ABSTRACT
In 2006, after a year of consultation, Pope Benedict XVI abolished Limbo from the tenets of Catholic faith, on the grounds that it is “mere hypothesis.” 1 This bold edict made me wonder why modern secular westerners have not discarded the other eight circles of hell on the grounds that they too are “merely hypothetical.” And yet it seems that although we can no longer believe in hell, we cannot quite not believe in it either. Beneath a surface of modern incredulity that anyone could take seriously such archaic concepts as eternal punishment or eternal pain, there persists in the secular imagination a latent readiness to confirm the reality of hell.
