A public apostate recently stated, "This isn't dogma, just my thought. I like to think of hell as being empty. I hope it is." Many others online repeated the sentiment. But they're wrong. First of all, it's infallible dogma that not just demons, but men and women are in hell. The Council of Trent states in chapter 3 in the Decree on Justification: “But, though [Christ] died for all, yet all do not receive the benefit of His death, but those only unto whom the merit of His passion is communicated.” Let's also look at why it's not more hopeful to think of an empty-hell. First of all, St. Augustine said, "There are two things that kill the soul: Despair and false hope."—Sermon 87.8. One of the reasons "hoping" in an empty-hell destroys true supernatural hope is because it's against [...]

Today we are going to look at what two British Cardinals of the 19th century wrote about the last group of Catholics.  The first paragraph comes from Cardinal Newman: This is what I have to say about the last persecution and its signs. And surely it is profitable to think about it, though we be quite mistaken in the detail. For instance, after all perhaps it may not be a persecution of blood and death, but of craft and subtlety only—not of miracles, but of natural wonders and powers of human skill, human acquirements in the hands of the devil. Satan may adopt the more alarming weapons of deceit—he may hide himself—he may attempt to seduce us in little things, and so to move Christians, not all at once, but by little and little from their true position. We know [...]