Universalism: "Why bother praying, or going to Church, or paying any attention to God at all? Everyone's going to heaven anyway, right?"

My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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"The Hell There Is. An Exploration of an Often Rejected Doctrine of the Church." By Msgr. Charles Pope, TAN Books, Gastonia, North Carolina, 2025. 

PLEASE NOTE: I've added below a summary quote from the author. 

P.P.S. I've made edits and additions following some suggestions.

The Last Judgement, 1865-1866, wood engraving by Gustave Dore

Before launching into this topic, we must acknowledge....

There are huge disparities among human beings in terms of survival. Huge swaths of people suffer the violent excesses of armed groups - military forces of nations, their own nations or aggressor nations, drug cartels, ideological extremists, or simply criminals - while whole populations are dying of famine, absence of clean water, infections or other diseases. Even in nations enjoying development and affluence, there are extremely rich and extremely poor, with few if any connections between them. In many societies, a middle class is often shrinking or may have never existed at all.

That is only on the material or survival plane. On the moral plane, there are people with highly developed consciences; who are well aware of their neighbours and their living conditions, and do all they can to assist anyone in need. This tends to happen more regularly among those who are poor than among those who are wealthy. While the wealthy can reach out to help others, their philanthropy tends to come out of their abundance or excess. The poor on the other hand, will often share what little they have for themselves and their family with others in even more urgent need than themselves.

On yet a third plane, the above conditions may occur independently of whether people have any faith or practice any religion. As Jesus pointed out in a parable, religious authorities can easily pass by a victim of violence; whereas a member of a hated minority may very well display greater humanity and compassion for such a victim. In a more extreme case, a manifestly atheistic person may show greater humanity and compassion than an obviously religous person. Similar paradoxes may be found among rich versus poor people, powerful versus vulnerable persons, developed versus more primitive populations. 

On a fourth plane, there are the "movers and groovers", those who have and enjoy a disproportionate access and level of control over the life, natural resources, and riches of Planet Earth; which, in principle, are there for the use and enjoyment of all. This is called "the universal destination of goods" or also "the common good". One's circumstances of birth, location, social adhesion, and other variables increase or decrease one's access to the wealth of "our common home", a phrase coined by the late Pope Francis in his Encyclical "Laudato Si" published in 2015, These terms hearken to the Roman Catholic Church's "social doctrine" to which our current Pope Leo XIV refers in his recent encyclical "Magnifica Humanitas". 

In this post, we are exploring another variable, a fifth, the afterlife: whether or not human beings are giving any consideration to what will happen to them after they die, that is, at the end of their mortal existence on this Earth. Manifestly, some give great importance to life after death; while others, not at all, with countless variations in between these extremes. Supposing there are consequences after we die; then, those who care nothing about it will still have to endure those consequences. Denying them will not help them at all. Among those who take great stock in the afterlife; what they actually do or don't do may or may not help them either. 

Are all souls going to heaven? Is hell empty... does hell even exist?

Let's be honest here... you have either heard the following or you have thought it, at one time or another, right? "Why bother praying, or going to Church, or paying any attention to God at all? Everyone's going to heaven anyway, right?" True confession: I have leaned strongly in that direction at one time or another, and more than once; especially in adolescence. 

These days, I'm having to face it: for decades I found myself surrounded by this very way of thinking. It became clear that we had, as a society, gone through a gate of some kind, or passed a boundary; when I noticed at funerals how just about everyone was thinking their beloved departed was now in a better place, now in heaven with their parents, siblings, and grandparents, and friends, and, yes, with God. These assumptions are actually presumptions: in effect, such beliefs pass judgement on God - as if He has nothing to say about our eternal destiny, or as if Jesus' warnings don't count - and they appear in poetic form on bookmark memory cards printed by funeral directors on the back of a photo of the dearly departed. 

Is hell eternal torment or eternal annihilation? 

Then, on vacation, a few bricks hit my glass wall. First, last year, I came across the book "Hell A Final Word: The Surprising Truths I Found in the Bible" by Edward William Fudge (2012). Among other questions, he searched the Bible and Protestant Bible commentators to find a consensus on whether after death and judgement unrepentant sinners are annihilated and "destroyed forever", or whether they are punished and "tormented forever". The author had a view, but he honestly admitted that opinions on the issue are apparently divided among interpretations of the Sacred Scriptures by scholars in the Reformed perspective.

What has God said to us about it?

This summer, another book came to my attention, "The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church" written by Msgr. Charles Pope, published in 2025. Here, this author addresses the world outlook called "universalism", whereby people believe that God is too good to send anyone to hell; such that they believe hell is empty except perhaps for Hitler and a few other megalomaniacal mass murderers. 

Pope successfully and eloquently explains that this view denies Jesus' clear and repeated warnings about hell and eternal damnation, and the ways in which people who either rebel blatantly against God, or else, are so attached to favourite sins that they in effect turn away from God. Believing such things about God is in effect creating according to our preferences a "designer god" other than our Creator; as He has made Himself known through the Sacred Scriptures. Such views are in effect idolatry. 

He further explains that God only created hell when Lucifer and his rebel angels turned away from their Creator. They being "pure spirits" and not enfleshed as we are, but rather immortal beings; their choice to turn away from God was immediately final and irrevocable, because they do not change. Since they wanted nothing to do with God and his plan for creation and humanity, and because God still loved them as his creatures; He who created them provided a new "space" for them where - for all eternity - their wish would be honoured and they could be "far away from God". This, by definition, is hell.

Unlike the immortal angels, we can change and repent while alive on Earth 

We human beings, Pope further explains, are enfleshed. While we are an immortal soul, we are also mortal in the flesh. This means that our choices in time are not yet final or irrevocable; we continue to have both the freedom and opportunity to repent. Still, it is risky to wait, because with time and practice, our sinful ways become more entrenched and repentance becomes more difficult; even unlikely. 

In principle, we can choose daily to turn away from anything that would turn us away from God and his heaven and put us in the direction of hell. It is at the death of our mortal body, once our soul loses this "tool" or "arena" for repentance, that our "dying wish" or choice either for God or for our favourite sins will be finalized and become irrevocable. It is like a clay pot taken from the potter's wheel and put in the kiln; where it is baked at high temperature and can no longer be corrected or changed. Unlike Earth, though, in hell there is no hint of enjoyment, however imperfect the pleasure was here.

In between hell and heaven, some may linger in "Purgatory" 

Should we be repentant but still attached to sins, bad habits, or addictions, and struggle with letting them go, and our clear desire is to obey and love God; then our Catholic Tradition teaches that, in his mercy, God will provide us the opportunity to be "purged" or purified of all that cannot be admitted into God's Presence in heaven. That opportunity is called "Purgatory". We will suffer by not yet being able to be with God, but it will be with the hope of being with Him once we have been purged of our mortal attachments. 

However, it could be presumptive on our part to put off our conversion through repentance and place instead too much reliance on Purgatory, which may become an excuse to remain "comfy" in our sinful attachments and put off making the effort to seek and to obey God's will and deliberately seek to become "more perfect" as Jesus commands us to do. The author makes the point that lingering too long in sin, thereby entrenching a strong habit, may make it unlikely for a soul to ever repent, which sets its course on hell rather than heaven. 

Along these same lines, those who until the very end of their life remain selfish, self-obsessed, incapable and unwilling to care for or love others or make room for others or for God's will: Jesus made it clear in a number of parables that God will not oppose or obstruct their life choice. Those who in this life had such disdain for God will in the end have such horror of God that his judgement will corroborate their joining Satan and his demons in hell... as far away from God as they can get. Hell, understandably, is final and without any hope. 

Now, after all these years, I finally understand why in the Western World's more developed and affluent societies, so many people no longer go to worship God in church on Sunday, no longer pray, no longer care about spiritual things, and completely ignore God. They have no use or patience with others who are different or have nothing to offer them; they don't want to be bothered. Since they don't believe hell is real, and are oblivious to their risk of ending up in that solitary misery with demons for eternity; they don't see their need to be saved. They don't see their need for God's mercy and forgiveness; nor their need to change and repent. They want neither to change nor to be told what to do. Tragically, because God loves them and respects their freely made and consistent choice, He will grant their final wish.

God, our loving Father, is willing and ready, even eager to extend his mercy to them and forgive them, restoring his friendship with them. The tragedy is that they don't care, don't want, don't ask. God will leave them here, perhaps undistinguishable among human society, as weeds remained among the wheat until the harvest, in Jesus' parable. Then, God's angels will come and root them out and cast them into the eternal lake of fire with the devil and his demons for all eternity. They didn't want God on Earth; God will not impose Himself on them in eternity, but because He still loves them, He will honour their final wish and choice.

Please feel free to pass this on to family, friends, neighbours, co-workers, fellow students... to all and to anyone... so that the Holy Spirit might use these words to wake up those who are asleep on the assembly line leading to a perilous drop into the abyss of hell.

Lord, have mercy on us and on all of humanity. 

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In chapter 9, the author recalls "Hell Exists Because God Respects Human Freedom"; "Not All Want What God Offers"; "God Is Not Angry"; "Are We Free and Knowledgeable Enough to Choose Hell?" (The author believes "Yes, we are."); "Hell Is for the Unrepentant"; "A Sin Against the Holy Spirit": Despair, Presumption, Impugning the Known Truth; Obstinacy in Sin, and Final Impenitence. As you can see, these are all different ways of trying to control our own destiny instead of making plenty of room for God to manifest his merciful love and power to save.

In his Epilogue, he sums up all that he has found:

"In times like these, when the doctrine of hell is all but excluded from the minds of most, even among many pious Catholics, what are we to do? Strongly connected to the rejection of the biblical teachings on hell is the trivializing and 'taming' of God. He is, for too many, merely kind rather than immensely holy and glorious beyond telling. There is little notion that we must be utterly transformed and perfected to attain the glory that is our future and destiny if we are faithful unto the end. As noted previously, Scripture says, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Heb 10:31). And again, it says we must "Strive for the holiness, without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14)."

"A proper balance must be restored to us, which trusts God's mercy but acknowledges how very much we need it; a balance which knows and experiences God's love but which also holds Him in awe and deep reverence. This virtuous balance is what Scripture calls "the fear of the Lord." The fear of the Lord holds God in awe and reverently loves Him. It dreads offending Him and anything that might separate us from Him. Ideally, it is rooted in deep gratitude and love, which fears to offend Him because of His goodness to us. In those who are less spiritually mature, it may well include the servile fear of punishment. But at its best, it manifests as an excited and joyful reverence in God's presence, amazed at His glory and humbly aware of our need for His grace and mercy."

"To fear the Lord is also to accept His teaching without reserve, even if it puzzles us or causes alarm. The Lord Jesus loves us more than we can ever know and is rich in mercy, but He expects to be taken seriously. The gift of the fear of the Lord must therefore be sought by us and cherished. Without it we too easily trivialize the Lord and accept him only on our terms. It is true, Jesus is the Lover of our souls, He has borne our sins, and opened to us the ocean of His mercy. But this same Jesus spoke to us very plainly of the reality of Hell. He also teaches us that we are very fickle and perverse of heart. Take Him seriously in these matters! In holy fear and deep revernce listen to what He is saying and be urgent about the salvation of souls, starting with your own. A Day of Judgement is coming for all of us, and the choice is ours: "And this is the verdict: The Light has come into the world, but men loved the darkness rather than the Light" (Jn 3:19)."

"Be urgent and choose wisely, fellow sinner. Listen to Jesus and come to the light. Respectful of our freedom, He knocks at our door and waits joyfully and expectantly for us to open. You are free to choose, but you are not free not to choose."

"The Hell There Is. An Exploration of an Often Rejected Doctrine of the Church." By Msgr. Charles Pope, TAN Books, Gastonia, North Carolina, 2025. 

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My purpose in these posts is to bring a variety of Christian witnesses and writers in reflecting on life, encounters, and various situations, in a desire to enhance our understanding of what it means to be a missionary disciple of Jesus Christ at the service of the common good and directly or indirectly give glory to God and extend the Lord's work of salvation to all of humanity. G.S.

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© 2004-2026 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal  QC
© 2004-2026 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC 

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Anxiety over the faith or lack of faith in people we love or know

In my life as a Catholic Christian and ministry as a R.C. priest, I have had many conversations with any number of people of all ages, and not surprisingly, the practice of the faith or variations on that theme comes up the most frequently. This prompts me to reflect on many things.

Over the years, I have found the greatest anxiety seems to be felt by parents and grandparents, and about what they perceive to be the state of the faith, or lack of it, in their own children and grandchildren. This also comes up in the course of ministering to people, even when I meet them at the Tribunal, would you believe, but also in the confessional. I believe it is the Lord, the Holy Spirit, who has consistently inspired me with a particular response, which I'd like to share with you, and which I hope you will share widely among your family and friends.

One teaching of our Church which received considerable treatment while I was in seminary was what sounds something like this: "Outside of the Church, there is no salvation." It has prompted many to draw the conclusion: "You have to keep the commandments, go to church on Sunday, and pray every day, or you will go to hell." This teaching has also prompted people to think that unless one is baptized in the Catholic Church, or at least baptized somewhere, they too will go to hell.

Here are the thoughts that I believe the Holy Spirit has prompted me to share with those suffering from the above mentioned anxiety.

First, Jesus gave us a very clear instruction about how the judgement will go when we leave our body behind and find ourselves in the radiant and awesome Presence of the Most Holy Trinity. You know it well. It is Jesus' parable about what it will be like when the Son of Man comes on the clouds and gathers the nations together, separating people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. It's in Matthew chapter 25.

We could translate this into plain English this way: we are on Earth to become fully human, and the ultimate test of this is how we treat others. That's it. There will be no grueling test on our church attendance or our prayers, or our fasting and penances. God our Creator loves all his creatures, especially human beings, and He hopes that we will come to love them in the same way, and as much as He does himself. "Love one another as I have loved you." Jesus means what He said. Saint John put it this way: we have no love of God whom we cannot see if we don't love the people we can see. That's in 1 John 4:20. 

On that score, attending church and saying prayers won't make any difference; remember how Jesus criticized the Pharisees, Sadducees, Priests, and Scribes. He called them hypocrites; they were extremely religious, but still hypocrites, because they had no authentic love, compassion, or caring for their fellow man. Their faith and religious practice did them no good; moreover, it even caused them to try to prevent people from coming to Jesus. Sadly, today we can be just like them and also prevent people from freely coming to Jesus.

This prompts another question. Well, in that case, what difference does being baptized, going to church, doing penances, and praying make?

It makes a big difference, the same difference between loving someone and being devoted to them. We can love our parents by calling and visiting them, but we can do more; we can be devoted to them and assist them in their need, especially when they are sick or elderly, and "give until it hurts" as Saint Mother Teresa used to say. We can go beyond loving and being devoted to family and do that for strangers and even enemies.

As I shared with someone today, God our Creator loves all his human children. Our Church taught at the Second Vatican Council that all human beings can be saved by passing the same test we will all face, based on the quality of our love for others, which includes enemies. The difference that baptism first makes is the divine adoption: God the Most Holy Trinity incorporates us into the communion which the Father and the Son have in the Holy Spirit. We are drawn into the circle of the divine life and love.

The "rub" is that this adoption requires our participation and wholehearted development. If we do learn to know God personally and love Him, in addition to loving our neighbour and even our enemies, then we actually participate in the divine work of salvation in the world. This work of the Holy Trinity in the depths of human souls is very mysterious, and only God can see into human souls. We have no idea what is really going on in other souls; even our own soul remains mysterious to us, and we cannot even judge ourselves, as Saint Paul wrote in his letters.

So, what we need to look for, first in ourselves, and then in others, is this: am I getting to really know God personally? Do I have a relationship with Jesus as my Lord, Master, and Friend? Has Jesus begun to bring me to the Father and reveal Him to me? Have I begun to allow myself to become aware of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit within me? Am I bearing the fruit of the presence and action of God within me? In other words, am I doing the works which Jesus did? When I am at prayer and someone needs me, do I quickly arise to eagerly and gladly attend to them? When I come back from church, am I so radiant with the love of God that others come to be warmed from the warm glow of God's love radiating from me?

The faith can never be transmitted by coercion, but only by divine infection. Even then, how and when others come to discover that God is real, and that He loves them, it all remains so very mysterious because of the extreme degree to which God respects human freedom and gives us as much time as possible to come freely to know and love Him. Whenever we employ other methods to try to drag people to God, not only does it not work, but it often achieves the opposite effect. We only succeed in portraying a false or distorted image or representation of God, which turn others off and pushes them farther away from God or the Church or both, and into the peripheries; as Pope Francis called the shadows.

If we really want to help others come to know and love God, we need to pay the price, which is expensive: much persevering prayer, fasting, and personal sacrifices joyfully offered. We cannot show people we do this, unless they ask about it. The gift must be hidden, freely given, and not become and exaction, pressure, or coercion. Our devotion to the Father, to Jesus, to the Holy Spirit, and to our Blessed Mother Mary and the saints must pass the test of our authentic love of neighbour, especially those we find most difficult to love, and loving them "until it hurts". If I truly love Jesus for the passion He endured for me and all of humanity; then this love will bring me to love others as He does, even to the point of eagerly accepting sufferings for the sake of love, as the saints did and do. 

There will be many "degrees" of intensity of joy and happiness in Heaven. At the lower end, we would find those who gave a little, in the middle, those who gave a lot, and at the upper end, we will find those who gave everything. 250622 I received a very insightful and precise question on this very statement. The reader doesn't think that God has "levels" of love, which would be very disturbing, and that my statement as it is does not show full communion. I appreciate the observation and question and try to answer it below in green. I hope that this will make this post and reflection better and more useful to the reader.

Dear Reader, you can feel quite free to reject this as a personal opinion on my part. Truthfully, it is the result of all my years of life, faith, learning, ministry, searching, and God's mercy. Call it an intuition. You are quite right to say that God hasn't levels of love... the Most Holy Trinity are perfect and infinite in their divine persons and in their giving of Self to us. There are, nonetheless, limitations, or levels, or degrees, as you may prefer, but they are entirely in us. 

Consider how different have been the saints, and how varied in the degrees or "intensity" of "intimacy" or "communion" they experienced with God; which also had to do with how far they gave of themselves, without any thought for themselves, in service to and love of others. Loving care and forgiveness and mercy to enemies does expand the soul. Saint Augustine taught that it is by exercising holy desire that our "capacity to receive from God" grows, which is why, he taught, that God allows us to wait for good things and blessings. While we wait and hope and trust, we "exercise our desire", and God stretches the limits of our soul, our "container"; until there is enough room to take in and receive what it is that God wants to give us.

Jesus did say to the Apostles that there are many rooms or mansions in the Father's house. There is diversity in Heaven, rather than uniformity. Souls are unique. It makes perfect sense that God would completely fill souls with divine presence, communion, and love in eternity. It also makes sense that the "volume" of our containers, our souls, varies. We can see that plainly in everyday life, in our relations with others. This is not a judgement or unfair; it is plainly the truth. We see in creation limitless variety of substance, size, colour, texture, fragrance, and so on; even in the very same variety of a thing. It is not a curse or injustice, but rather all to the glory of God. In Heaven, no one will be disappointed or discontented, because they will all experience fullness of life, communion, and joy together and in God, entirely filling their "container", their dynamic and living soul.

I hope this helps. I cannot think of a specific source for this perspective... it is a cumulative intuition after 76 years of living and faith.... Thank you, Reader, for your astute question and for responding, rather than remaining passive. May others be inspired to do the same. 

There's a saying: "Give a little, it costs a lot. Give a lot, it costs a little. Give everything, it costs nothing at all." — Archbishop Raya, Madonna House Apostolate (RIP 2005). Pope Saint John Paul II referred to Jesus' command to love as "the law of the gift"... God loves us by giving his own Self in what can be called a "divine transfusion" in his own Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament, bestowing upon us a participation in the divine life; which is why to love as God loves, we must also give of ourself. 

Blessed days in the glow of the Most Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament, and on Friday, Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests, and on Saturday, the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Blessings to you and your families.