Archbishop of Sydney

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

St. Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney
Is 66:18-21; Heb 12:5-7, 11-13; Lk 13:22-30

By + Cardinal George Pell
Archbishop of Sydney
22 August 2004

“How many people will go to Heaven?” or “Will only a few be saved.” Are usually questions asked by people of faith i.e. believers in the one true God, believers in life after death, and usually believers in God’s judgement, in accountability to God for what we do with our lives.

Modern unbelievers are more likely to state that they do not believe in life after death for anyone; while others, preferring to ignore Christian teaching in the matter, explain that they do not know what to believe.

We are all influenced by the world around us, and we Catholics, not merely those of us who worship regularly, are only a minority here in Australia, where irreligious forces regularly batter us because we do not subscribe to their opinions.  On this question of the afterlife there are quite a few Christians who have formed their views on heaven (but not on hell) from the world around us, as well as the bible.  So they continue to believe in life after death and come dangerously close to asserting the right of every human being to heaven.  The language of universal human rights is a wonderful development, but rights without corresponding emphasis on responsibilities are a nightmare and rights language is used for the strangest purposes e.g. to claim the right to an abortion, or the right to have a child by same sex couples.

There is nothing in Christian teachings to justify the claim that everyone has a right to life after death, much less an eternity of happiness beyond human comprehension.  In fact I have long suspected that those who believe everyone goes to heaven are very little distance from believing that no one goes to heaven!

While there is an almost universal longing for life after death, the dead are very silent despite the claims of those, usually fraudulent or deluded, who claim to be able to make contact with the other side.  We believe in life after death because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has told us that is the way things are; i.e. there is an eternity of reward and punishment judged on the presence or absence of faith, love or hate in our lives.

The Scriptural images of our union with God in heaven through Jesus Christ (which is beyond our understanding) are quite reassuring and beautiful; life, light, peace, a wedding feast, wine of the Kingdom, the Father’s house, the heavenly Jerusalem, paradise.

But there are also a number of New Testament texts explaining Christ’s teachings on the punishment of hell, and others like today’s gospel which recounts Our Lord’s rather equivocal response to the question about how many are saved.

The Jews used to barricade their houses in the evenings, lock and bolt the front gate, which was usually open during the day.  Jesus explained that the gate is narrow and not everyone who wishes to enter the gate will be admitted.  We have to know the head of the house and he will refuse to acknowledge the wicked, even though they claimed to have dined with him.

Jesus went further than this to his Jewish hearers saying that those in heaven will come from east and west, from north and south; an explanation which should be consoling to us in Australia.  He also added that some who are now last will be first and vice versa, a teaching which brings hope to most people but is not entirely reassuring to Cardinals and Archbishops.

The text also explains that there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth among those excluded.  Just yesterday I heard a ridiculous story of a Scottish preacher who was much attached to this teaching and frequently included it in his sermons, enunciating it very clearly.  After hearing this many times, eventually a gummy toothless old grandma up the front of the church interjected “What if you don’t have any teeth?”  “Teeth will be provided” promised the preacher.

Where do we go from here?  What is the answer to Jesus’ anonymous questioner?

The Scriptures do not give any warrant for easy reassurances that everyone will be saved.  But two basic teachings should always be remembered.  The first is from today’s second reading to the Hebrews.  We are sons and daughters of God, and children do have rights.  Secondly we must always remember that Jesus told us to call God “father” and God our Father loves us.  Therefore we can be sure of love, mercy and justice.

We do not know how many are saved.  There is no definitive Catholic teaching that any individual is in hell.  I searched the Catholic Catechism in vain to check what they had to say on the matter and it was silent, but it also explained very usefully that those who go to hell do so by their own free choice.  Hell is the “state of definitive self exclusion from communion with God and the blessed” (par 1033).  God is predictable, reliable, just and loving.  He is not out to trick us and send us downstairs unawares.

Just this weekend there was a good review of what I suspect is a rather silly book on the church, where the salvation of atheists is discussed.

Catholics no longer believe that only Catholics go to heaven (if we ever did).  The one true God loves people of all faiths and no faith.

Like you, I do not know how the good God will judge disputed cases, but no one will be damned by a good God by an accident of birth and no will be damned for genuinely innocent mistake.  Genuine searchers for truth struggling towards the light in love would have good claims on the Father.  Like us their service of others will be an important criterion of judgement.

Those who refuse to consider the issue of God, especially those who reject the possibility of God because accountability to God must follow are in quite a different situation.  They truly do need mercy and enlightenment, so that they will not persist in their mistaken choice.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of Holy Spirit.  Amen.