Soon after his appointment, Archbishop Wojtyla approached Jesuit theologian Ignatius Rozycki and asked him to review Sister Faustina's writings. Initially skeptical, Fr. Rozycki spent ten years in an exhaustive study of the Sister and her notebooks, which the Vatican had condemned in 1958. Father Rozycki's findings were published and the prohibition lifted in 1978. Beatified in 1992, St. Faustina was canonized in the year 2000; on the latter occasion Pope John Paul II declared the first Sunday after Easter "Divine Mercy Sunday."
A few weeks ago I came upon a thought-provoking homily by Father Matthew Kelty, O.C.S.O., which was given on Divine Mercy Sunday, 2006. It seems that during the former Commandant's solitary confinement in Krakow, where he awaited execution for his war crimes, Rudolph Hoess heard the bells of the local Carmel and was reminded of the Faith he had observed as a child but had long since rejected. He called for a German-speaking priest.
The local Jesuit provincial, Fr. Ladislav Lohn, S.J., went to the convent of Sister Faustina and asked the Sisters to pray earnestly while he went to hear the prisoner's confession. In the end Hoess was reconciled with the Church and received Holy Communion. Later Hoess wrote his wife and five children, expressed sorrow for his crimes, and begged forgiveness of the people of Poland. Hoess was executed April 16, 1947.
In his homily, Father Kelty contends that, though he may rightly spend an eternity in Purgatory, by the mercy of God even a man like Rudolph Hoess could be saved. This is an uncomfortable truth for some, even offensive to those whose sense of justice could be satisfied with nothing less than eternal damnation for such a "monster."
Link (here)
6 comments:
May God have Mercy on him.
Thank you for posting that....
Purgatory? Only an insane belief system could create an outcome like that.
Two Judgments
When we die, we undergo what is called the particular, or individual, judgment. Scripture says that "it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27). We are judged instantly and receive our reward, for good or ill. We know at once what our final destiny will be. At the end of time, when Jesus returns, there will come the general judgment to which the Bible refers, for example, in Matthew 25:31-32: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." In this general judgment all our sins will be publicly revealed (Luke 12:2–5).
Augustine said, in The City of God, that "temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment" (21:13). It is between the particular and general judgments, then, that the soul is purified of the remaining consequences of sin: "I tell you, you will never get out till you have paid the very last copper" (Luke 12:59).
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/purgatory
Correct link to Gerety Lecture about Hoess can be found here: http://www.shu.edu/academics/theology/upload/mass-murderer-repents.pdf
This is indeed a tough one. As I have never met the man in question (Hoess) nor heard him testify to his crimes, all we can do is go by the church accounts on the subject. I am happy he wrote a letter of forgiveness to the people of Poland (once again, I have not read this either). But it does make one think of the true face of conversion; Hoess directly and indirectly killed hundreds of thousands for reasons ranging from expediency, political ideals, racial theory and so much more. Yet in the end, it must have been simply that he was good at it; good at getting such a job done in a functioning "machine" type environment. The same can be said of abortion doctors/participants. Whether they are indeed in purgatory, heaven or hell is completely up to divine mercy of course Although if I had to guess; I really don't think the massive conversion that would have been needed to teach him basic human morality 101 could have taken place in such a short period of time.
The way Joseph Fromm described it in his reply was exactly how I was taught it in Catholic schools in the 50's and early 60's. The concept of Divine Mercy wasn't even part of this training, other than the fact that God was all merciful. The enormity of ones sins does not preclude the potential for forgiveness. For myself, I have no problem believing Mr. Hoess is part of the Church Triumphant. What a great Church, Tradition and doctrinal reservoir our Catholic Church possesses. Makes me very proud to be part of it, and will continually strive to be worth.
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