Michelangelo painted it and Dante described it in 34 cantos, but hell has an ever-diminishing hold on the imaginations of modern Catholics.
A study published four years ago found 60 per cent of Italian Catholics did not believe in hell and leading theologians have said it is incompatible with the infinite mercy of a loving God.
In the face of such scepticism, an authoritative Jesuit magazine has decided to stoke the dwindling flames: hell exists and the punishment of the damned is for all eternity. The stark warning to sinners comes from Civilta Cattolica (Catholic Civilisation), a fortnightly magazine which is vetted by the Vatican prior to publication.
In a 12-page analysis published today the magazine reasserts traditional Catholic doctrine on hell and laments the fact that eternal damnation - once excessively insisted upon - has almost entirely disappeared from the teaching of the church.
The article rejects the view of modern theologians, such as Switzerland's Hans Urs von Balthasar, that hell is irreconcilable with God's infinite mercy and that if it exists it must be empty.
"Such an affirmation - which conflicts with sacred scripture - removes all seriousness from human life, from the effort, at times heroic, to be faithful to God so as not to lose him eternally through sin, and sends man to sleep in superficiality and laziness," it says.
"Why undertake great sacrifices if salvation is certain for everyone, good and evil?" Last year, a professor of theology, Dr Luigi Lombardi Vallauri, was fired from his job at Milan's Catholic University of the Sacred Heart for suggesting that the concept of hell was a "colossal injustice, contrary to all the principles of modern law and to the Italian constitution".
Prof Lombardi told an Italian magazine: "Even God does not come out well from his creation. He appears as a father who locks up his miscreant sons in a horrible hovel and throws away the key, for ever! Hell decrees the total failure of the pedagogy of God."
Civilta Cattolica insists hell exists as a state, rather than a place, and that although there may not be earthly flames, sinners suffer pain because of their separation from God.
The magazine says the real possibility of eternal damnation is the essential consequence of human free will: "The choice of God or the choice of oneself against God is irrevocable and God can do nothing to change it; otherwise he would destroy human freedom, which is the greatest gift he gave to man in creating him, and which he maintains even when man chooses against him."
Reassuringly, one cannot be sent to hell for minor misdemeanours, but only for "the gravest sin that man can commit: that of knowingly and freely rejecting the love of God".
The Civilta Cattolica article comes as the church prepares for the turn-of-the-millennium jubilee, when the Pope is expected to ask forgiveness for the historic failings of Catholicism. "The article was published of our own initiative. No one put us up to it," said Civilta Cattolica's editor, Rev Gianpaolo Salvini. "Hell is part of Christian dogma. People speak very little about the next world, but for the Christian religion it is absolutely fundamental."
Cardinal Ersilio Tonini, emeritus Archbishop of Ravenna, welcomed the revival of hell as an instrument for the salvation of the faithful. "If your intelligence is not enough to keep you free, then at least fear may do so," he said.
For Dr Giancarlo Zizola, a leading Vaticanologist, mediaeval visions of a hell where sinners are tormented by cloven-hoofed devils wielding pitchforks are long overdue for an update.
"One has to distinguish between the traditional truths of the magisterium of the church and the historic forms they have assumed down the centuries," says Dr Zizola.
"The old forms are no longer acceptable and there is an effort under way to find new forms that are understandable for modern cultures: this is the serious aspect of today's debate."