Did Christ open the Door of Hell after he preached the Gospel in the realm of the dead? CCC635 Christ went down into the depths of death so that "the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live". Jesus, "the Author of life", by dying destroyed "him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and delivered all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage. Henceforth the risen Christ holds "the keys of Death and Hades", so that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and under the earth."


The Catechism teaches that Jesus preached the Gospel to all souls who are in hell or even to the depths of the dead. CCC632 to CCC634 had supporting teaching or explanation on this. It would mean, that the word hell or hades pre-Jesus descent into hell was composed of all souls both the imperfect souls undergoing purification and the damned souls but not the place of of the demons. (Note:The Abraham bosoms is a different place and its not hell but paradise.)

After Jesus had preached to all the souls in hell, some of the souls heard the Gospel and they live according to CCC635, and some of the damned souls still rejected the Gospel and suffer eternal death.

These damned souls after Jesus had preached the gospel in hell still manifest their rejection and deserved to be thrown on the "real hell" where the demons where situated. But since, the "real hell" of the demons was locked, Jesus had to open it having the Keys too not only in the place of "Death but even the Hades" for all the damned souls to finally enters the "real hell" where the demons are.

According to Catholicism, did Jesus open the gates of hell, the "real hell" of the demons for all the damned souls to enter as their just punishment?
The answer is NO. Not sure why you skipped CCC633 in your research where you can find the answer.


  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.480 Such is the case for
  all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while they await the
  Redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is identical, as Jesus
  shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus who was received
  into "Abraham's bosom":481 "It is precisely these holy souls, who
  awaited their Savior in Abraham's bosom, whom Christ the Lord
  delivered when he descended into hell."482 Jesus did not descend into
  hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but
  to free the just who had gone before him. CCC633