Pope Says Hell Is a Self-Inflicted Fate

Hell is a reality and eternal damnation is a self-inflicted punishment, Pope John Paul II told pilgrims attending his weekly general audience Wednesday.

“Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God, but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life,� the Roman Catholic pontiff said. “It is the ultimate consequence of sin itself.�

John Paul regularly speaks at his general audiences on questions arising from church teachings. His talk on hell followed a discourse last week on heaven, which he said is “neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living and personal relationship of union with the Holy Trinity.�

A lengthy editorial published two weeks ago with Vatican approval in the authoritative Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica also dealt with the theological concept of hell.

“Hell exists, not as a place but as a state, a way of being of the person who suffers the pain of the deprivation of God,� read the editorial in the journal.

Speaking in similar terms, the pope told the 8,500 pilgrims attending his audience that “more than a physical place, hell is the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.�

“So eternal damnation is not God’s work but is actually our own doing,� he said.

Demons, he said, “are creatures who have already given a definitive ‘no’ to God. These are the spirits who rebelled against God. They serve as a warning for human beings: Eternal damnation remains a real possibility for us too.�