George Pell on The problem of hell
Pell defended the traditional Catholic teaching that hell is a real possibility for the unrepentant, while emphasising God's mercy and the centrality of free human choice.
As a senior Catholic prelate, Cardinal George Pell affirmed the Catechism's teaching on hell: that hell is the state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed, and that its chief punishment is the loss of the vision of God. In interviews and writings, including his ABC Australia column and his pastoral letters, Pell treated hell as a real possibility that the Church could not responsibly deny, while also insisting that no one is sent to hell except by their own final rejection of divine love.
Pell's public framing emphasised freedom rather than fear. He was uncomfortable with the caricature of Catholicism as a religion of hellfire preaching, arguing that modern Catholic teaching foregrounds mercy and the universal salvific will of God. But he rejected the move, common in liberal theology, of effectively emptying the doctrine of content. For Pell, a serious account of human freedom required the real possibility of its definitive misuse, and hell was the theological name for that possibility.
In his 2012 Q&A debate with Richard Dawkins, Pell stumbled into controversy by appearing to suggest that atheists might still be saved, only to clarify afterwards that he meant God's mercy extends beyond visible Church membership, not that hell is empty. His considered position, in line with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, was that Christians may hope that many are saved while continuing to affirm that hell is a genuine, not merely hypothetical, destination.
“Hell is not imposed on anyone. It is the state of those who have definitively, freely, chosen to live without God. The Church cannot teach otherwise without betraying both Scripture and the reality of human freedom.”