The Population of Hell and the Limitations of Human Freedom, by Larry Chapp  

By Larry Chapp, Catholic World Report, April 27, 2024

Dr. Larry Chapp is a retired professor of theology. He taught for twenty years at DeSales University near Allentown, Pennsylvania. He now owns and manages, with his wife, the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Farm in Harveys Lake, Pennsylvania. Dr. Chapp received his doctorate from Fordham University in 1994 with a specialization in the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. He can be visited online at “Gaudium et Spes 22”.

Eleven years into this papacy, what is gradually coming into view is an approach to anthropological analysis veering heavily in the direction of the therapeutic mentality of modernity.

With the promulgation of the latest document from the DDF (Dignitas Infinita) much focus has been on the use of the word “Infinite” in the title as a qualifier for the ontological nature of human dignity. I do not think the use of this term is problematic as I noted in a recent article in The National Catholic Register.

The most problematic thing for me was not the new document as such but rather something Cardinal Fernandez said while announcing its release. At the press conference introducing Dignitas Infinita, Cardinal Fernandez was asked the following question by journalist Diane Montagna: “If man has infinite dignity, how can he be condemned to the eternal suffering of Hell?” ….

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