Another Atheist starts paying the tab.

Kim Jong Il is dead.

We always celebrate the death of tyrants at Lex Communis with a bit of the bubbly.

*Pop*

Kim Jong Il was a nasty work of humanity. North Korea is a nightmare, which could only have been envisioned by a science fiction writer, and which could only have been brought into reality by an atheist Communist.

Secular Americans can only regret that Kim Jong Il didn't receive the justice that his victims deserve. Christians, on the other hand, know that he is paying for the injustice he meted out during his sick, depraved life.

"9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.
10 They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”
11 Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants, their brothers and sisters,were killed just as they had been."

The demand for justice is divine as well as human. One can hope that somewhere Kim Jong Il repented of his evil as he drew his final breath, but that doesn't mean a free ride to the banquet where his victims sit:

44. To protest against God in the name of justice is not helpful. A world without God is a world without hope (cf. Eph 2:12). Only God can create justice. And faith gives us the certainty that he does so. The image of the Last Judgement is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope; for us it may even be the decisive image of hope. Is it not also a frightening image? I would say: it is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which Saint Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love[35]. God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things—justice and grace—must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value. Dostoevsky, for example, was right to protest against this kind of Heaven and this kind of grace in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. Evildoers, in the end, do not sit at table at the eternal banquet beside their victims without distinction, as though nothing had happened.

Spe Salvi.