Feb 21, 2017
When the third edition of the Roman Missal was put into use in the U.S. in Advent 2011, Catholics were given the option of occasionally reciting at Mass the Apostles' Creed instead of the more familiar Nicene Creed.
In the Apostles' Creed, it is said of Jesus that, after his death, "he descended into hell." Since then, I have been asked many times by worshippers what this affirmation means. Surely, Jesus cannot have literally gone down to hell, the place of the Devil and the damned. And if he did so descend, what was the purpose: Surely the damned cannot be saved?
In the context of the Apostles' Creed, hell does not mean what we understand by the word today. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point as follows: "Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, "hell"-Sheol-- in Hebrew or Hades in Greek-because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God. Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the redeemer (no. 633).
Jesus was not going into the place of the damned, "but to free the just who had gone before him" (ibid.). Jesus went into hell to preach the Gospel to the dead. As the Catechism puts it, "The descent into hell brings the Gospel message of salvation to complete fulfillment. This is the last phase of Jesus' messianic mission, a phase which is condensed in time but vast in its real significance: the spread of Christ's redemptive work to all men of all times and all places" (no. 634).