... and the title of today's talk. Padre Pio said, "I can't even look at him," and here we are going
to have a glimpse at the concept of Hell. Hello friends of Following Padre Pio. On
this channel we bring to you a series of short talks on the life of our great Saint Padre Pio.
He was a Capuchin friar, he was a mystic, and he was an incredible miracle worker. Do stay tuned
to find out more about Padre Pio, and also to find out what his intercession could do for you.
We encourage you, do participate in our Padre Pio apostolate by liking the video, share the
video with your friends and colleagues as well. In today's talk, we're going to be having a look
at this idea, does Hell still exist? Who goes there? Is it really so bad that it's reserved
only for the likes of Hitler and Stalin? So one would have to be a pretty nasty person, pure evil,
to be condemned there. Or is it not so bad? Perhaps a figure of speech to coerce people with,
because surely a good God can't punish someone for eternity. So that's the logic of that argument,
and I've even heard certain prominent church leaders suggest that if someone dies and let's
say he's a really, really bad person, he does not want to go to heaven or he cannot enter heaven,
then they say, they suggest, that his soul simply ceases to exist, as if a soul can just evaporate.
Which of these opinions is it? What can we actually rely on here? My suggestion is
let's keep this foundation our Lord's foundation. Let's take a glimpse at scriptures. Our Lord said,
"Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One
who can destroy both body and soul in Hell." We all know death of the body is a pretty nasty,
horrible thing, but death of the soul as well, it sounds like an awful place to go.
In the early church, the apostles, they seemed to have stuck with this literal notion of Hell.
Just look at one or two scriptures again, and from the book of 2 Peter,
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them down by infernal ropes to
their lower Hell unto torments," he says "to be reserved unto judgment," or again in the
Book of Apocalypse, "And Hell and death were cast into the pool of fire that is the second death."
We've seen now all of these views, but what was Padre Pio's take? What was his view
on Hell? For this, we're going to have to have a look at this story.
A young lawyer, he went to confession with Padre Pio and then after confession he had
some questions for Padre Pio, so he asked Padre Pio about his grandfather who'd passed away,
who had died four years earlier. He'd never met him before, he'd never met the grandfather before,
but he said, "Your grandfather was a doctor and he's already in heaven enjoying the eternal view
of God," what we call the beatific vision, "because of his charity that he exercised
in his profession." So it says if Padre Pio had met this person, but he had not, and he describes
him, and this gives us a lot of confidence in what he had to say about where the person was.
And then the penitent also remembered his other grandfather who had died, it was now 15 years
earlier. Apparently this other grandfather had been a man completely indifferent to religion,
who had often said, "Why go to Mass? I prefer to go for a walk and to admire nature and just to
pray whenever I feel like it." He was happy with that. "Why should I go to confession?" he said.
"I don't steal or kill anyone." So was this good enough? To a lot of us he's going to seem perhaps
not such a bad person, someone who enjoys some good things in life, walks in nature, no major
sins on his soul, no murder, no theft. And his opinion, of course, it was completely arbitrary
and subjective. To himself it was enough, but did he get it right? And what's the actual standard?
Was he choosing in fact to be dead to God, harboring perhaps some hidden
mortal sins in his soul? Let's take a look. When the
young lawyer asked Padre Pio about this second grandfather, Padre Pio became absolutely pale,
and in a trembling voice and visibly moved, Padre Pio said these words,
"I cannot even look at it. He is so horribly disfigured and he writhes in eternal flames."
Let's just leave it at that with what Padre Pio said.
Next time on this channel, the next video, we are going to see how a young priest,
he was isolated and he was locked down because he was carrying the contagion,
a medical death sentence. What was Padre Pio's reaction to this?
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