sinners shall be consigned to everlasting fire, not material fire such as we
know, but such fire as God would know.”
Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)
Pt. I, Ch. VIII: The first words, depart from me, express the heaviest
punishment with which the wicked shall be visited, their eternal
banishment from the sight of God, unrelieved by one consolatory hope of
ever recovering so great a good. This punishment is called by theologians
the pain of loss, because in hell the wicked shall be deprived forever of the
light of the vision of God ... The next words, into everlasting fire, express
another sort of punishment, which is called by theologians the pain of
sense, because, like lashes, stripes or other more severe chastisements,
among which fire, no doubt, produces the most intense pain, it is felt
through the organs of sense. When, moreover, we reflect that this torment
is to be eternal, we can see at once that the punishment of the damned
includes every kind of suffering.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992)
No. 1034:
Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna,” of “the unquenchable
fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and
be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly
proclaims that He “will send His angels, and they will gather...all evil
doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,” and that He will pronounce
the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”
No. 1035:
The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell
and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a
state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of
hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from
God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he
was created and for which he longs.
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