Jesuit, Avery Cardinal Dulles On "The Saved And The Damned"

The Population of Hell
by Avery Cardinal Dulles May 2003
Copyright (c) 2003 First Things (May 2003).

An excerpt.

.

The constant teaching of the Catholic Church supports the idea that there are two classes: the saved and the damned. Three general councils of the Church (Lyons I, 1245; Lyons II, 1274; and Florence, 1439) and Pope Benedict XII’s bull Benedictus Deus (1336) have taught that

everyone who dies in a state of mortal sin goes immediately to suffer the eternal punishments of hell.

This belief has perdured without question in the Catholic Church to this day, and is repeated almost verbatim in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC §1022, 1035). Several local councils in the Middle Ages, without apparently intending to define the point, state in passing that some have actually died in a state of sin and been punished by eternal damnation.

Read the full article (here)

More from the Summa (here)

Hat Tip to MDV