope-Francis-said-about-atheist.aspx

 

I've got a creeping feeling that the wolves are circling our dear Papa.

Aside from this incident, the U.S. conference of Catholic Bishops ignored Pope Francis' call for the holy hour last Sunday. I checked their website several times - nothing but crickets. And nothing from the pulpit or in the weekly bulletin in two churches where I attend daily Mass.

There is a local church that has adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, and that's where I went for the holy hour. The regular adorers knew nothing about it!!!

What a horrible omission - to keep that invitation from the average Joe in the pew! Looks like passive-aggressive behavior to me.

And this contradiction - nothing passive about that!