Hell, yes!

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jul 15, 2025

Hell exists. In fact it is easily accessible, via a toll-free road. That is unpopular message of The Hell There Is, by Msgr. Charles Pope.

Give Msgr. Pope credit for courage: for taking on a topic that few preachers want to touch. (Give him credit, too for a terrific book title.) While critics of the Catholic Church—and of Christianity in general—complain about hellfire-and-brimstone sermons, the truth is that most preachers shy away from the topic of hell, preferring to focus on more pleasant aspects of the faith.

Still hell is there, like it or not; that door is always open to us. “We are free to choose,” Msgr. Pope observes; “but we are not free not to choose.”

If Christian preachers of the 21st century avoid mention of hell, who keeps alive the belief in the real possibility of damnation? Well, start with Jesus Himself. Anyone who has read the Gospels without rose-tinted glasses has encountered the frequent warnings about the narrow gate and the outer darkness and the gnashing of teeth and the weeds that are thrown in the furnace—yes, to burn. In his parables Jesus routinely describes the dire consequences of making the wrong choice. When He sends out his disciples, He instructs them first to call people to repentance.

Repentance of what? Of sin, of course. But sin is another topic carefully avoided in fashionable Christian circles. I’m OK; you’re OK; and if we occasionally show our weakness, Jesus loves us anyway. Which is true, certainly, but precisely because He loves us, he calls us to repentance.

And if we are not called to repentance—if instead we are encouraged to presume on God’s mercy—why bother to repent and confess our sins? Msgr. Pope remarks: “People who think they are well don’t go to the doctor.” Moreover, he continues, someone who does recognize the need for medical help will not seek out “a doctor whose diagnosis of every perceived ailment is always rosy…”

Nevertheless such “doctors” are easy to find leading Christian congregations today, assuring their people that they need not worry about the spiritual equivalents of hacking coughs and chest pains and sudden weight losses. These charlatans are loath to compete against the seductive influence of a self-indulgent culture, which Msgr. Pope describes neatly:

“Whatever the fad or fashion, no matter how foolish, harmful, or immodest, many clamor for it. Hollywood stars get divorces, and soon enough, everyone is casting aside biblical teaching against it. The same goes for other moral issues. What was once thought disgraceful is now celebrated and paraded on Main Street. Like lemmings, we run along with the crowd to celebrate what was once called sin (and is still sinful).

”The worse thing in the world is not sin; it is the denial of the existence of sin,” said Archbishop Fulton Sheen, explaining “that attitude makes forgiveness impossible.” Msgr. Pope points to the origin of the Divine Mercy devotion, and points out: “Sister Faustina’s summons of everyone to call on God’s mercy is premised on the great need for that mercy and the awful reality of refusing that mercy.” In Spe Salvi Pope Benedict XVI taught that the Christian virtue of hope becomes accessible only when we recognize that there is something to hope for: salvation from sin.

The tide is running strongly against those beliefs, unfortunately, and many people who proclaim themselves Christians have been schooled to ignore the unpleasant realities set forth in the Gospels. Msgr. Pope opens his book by recalling a conversation with a woman who objected to his mention of hell, saying “I didn’t hear the Jesus I know in your words today.” When he replied that he was quoting the very words of Jesus, she was unmoved, responding: “Well, we know He never really said that.” She had learned from the reigning authorities of liberal Christianity to construct the “Jesus I know” for herself, untroubled by the clear message of the Word of God.

This is not to say that liberal Christianity has no moral standards. The standards are familiar to anyone who has drunk from the popular streams. We must be kind to everyone, but especially to the poor. Those precepts are unmistakably Christian, yet somehow, in the liberal dispensation, do not require the individual’s personal involvement. Msgr. Pope diagnoses the problem:

A serious neglect of the poor and needy can be a damnable sin. In our current cultural setting, this neglect can be a simple, straightforward neglect, or it can manifest itself in a diversion of this responsibility to government agencies or other large-scale charities.

Thus the complacent contemporary Christian, unaccustomed to accusing himself, can imitate the rich man in Christ’s parable, who can be drawn only far enough to say that someone should have helped poor Lazarus., but not so far as to recognize his own sin.

By demanding an unblinking look at the reality of hell and damnation, Msgr. Pope underlines the urgency of the Gospel call to repentance. Souls are being lost because of wishful thinking and unjustified optimism. There is a hell, and you and I can go there if we die as unrepentant sinners.

The best protection against that tragedy lies in the recognition that we are sinners—that we have fallen and need help. From there it is a short enough step to the help of the sacraments and the return to grace. So Msgr. Pope raises a rhetorical question: “Is it possible that there is more faith in the church basement at an AA meeting than in the marriage tribunals of the Catholic Church? You decide.”