Previously, I wrote at length concerning Bishop Barron's page defending reasonable hope as a possibility (including its many misleading, bad or flat out wrong references among which were theologians condemned for heresy like Origen, or were never Catholic like Isaac the Syrian)
Recently, Bishop Barron's outfit Word on Fire produced a page with Q&A on the legitimacy of the Second Vatican council. I would critique it as not being nuanced enough, but that would be for another article. As stated before the fathers of the Second Vatican council did not accept von Balthasar's absurd notion that Hell might be empty, rather Lumen Gentium was worded so as to remove this as a possibility. Prior to Bishop Barron removing comments to his video on reasonable hope that all be saved, I provided Barron with that statement by Lumen Gentium, a document of Vatican II and the fathers' drafting notes on it, in all likelihood the Bishop ignored the comment since he could not answer the claim, though its possible did not see it, though he responded to my other statements. I bring this up because the Bishop in his new page on Vatican II states:
7. Could parts of Vatican II’s doctrine be removed or reversed in the future?
No.....
The doctrine articulated by Vatican II is, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, part of the Catholic Church’s official magisterial teaching. It may be deepened or clarified in the future, but it cannot be removed or reversed.
One father wanted a sentence to be introduced from which it would be clear that there are damned defacto, lest damnation remain as a mere hypothesis.
The full article on Lumen Gentium with the reference is found here. We are indebted to James T O'Conner for this find.Answer: The proposal does not square with this context. In no. 48 there are cited the words of the Gospel in which the Lord Himself speaks about the damned in a form which is grammatically future.
The question is to be asked: Will Bishop Barron be consistent with his position on Vatican II and recant his position that it is possible no humans will be in Hell? Will Bishop Barron admit he erred in teaching that reasonable hope that all be saved is theologoumenon rather than heresy?
Until the Bishop Barron acknowledges the Second Vatican Council taught a Hell populated with humans is a certainty rather than a possibility, he cannot be taken too seriously on Vatican II.
Bishop Barron likely does not admit it is heresy because of his education where Balthasar was treated as orthodox, even the prior popes largely treated him as orthodox, though Pope John Paul II explicitly named von Balthasar in the issue of Hell, and stated the gospels were clear (ie people will go to Hell). There is precedent in church history for a theology to a heavy weight like Origen, only to be condemn centuries later. The same can be said of Theodore of Mopsuestia who was seen as orthodox by the Chalcedonian father, but when Constantinople II came around his writings were condemned (and controversially he was post humously anathematized).
