In a century marked by psychological unrest, cultural upheaval, and spiritual confusion, Archbishop Fulton J.

Sheen offered a diagnosis of the modern soul that remains unsettlingly relevant.

His reflections did not approach hell as a distant theological abstraction reserved for the afterlife.

Instead, he described a condition already unfolding within human consciousness, a form of inner exile shaped by conflict, isolation, and the deliberate rejection of transcendence.

For Sheen, modern hell was not merely a place but a state of being, one formed when the human person became divided against himself.

Sheen explained that classical theology once located hell at the outer edges of the moral universe.

In earlier eras, humanity stood at the center of creation, entrusted with freedom and responsibility, able to choose between good and evil within a clearly ordered cosmos.

Over time, however, this moral geography shifted inward.

Influenced by modern psychology, particularly the work of Freud, the drama of heaven and hell migrated into the human mind.

Conscience, desire, memory, and impulse became the new battleground.

Hell, Sheen argued, was no longer only a future punishment but a present experience for those trapped in unresolved inner conflict.

To illustrate this condition, Sheen turned to the Gospel account of the possessed man among the Gerasenes.

The defining feature of the man was fragmentation.

When asked his name, he answered with multiplicity, revealing a shattered identity overwhelmed by competing drives and impulses.

For Sheen, this was the essence of neurosis.

The neurotic person did not merely struggle with temptation but lived in a constant civil war.

The self was no longer unified.

Personality fractured into opposing forces, each demanding dominance.

Sheen described this conflict as the tension between the real self and the phantom self.

The real self was what a person truly was, shaped by conscience and moral responsibility.

The phantom self was what the person imagined himself to be, an inflated projection sustained by admiration and applause.

The neurotic individual devoted immense energy to feeding this phantom self, demanding praise and service from others while secretly despising himself for the deception.

This inner dishonesty produced anxiety, resentment, and exhaustion, laying the foundation for a private hell.

The second mark of this condition was hostility toward others.

Sheen observed that a person unable to live at peace within himself inevitably projected his turmoil outward.

The inner conflict became social conflict.

The neurotic individual withdrew from genuine community, viewing others as threats rather than companions.

This isolation mirrored the Gospel image of the possessed man living among tombs, cut off from human society.

Modern psychology confirmed this pattern, noting that those who hoarded resources and refused solidarity in extreme conditions had already lost their sense of shared humanity.

Sheen linked this insight to existential philosophy, particularly the idea that other people were obstacles to personal freedom.

When the self became the supreme value, every other person appeared as a rival.

Privacy vanished, suspicion flourished, and relationships turned into contests of power.

Hell, in this vision, consisted not of fire but of perpetual exposure, a life in which every thought and motive was scrutinized and weaponized by others.

The third and most decisive element of this inner hell was hostility toward God.

Sheen emphasized that this was not always intellectual disbelief.

More often, it was a refusal of accountability.

God was perceived as an intruder, a disturber of autonomy.

The neurotic soul did not merely doubt divine existence but actively willed that there be no God.

When this will became collective, it expressed itself in militant atheism and totalitarian systems that sought to erase transcendence from public life.

Sheen warned that this rejection did not bring freedom.

Instead, it intensified despair.

Cut off from God, neighbor, and self, the individual became a fugitive fleeing from meaning itself.

Conscience became a worm that never rested.

Desire became a fire that never satisfied.

Language itself preserved this truth, as people spoke instinctively of what was eating them or burning inside them.

Poetry and literature echoed the same reality, describing the soul consumed by its own unrest.

Despite the severity of his diagnosis, Sheen did not present this condition as irreversible.

He rejected the notion that self help techniques or psychological exercises could heal such deep wounds.

The neurotic hell, he insisted, could not be escaped by willpower alone.

Human beings could not lift themselves out of spiritual collapse any more than they could change the trajectory of a moving object without an external force.

Salvation required intervention from beyond the closed system of the ego.

This conviction distinguished Christianity from purely human systems of self improvement.

While many philosophies urged individuals to ascend toward enlightenment through discipline or technique, Christianity proclaimed descent.

God entered human history, establishing a point of contact within the wounded heart.

Grace did not arise from within but came from without, offering liberation rather than mere adjustment.

The difference, Sheen argued, was not moral effort but cooperation with a transforming presence.

He illustrated this principle through examples drawn from extreme suffering.

In concentration camps, where external conditions were identical, some individuals became saints while others descended into brutality.

The difference was not circumstance but response.

Those who opened themselves to transcendent meaning retained dignity and compassion.

Those who closed themselves inward collapsed into despair.

Freedom, Sheen maintained, always remained, even under the harshest conditions.

From this foundation, Sheen turned to the unseen world of angels, which he believed modern materialism had dismissed at great cost.

Angels, he explained, were not decorative myths but rational necessities within an ordered universe.

Positioned between God and humanity, they represented intellect and will without material limitation.

Cultures across history, including pagan civilizations, recognized their existence as a logical extension of cosmic hierarchy.

Angels served two primary roles in relation to humanity.

The first was illumination.

Just as one mind could influence another without physical contact, angels could inspire truth, awaken conscience, and stir unease when a person drifted toward self destruction.

The second role was guardianship.

Every human life possessed infinite value, greater than the material universe itself.

For this reason, each person was entrusted to a guardian whose task was protection and guidance.

Sheen lamented that modern society ignored this companionship, preferring substitutes drawn from fantasy and science fiction.

Yet the hunger for the infinite remained.

Children reached instinctively for wonder.

Adults manufactured obsessions.

The denial of spiritual reality did not eliminate longing but distorted it.

Recognition of angels, Sheen argued, restored balance by acknowledging that humanity was neither alone nor supreme.

This awareness prepared the soul to understand the Eucharist, which Sheen regarded as the most intimate form of divine presence on earth.

He described it as both sacrifice and nourishment, the continuation of Calvary made accessible across time.

In the Mass, separation of body and blood symbolized death, while Communion communicated life.

The Eucharist was not merely symbolic but transformative, radiating grace to those who approached it with openness.

Sheen recounted encounters that demonstrated this power.

Individuals hardened by cynicism found peace through silent presence before the sacrament.

Lives marked by moral chaos were redirected toward service and devotion.

He insisted that time spent before the Eucharist trained the soul to recognize Christ not only in sacred spaces but in the poor, the suffering, and the abandoned.

This vision reached its fullest expression in the work of figures such as Mother Teresa, whom Sheen admired profoundly.

Her ability to love the destitute without sentimentality flowed from daily contemplation of the Eucharist.

Seeing Christ in bread enabled her to see Christ in broken bodies.

Social service became sacramental, and compassion became worship.

Sheen concluded that modern crises, whether moral, cultural, or psychological, could not be resolved by technique alone.

They demanded conversion of vision.

Humanity had forgotten its place within a larger spiritual reality.

Hell had been internalized, but so had the path to redemption.

Recovery required humility, openness, and willingness to be transformed by a presence greater than the self.

Only then could the divided soul be made whole again.