A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and an atheist walk into a coffee shop...

[Mudhammam]

I'm glad I was able to explain it in a way that made sense. It took a while for me to understand it as well, and I still feel like a lot of your average, everyday Catholics don't quite understand if fully either. We often hear the simplified versions of this like "if you die in mortal sin you go to Hell" and "you must be a follower of Jesus to enter the Kingdom of Heaven"... and that's a real shame. It takes some digging deeper to put all the pieces together and understand that it is far from as simplistic as it seems. God is so much bigger than that, and humans are so much more complex than that. That's why the Church stresses that we must never judge the fate of a person's soul, with the exception of canonized saints who we fully believe are in Heaven. But as far as Hell goes, we have no idea who is there and neither can we assume to know. Even if they are Hitler, we can't make the claim that they are in Hell.

Even someone like Aquinas, whom, as far as I know, remains revered among Catholic intellectuals, argues (on the authority of Scripture and Church Fathers) that baptism is required to enter heaven, that all are condemned to Purgatory as a result of original sin, and that Hell is reserved exclusively for those who have failed to obtain forgiveness for mortal sins, which would include rejecting the Gospel stories as veritable fact. In his account, ultimately works don't much matter apart from belief, as "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11:6). Are these not orthodox views within Catholicism anymore, or has the Church permitted its members more intellectual space to diverge from traditional interpretations?