03-25-2021, 10:45 PM
Bad Preachers
The torments endured by the bad priests are particularly terrible.
The preachers who did not dare, by flattery, to rebuke what was wrong, or who, by mixing the false with the true, misled their listeners in some error, are held prisoner in a furnace full of darkness, snakes and filth, bitten and trampled by reptiles with cruelty.
Those who have tried to please people by refusing to blame them for their vices, suffer an infamous punishment. Demons in the shape of dogs make their waste in front of them and this waste is then placed in their mouths. Afterwards, their tongues are torn off by these same executioners and their throats are filled with fire.
Those who have mixed heretical proposals with the truth have their tongues, ears and heart ripped out by these same devils who look like dogs. After that they are laid in a bath of burning stones and are covered with them. While they are in this position, their torturers fill their mouths with lead, sulfur and liquid pitch mixed with several other materials.
Those who are guilty of the sin of simony bear the same penalties, but in addition to them the demons pour between their lips molten gold and silver and address these bloody reproaches to them:
- "Cursed souls, who during your earthly lives were charged with the righteous mission of preaching the heavenly truths, and who by your words of error, have cast so many souls into eternal torment, behold, you too are plunged into it as punishment for your perverse teachings. You are suffering from terrible torments. They will never stop..."
These preachers, who have not known how to lead others or themselves into the ways of salvation, cry out in pain and curse the God whom they have misunderstood.
Unworthy Confessors
The confessors who sold the sacraments, have their mouths filled with molten gold and silver and carry a heavy instrument of torture around their necks. Thus, they are thrown into a pit where there is deep darkness and where mounds of filth are piled up. The demons remove them from this pit by lifting them up at the end of iron fangs reddened by fire, the tips of which cruelly hurt the flesh.
In this place is arranged a kind of staircase under which the devils light a fire, and whose steps are bristled with blades of burning razors. A demon stands to the right of the damned and one of his companions to the left. They push hooks into their shoulders and pull them along the steps on the sharp blades of the burning razors.
These tortures are inflicted on these miserable confessors because they had excited their penitents to evil. The fallen angels constantly remind them of their faults in these terms:
- "You have been raised to a high dignity and, through your crimes, you have fallen into the abyss of perdition and into the furnaces of hell to suffer infinite sorrows. You have despised the sacraments and Satan punishes you by our hands."
Sovereign Pontiffs
It is not even to the sovereign Pontiffs, some of whom have fallen from their throne of glory in such desolation.
They are degraded in a way similar to the way in which priests and clerics who have committed serious offenses are degraded in this life.
The skin of their tonsure is torn off and the fingers of their consecrated hands are cut off. But this skin and these fingers are placed in a less despised place.
The demons take burning pieces of iron resembling miters and place them on the heads of these reprobates.
These miserable souls are then locked up in a prison that is more obscure, darker than the other places of hell. These dungeons are filled with waste and filth. They are thrown into it and pushed upside down.
This punishment is inflicted on them to punish them for the unworthy way in which they held the most august episcopal chair in the world.
From this soiled and filthy place, they are torn away with rage by the demons and thrown into a raging blaze. Although they are still in the fire, like all the other damned, they still experience in this blaze a special torture in addition to the general pain suffered by the condemned.
If they have committed the sin of simony, they suffer the particular torment for those who have loved money too much, the devils pour molten gold and silver into their mouths.
Those who, despite the sanctity of their character, had bad morals, are placed between two iron tables armed with very sharp burning nails and are cruelly nailed to them.
Evil spirits, in the form of ravenous wolves, tear them from these huge pliers and insult them by tearing them apart with their teeth.
- "O Sovereign Pontiffs," they tell them, "who in another century, occupied the highest position on earth and have been blessed with so many honors, how you are miserable and despised now! In the midst of the flames, you are devoured by furious wolves. You will endure this pain and many others, and you will never rest again."
The demons always mock these wretched people and those criminals who have abused grace so much, curse the name of God and His saints.
Magicians
Those who have deviated from the Christian faith in one way or another are punished in a different way.
Those who practiced magic, spells and incantations are placed in the middle part of the abyss, with those souls who added faith to their practices and used them.
They dwell in darkness and torments. The demons stone them with iron pucks reddened with fire.
In addition, they are placed in a kind of cage, similar to the ones in which the slaves offered for sale were once exhibited in Rome. This cage is square and bristling with burning iron instruments. In the middle there are fierce fires.
The souls trapped there are pressed from all sides and it is as if they are crushed by these iron instruments.
Renegades and Apostates
Renegades and apostates are cut in the middle with red iron saws on which drops of molten lead fall. But as soon as these damned are cut in half, their flesh merges together to be able to suffer again, and the demons pour this molten lead into their throat and inflict a great number of other tortures on them.
The Excommunicated
Finally, the excommunicated are thrown into the dragon's mouth. They do not come out of the monster's belly like the other damned, but they descend into the tail of the infernal beast.
This tail, placed in the deepest part of the abyss, is filled with pitch, brimstone, boiling oil and iron that an ardent and terrible fire, beyond all expression, keeps in a liquid state.
The demons who stand around this part of the dragon's body, but not inside, overwhelm these souls with insults and reproaches and shout at them:
- " Wretched souls, who allowed yourselves to be blinded by your passions and lead by the desires of your senses, your sins have bound you and immobilized you in this place, because you did not fear excommunication. Suffer this harsh and cruel punishment and stay forever in the dragon's tail to be devoured by fires that will never be extinguished."
And these souls answer:
- "Alas! Alas! What torments, what pain and shame we suffer!..."
Visions of Hell of St. Frances of Rome.pdf (Size: 392.8 KB / Downloads: 0)