Is Frank Sinatra in Heaven?

For those with an eschatological bent – and who hasn’t? – it sometimes occurs to ponder just who is heaven. (End of life issues have assumed rather more prominence in my life this past year than I would ever have expected or wanted).

And it pains us to contemplate that those who we idolise on earth for the good they have done and for the ways they have touched us deeply may not make it. If we even accept an afterlife, that is. For believers, though, this can be a real problem.

There are two groups who believe in automatic salvation. There are the secular types who believe that anyone they like is “up there”. S/He – fill in your favourite sportsman, composer, scientist, philosopher, singer, or whatever – is now up there wreaking havoc and adding to Heaven. The great cricket pitch (or whatever) in the sky, etc. This is the image of heaven as the ultimate party or family reunion.

Then there are the “universalist” theologians, like David Bentley Hart, who created a stir with his book, That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell and Universal Salvation (2019). Amazon states:

In this momentous book, David Bentley Hart makes the case that nearly two millennia of dogmatic tradition have misled readers on the crucial matter of universal salvation. On the basis of the earliest Christian writings, theological tradition, scripture, and logic, Hart argues that if God is the good creator of all, he is the savior of all, without fail. And if he is not the savior of all, the Kingdom is only a dream, and creation something considerably worse than a nightmare. But it is not so. There is no such thing as eternal damnation; all will be saved. With great rhetorical power, wit, and emotional range, Hart offers a new perspective on one of Christianity’s most important themes.

https://www.amazon.com.au/That-All-Shall-Saved-Universal/dp/0300246226

It is certainly a theory to which hopeless sinners can relate. Mel Gibson, himself a deeply flawed Catholic but still a believer, has noted that the first canonised Catholic saint was Dismas.

The good thief. Saved as he hung on the cross at Golgotha. Next to the Saviour. “This day you will be with me in paradise”. Dismas didn’t need any Vatican commission to authorise his passage to the next kingdom. The bad thief made a big mistake! Dismas was a thief, obviously. Notwithstanding the vicissitudes of brutal Roman colonialist law in Jerusalem, we might assume that Dismas wasn’t one of the good guys.

But salvation at five minutes to midnight is possible. God’s ways are not our ways. The Gospel parables confirm this. There is a school of thought (Joseph Pearce) that suggests that Oscar Wilde (for God’s sake) was saved by conversion, right at the end.

https://tandirection.com/podcast/episode-22-oscar-wilde/

A Dismas effort if ever there was one.

Perhaps Mel himself, widely known for his Catholic sins, is hoping for a similar fate. He has emphasised the infinite and out-there mercy of God. And the possibility of redemption beyond the wit of man.

Of course, God’s peculiar view of mercy and of justice was foreshadowed in the Gospels, specifically in the parable of the workers at the vineyard. The boss kept going down to the town square during the day to recruit workers for the grape harvest. Turns out that those who were recruited late in the day received the same wage as those who worked the full day. Go figure.

Then there is the theology of “baptism of desire”. The only way to God is through Christ – notwithstanding the recent contribution of the Pachamama Pope – but what about those, like, say, the proverbial innocent in the jungle who has never heard of Christ (or, indeed, of the end of World War II)? It seems they can be saved too.

What of the Jews? They believe in God the Father, after all, but rejected, and still reject, His Son-as-Saviour. Early Church fathers were said to be anti-Semitic for this reason. Some of the things they (like St Gregory of Nyssa) said of the Jews were pretty ugly. And led to the pogroms. Again, pretty ugly.

Then we have the addicts, whether to alcohol, drugs or porn, who are so in-deep as to be beyond the realm of rational sin-making. Not to mention the suicides, especially those suffering from depression, who are certainly beyond the rational capacity to think straight about God, life and death. Surely hyper-pain on earth earns them an eternal reprieve. I hope so, whatever some say about the selfishness of suicide. I had a very good friend in Hervey Bay who took his own life a decade or so ago. It was simply awful for his beautiful family who, as far as I know, forgave him. If forgiveness was even a category for them. In such cases, we would like God’s ways to be our ways. For His mercy to outweigh His justice.

All of which raises a few questions.

Does God’s mercy extend to those who might or might not be “good people” in human terms, but are not “good” people in terms of God’s laws? Like a divorced and remarried man or woman? Or, harder still, people whose use of their God-given talents (say) bring unalloyed joy, even a transcendent experience, to countless people. Or just people who are “good” in human terms, do great and heroic things or simply live lives of continuing service to others. Say, Fred Hollows. Or carers for the disabled in the home. The so-called secular saints. What becomes of them, heaven-wise?

The old joke has it that when Catholics get to heaven, they are surprised to find Protestants there too. That story cuts both ways. Remember Israel Folau’s excoriation of idolaters, aka Catholics? (Yes, it wasn’t just homosexuals who came to his attention).

The universalists think that everyone gets to heaven. WTH? The aforementioned David Bentley Hart, of course, believes this. The aforementioned Pontiff appears to be on that page, too. As might be the late Richard John Neuhaus, whose stunning book, Death on a Friday Afternoon, is a sublime reflection on the events at Golgotha in 33 AD. For a discussion of Neuhaus’s alleged universalism, see:

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/08/will-all-be-saved

And:

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2001/12/universalism-redux

The author of the second piece summarises Neuhaus thus:

Richard John Neuhaus uses an interesting argument to establish his hope of universal
salvation: a) Christians are to pray for the salvation of everyone, b) one cannot pray for something that one certainly knows will not be granted, hence c) universal salvation
is a legitimate hope.

Fascinating stuff. Neuhaus has universalist hope, perhaps even a universalist mindset, but not universalist certainty or belief. We can all relate to that. Hope, after all, is one of the three great Christian doctrinal pillars.

Hart also brings us in touch with the idea of the Apokatastasis:

Apokatastasis is a Christian doctrine that refers to the restoration of all people, including the Devil and sinners, to a state of perfection and blessedness. The word comes from the Greek words apo- and katastasis, which mean "restoration" and "condition".

Early Church Fathers such as Origen subscribed to this view of the end times and beyond. They argue from the logic of the ever-loving God. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apokatastasis

Hart also brings us to ECT:

Endless Conscious Torment (ECT) is the belief that some people are tormented in hell forever. Universalism is a Christian doctrine that denies the idea of ECT.

Scary stuff. Those who question ECT also have issues with a loving God that allows pain and suffering on earth, but that is another story. That one belongs comfortably in the too-hard basket for the moment.

Christ Himself talked about hell a lot. He would hardly have done that if there was no one in it! Nor did He shy away from describing it as “eternal”. The fire doesn’t go out. There is also the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. There is an eternal divide that cannot be breached.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2016%3A19-31&version=NIV

So, the universalists would appear to be on shaky canonical ground. What can be said of the usual suspects, and I don’t mean Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Torro, Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, Chaz Palminteri and Pete Postlethwaite? I mean Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and Anthony Fauci. Surely these folks deserve a little ECT.

ECT is very Dante and the nine circles of hell. (For an entertaining tour of the circles, see:

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/articles/a-visitors-guide-to-dantes-nine-circles-of-hell/)

The Covid criminals may be headed for either the fourth circle (greed), the eighth circle (fraud) or the ninth (treachery, aka treason). Climate “scientists” and fact checkers might also be found in the eighth circle.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the universalists are those who believe that heaven is actually a pretty lonely place. They think that very few will be saved. Some, quoting the Book of Revelation, put the number at 144,000. One and half full MCGs. Yikes!

The late George Pell was a bit of an “inclusivist” himself in the 1970s. He views evolved over time, too. He summarised his understanding of the matter in 2020 thus:

An inevitable question follows for all Christians. How many will be saved? Though Jesus was no sentimentalist, Luke tells us that he did not respond directly to the question of whether only a few would be saved. No percentages are given: “Try your hardest to enter by the narrow door, because I tell you many will try to enter and will not succeed.” Jesus concludes more optimistically that many will come to the feast from every direction, and the last will be first and the first last (Luke 13:22–30).

In Matthew’s account, Jesus is more explicit. The gate is narrow, the road to destruction wide. Trees that do not produce good fruit, vines that produce thorns rather than grapes, will be cut down and burnt, whereas those who listen to Christ’s words and act will build on solid foundations (Matt. 7:12–27).

Matthew also conveys Jesus’s explicit promise that the Son of Man will not be inclusive at the Last Judgment, but will separate the sheep from the goats for eternal reward or eternal punishment. I once wondered why Our Lord was so unsympathetic to goats. I concluded that it was because of their individualism and contrariness, their refusal to cooperate and be herded (Matt. 25:31–46). Goats do not symbolize conversion and community.

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/12/last-things

Pity the poor goats. And Nathan Lyon wants to be the GOAT. Pell continued:

I have never had a problem with the doctrine that purification might be needed before we can be in God’s presence or cope with his goodness. I have compared it to the discomfort we experience when woken by a sudden bright light. But I have always struggled to reconcile the twin notions of a loving God and eternal punishment.

More than fifty years ago, I was preparing a group of English lads for First Communion. For some reason, they ­started to explain confidently that hell did not exist. “What about ­Hitler?” I asked—and hell was back with a vengeance.

So I taught publicly about hell over the decades—once provoking a long letter of support with much profound theologizing from Germain Grisez—but I also expressed the hope, perhaps expectation, that few would be consigned to hell, with the balancing belief that many would need to be ­purified in purgatory.

There is that hope coming through, again. And a tinge of expectation. Perhaps George was a small u-universalist. But his view changed dramatically later in life:

My views changed in an unexpected way. Each year the Vatican authorities run two courses in Rome for “baby bishops,” those recently consecrated. I was chairing a day of discussions when one American bishop developed the claim that our entire priestly activity is determined by how many we believe will be saved. If there is no punishment and all are saved, why then should we bother? Why did Jesus bother with the Cross? I was forced to rethink my position. I returned to Jesus’s teachings in the New Testament and found that they provided insufficient warrant for my optimism. One need not believe with St. Francis Xavier that the unbaptized are damned, but sheltered sentimentalists like me ignore too easily the terrible suffering caused by sin and underestimate the obduracy of the human will.

My late Jesuit friend Fr. Paul Mankowski supported the argument of John Finnis that the failure to take seriously Jesus’s claim to judge everyone on the last day “is at the heart of the crisis of faith and morals.” I now agree. Christian hope for the triumph of the good requires Jesus’s judgment.

Some of all this came to mind as I recently passed a fashionable eatery in Cairns that was playing a Sinatra classic. (Just after I had been captivated by Mel Gibson’s musings with Joe Rogan). Frank’s voice comes straight from heaven. The brilliant Bernie Taupin, writing Original Sin for Elton John, had it:

Oh, it's carnival night
And they're stringing the lights around you
Hanging paper angels
Painting little devils on the roof

Oh the furnace wind
Is a flickering of wings about your face
In a cloud of incense
Yea, it smells like Heaven in this place …

https://www.streetdirectory.com/lyricadvisor/song/cpouue/original_sin/

Well, when Frank sings, it sounds like “heaven in this place”. Bing Crosby lamented that his mate Sinatra, he of the almost divine voice, happened to be born in the same century as Bing. He sounds a little bitter about that.

Sinatra was no saint, even in human terms, from all accounts. But can he be a Saint? He certainly sang like one. One of the bravest things Robbie Williams ever did was to splice Frank into his own version of It Was a Very Good Year. Asking for trouble. Hearing just a few bars from Frank over a half decent sound system transcends one pretty instantly, away from the daily vale of many tears and to quite another place.

Are the people who unwittingly might bring people closer to God deserving of the same affection we have for G K Chesterton, whose cause for sainthood appears to have stalled, but who is reputed to have been responsible for many conversions to Christ?

What about “sinners” who don’t believe in sin, or in God for that matter? Given the working definition of sin as knowingly giving offence to God in the disobedience of His laws, how can the ignorant-of-God “sinner” be knowingly breaking God’s laws?

I am no theologian (obviously) but it does make you wonder. Perhaps, come the resurrection of the body, we will only have access to Frank’s recordings but not to Frank himself.

All this makes me very sad. A little like the idea that there are no dogs in heaven. Now I do agree with the current Bishop of Rome on that one.

Critics and critical admirers of Hart have pointed out that his arguments on salvation are “emotional” and personal.

Fair enough. But many of us come to Christ and stay with Him through emotion. We love with our hearts as well as our minds. And many people – especially sinners, of course – will WANT to believe that Hart might be right. And that we will all hear Frank in person on the other side. That would be a very, very good year.

One thing is certain, we cannot ever know what is in a man’s soul. I think I land pretty close to RJN, who says of another theologian, von Balthasar, and his tilt at universalism:

The question of universalism—whether all will, in the end, be saved—is perennially agitated in the Christian tradition. A notable proponent of that view was the great Origen, who, in the third century, set forth a theologically and philosophically complex doctrine of “Apocatastasis” according to which all creatures, including the devil, will be saved. “Origenism”—which is not necessarily the same thing as Origen taught—has been condemned from time to time, with the Emperor Justinian trying, unsuccessfully, to get a total condemnation at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. Among theologians and church historians, there has been something of a rediscovery and reappreciation of Origen in recent decades, helped along in significant part by the voluminous writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar. The universalism question came in for broader discussion with the publication of Balthasar’s little book Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved”? (1988). Balthasar’s is a very careful argument, clearly distinguishing between universal salvation as a hope and universal salvation as a doctrine. He supports the former and rejects the latter. In sum: we do not know; only God knows; but we may hope.

Yes, we may all hope. And be not too keen to judge. Easier said than done in a world both of Faucis and Sinatras. Of beings who want to crush us with their power and those who wish to provide us with joy. Can one really accept that the twice-married rich man and ex-Catholic, non-believer, Jimmy Buffett, who has done far more for my well-being than even the Chairman of the Board, is sharing a cell down below with Adolf Eichmann, Mr Banality of Evil himself?

That is another hard one.

None of this discussion can take place without mention of higher spiritual battles for the souls of men. Good and evil. Not much allowed to be discussed in polite circles these days. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said:

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.

Charles Bronson, of course, starred in a film about “the evil that men do”. And we do plenty.

St Paul in Ephesians (6: 12) lifts the debate from men’s hearts to “higher principalities”. Mel Gibson intends to visit these in the forthcoming The Resurrection of the Christ. Here is St Paul:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Another translation says:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

https://biblehub.com/ephesians/6-12.htm

How mere mortals going about their daily business, being flawed humans, committing sins of commission and omission of lesser and greater import, are connected to this higher spiritual battle is way beyond my pay grade.

Of course, as Dante realised during his famous poem about the circles of hell, there are sins and sins. Those of us who think that God’s musicians, with their divinely given gifts, deliver us something that sounds like “heaven in this place”, will hope that He remembers His Dismas moment when assessing the merits of those worthy (or not) of His Kingdom. Especially Frank and Jimmy. And they weren’t, like the Good Thief, lifelong brigands deemed worthy of a Roman hanging.

Might they have had a repentance of desire? Who on earth knows? And how this might count. My vigorously atheist late brother, he of considerable earthly gifts and contributions, ran down the clock to his own untimely passing, continued to read Nietszche, and not St Paul, to the last. No priest was called.

Paraphrasing (the possibly saved) Oscar Wilde, guaranteeing our own salvation is hard enough. Worrying about that of others might be regarded as carelessness.

Footnote: In an interview with priest brother (Bob), David Bentley Hart opening the discussion in an unexpected way. He asked Bob who played lead guitar on Taxman. It was Paul McCartney, and not George Harrison. Bob knew that.

Paul Collits

15 January 2025