/
RSS Feed
Episode Description
With a new book out on the topic, Msgr. Charles Pope does not mince words on the reality of Hell. Warning us about the secular trend of reducing Jesus into the “harmless hippie,” he urges the faithful to return to the sacraments this Lent.
We also talk with Dr. Janice Chik about the philosophy of motherhood, and why this most sacred bond gets such a bad rap. She reminds us that the miracle of life surpasses all understanding and that a mother’s love is the closest representation of God’s sacrificial love that exists on earth.
And we keep our TCA chaplain in prayer this week, as Msgr. Roger Landry visits suffering lepers in Vietnam with the Pontifical Missions Society. Msgr. Landry shares how their group had the great privilege to take Jesus to lepers who are incapable of getting to Mass, and how these people received the eucharist “with great faith.”
Bios
Msgr. Charles Pope is a Catholic priest and author, serving as dean and pastor in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC. where he also serves on the Priest Council, the College of Consultors, and the Priest Personnel Board. He has appeared on numerous TV outlets and conducted weekly Bible studies for the US Congress and the White House. In 2005, he was appointed as Monsignor by Pope Benedict XVI. His current book, The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church, was released in March of 2025. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science from George Mason University, and worked for the Army Corps of Engineers before becoming a priest. He attended Saint Mary’s Seminary in 1985 where he earned a Master of Divinity Degree and a Master of Arts Degree in Moral Theology. He was appointed to the priesthood in 1989.
Dr. Janice Chik is the Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ave Maria University, a Member of the Aquinas Institute at the University of Oxford, and a Senior Affiliate of the Program for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society at the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as a Visiting Professor at the University of Florida, and has twice been appointed as Visiting Research Scholar at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford. She was the Barry Foundation Research Fellow and Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and holds degrees in domestic and international public policy, philosophy, and musical performance from Princeton University, University of Texas, and the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom.
Monsignor Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Father Landry traversed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage in 2024 and joined the historic Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, an event which coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood. He was recently appointed the new National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 312 Transcript
| Ashley | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. We are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to conversations of consequence, says on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. Eastern, or catch the encore at 5 p.m.. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130. Of course, our radio show is also a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association dot org or directly to wherever you listen to your podcast. |
| Betsy | Welcome to Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio. I'm your host is Betsy Fentress, and I'm so glad to have with me a wonderful professor and Catholic thought leader, Dr. Janice Chee Breitenbach. She serves as director of the Philosophy Graduate Program at of Emory University and is also an associate professor of philosophy there. And I might add, she is also classically trained in violin, piano and voice as part of the Pursuit, a Wisdom series of courses at RB Maria. She teaches and it's online and available to anyone for free. A really profound course on the philosophy of motherhood, which is what we're going to talk about today. Thank you for joining me, Janice. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Thanks so much for having me, Patsy. It's such a pleasure to be here with you and to be especially with you, actually. |
| Betsy | Yes, we did get to meet briefly and I did get to hear you play the piano. So that was a real joy about this course, the philosophy of motherhood. What inspired you to do these little mini videos that were posted online? And again, anyone can sign up for these and and talk about about the origins of, you know, your interest in philosophy and how it relates to motherhood, which you say is kind of an uncharted waters. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Thanks, Betsy, for the question. Yeah, I mean, I guess it goes all the way back to my education and upbringing. I was educated at all, I would say like secular institutions and background, you know, I mean, sort of environments like Princeton or University of Texas, Austin and St Andrew's. And actually my first the first institution I attended was the McPhail School for Music in Minneapolis. And these are all, you know, I mean, I guess, you know, the the arc of a, of a child like, you know, going towards like the Ivy League right. Which is like kind of point your instilled with this idea all the childhood you're aiming for that you know. Right. Pretty hyper professionalized from a very young age. |
| Betsy | As a mother of six. I know It's. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Really it's. |
| Betsy | It's a. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Lot Yeah. I think it's really hard to resist that temptation in our day and age where it is very competitive, it's very competitive to get into college, is competitive to get a job. You know, it's competitive to succeed and flourish, you know, in that job. And, you know, I mean, I think like coming from that kind of environment, that persistent and prevailing kind of mantra was go as far as you can as a professional and don't worry about family, don't worry about having children. And if anything there, you know, as as we know, like there's a very negative, very negative sub thesis to that, which is that, you know, you better watch out about getting getting married too early and and you know, not being careful, you know. |
| Betsy | Right. Otherwise, you're going to have one of those pesky little babies that come along. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Very pesky, very inconvenient to a career and definitely is going to slow you down, if not completely obstruct you, you know, and it turns your path of that kind of hyper professionalization. And yeah, I mean, that's kind of the you know, I mean, I think for a lot of young people, that's that's our environment, you know, unless you're lucky enough, I think, to grow up in a in a really solid, loving Christian Catholic home and family and environment and and, you know, education at home, you know, that supports. |
| Betsy | Right. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Vocation. |
| Betsy | And you came into the church at Princeton. That's right. Through musical friends, right through musical friends. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | So so I had friends in the orchestra who, you know, during one of these trips to Europe that the orchestra would take. They they got to know me. It was through, you know, really like friendly conversation, conversation over meals and Prague and Vienna and Portugal, you know, about about like, the deepest things, you know. And I just think there's such a wonderful way in which young people have this apostolate, right. That that they can be open with one another. And my friends were open with me. They were open with me, and they kind of challenged me and they said, like, why haven't you thought about this? Why haven't you thought about Catholicism? And I just thought, that is such a bold question. And I am not offended. You know, I mean, someone might be offended by that, but. |
| Betsy | Right, Right. Well, that's why we name our show Conversation with consequences. Exactly what you said and the role hospitality plays. I know that you and your husband like to taste wine and I and I, we need to create these environments where these conversations are not considered, you know, dangerous. But but like you said, in the spirit of friendship. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Absolutely. Yeah. And there's something about, I must say, music loving friends who, you know, you know, if you've played chamber music together with with someone, you've shared something with them that is very deep within you that is, you know, you could say not not propositional, and you might actually be in a really good place to share something further. And I've always been drawn to that, that particular apostolate or, you know, meets a kind of culture of evangelization that's possible through the arts. |
| Betsy | Yes. So and so true. I was just going to say so with motherhood, that's not a very academic subject, as you said, but you're trying to up the game a little bit in this series and and give it the gravitas that it deserves. And who are the thinkers that you bring into this and and try to do an overlay of why some of these virtues apply to motherhood and how it's been ignored. And you want to put it in the central lane again or lineup for the first time. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah, you know, I think one of the most kind of obnoxious questions I ever got about this was and you just asked a very nice question, but, you know, I was I was once challenged kind of, you know, how do you have time, you know, as a working professional, as a professional philosopher to do this? And my response to that would be, how can you not do it? You know, I mean, it's just such a fun, fundamental it's kind of of fundamental importance. This this topic, you know, to to all of us. And in some sense, I mean, you're asking me like, well, who's working on this? Well, I actually see it everywhere, you know, And I so I'm I'm, you know, my my training, first and foremost, was in ancient philosophy. |
| Betsy | That's what I was going to ask you. Are you applying Plato and Aristotle to this? For example? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | I mean, I think I think, you know, Aristotle and Plato say both have things to say about about the family. They're not, you know, they're not always going in the right direction with it. But, you know, Aristotle's whole treatise on friendship, which, you know, I think I think is very familiar to too many of us and and the ways in which it, I think, reflects a philosophy of hospitality, you know, is is really important. Yes. And yeah. And I think in many ways, he's going against, you know, Plato's vision of having children in a kind of eugenics, in a kind of eugenicist spirit. You know, and of course, like, Plato thinks it's really important how we bring children up, but it's almost as if, you know, all of that is for the sake of the good of the state, right? And the actual parenting, having, you know, being in a family like it's just not as important to him. And Aristotle kind of recognizes this is a big mistake. Right. Like, I mean, Aristotle says nothing matters more than the life of the family. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, right? But like the whole of his treatise on virtue, you know, I mean, yes, nothing matters more than this period of childhood in which, you know, children are absorbing from their parents, you know, everything that they need to prepare them for actually living a life of reflection and philosophical consideration of what it is that they value together. |
| Betsy | Right. And your series, you you break it up into three parts control, commodification and careerism. And I want to not go really heavily into that because you say it so eloquently in these videos, but the object about control and how once you become pregnant, you know, you are really not your own. Is this something that you're trying to formulate for a book and and how that relates to some of the feminist takes that a baby is a parasite. Can you tell us a little bit about that? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Right. Yeah, I guess I should say my my, my kind of day job as a philosopher, when I'm not working on the philosophy of motherhood, I, I work on an area of metaphysics called Philosophy of Action. And I'm really interested in the way in which our being animals overlaps with our being, the kinds of rational agents that can make deliberate choices and, you know, can can do philosophy. And yet all of that kind of takes place within this context of being animals of our animality. So I would say that's kind of the the entry point into my thoughts about motherhood and the passivity or the, you know, I'm in a better word, might be receptivity of motherhood as opposed to the extremely hyper, you know, active or, you know, all this kind of like, you know, oriented to productivity. I mean, the kind of the models that Silicon Valley like to put out about being ten times as fast as anyone else is kind of thing, you know, natural maternity is fascinating because it brings us back to this place of reminding us of our animality, but in such a way that is transcending too, that that that animal nature. |
| Betsy | And I must say, because all this stuff is going on and you're not really an agent at that point, once conception happens, I mean, besides, like you say, eating and sleeping, you're you're not actively involved in this process of the growth of the child within you. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah, that's right. I mean, the ancient philosophers would call it vegetative. And it's I have a free anecdote about that. I probably told this elsewhere, but I was once with some male colleagues, including my husband, who's a historian at Emory University. And and I was, you know, kind of making a joking observation that like, women will never truly be equal to men in terms of like the work of the home. Right. Because, you know, when you look at the work of pregnancy, this is not a kind of work that can be divided equally between the couples, Right. I mean. |
| Betsy | It's asymmetrical. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | It's asymmetrical. And you know, what was so funny was that one of my male colleagues immediately said, you know what, if we, you know, took on half of that work rate of gestation, we could do it in two months flat, like I would like we wouldn't need four months. Like, you know. |
| Betsy | I mean, it was crazy. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Really hilarious. |
| Betsy | Right? Yeah. You know, that reminds me, I had a sister who said that one of the things she loved about being pregnant was even when she was napping, she was doing something. yeah. You know, it's it. It really is. There's. It's such a miracle. It's so mysterious. And I did want to ask you, for people who do not conceive naturally, we have a lot of interest in adoption on this show. And how do you frame the motherhood piece for them? Because some of the things you and I are just talking about, it's because we have carried a child ourselves. How how does that philosophy of motherhood speak to those women who are adoptive mothers? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | It's such a great question and such an important question for us in this day and age. I mean, just beginning theologically, you know, you can we can recognize that we're all adopted. You know, I mean, the language of adoption is in scripture. And so in an interesting way, you know, I mean, one day when I do write a book about all of this, you know, there's a sense in which adoption is a kind of voluntary and willful action towards a child, as, you know, a subject to be loved that actually serves, I think, as a really valuable paradigm for, you know, us biological parents as well, because there's some sense in which, you know, definitely children can take us by surprise. I only have one. But, you know, I can I can say right away that, you know, my son is you know, he's he's different from me in personality, in ways that I do not expect. You know. You know, we don't I mean, I think I don't want to say we don't always get along. I mean, he's only six years old, you know, But but you know, I mean, there's definitely ways in which, like, we have to want to be friends with our children. We have to work on that. Yes. And our children are not you know, we can't take for granted this idea that we know them intimately just because, you know, they were in our wombs, you know, for for nine months. And, you know, and we've known them since they were, you know, you know, you know, here in the world, you know, from day one, we have to learn about this other person, too. And I think there's some sense in which what adoptive parents do is so heroic. And it's so it's so super. |
| Betsy | It really is. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah. That that it I think like really helps it can really help to remind us biological parents the work that we have to do to write and like not to kind of just take for granted, you know, the relationships that we have with our children. |
| Betsy | You know, I like tell you, talk about the deliberateness of them saying, I'm going to go through this process and bring this child into our lives. What you're saying is we have to do that, too, even though it's not you know, the child isn't is coming from outside of our family, but within us. I think that's a really, really important point. Now, still in the context a little bit, you've talked about the Johns Hopkins fetal research. Can you give us a little insight into that and and some of that symbiotic relationships of mother and child in the womb that we might not really be aware of? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Right. Is this the research about like sort of the the entire flow, the exchange? |
| Betsy | Yes. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Okay. Yeah. I mean, the way in which, you know, I mean, we know, for instance, that biological material is transferred from from mother to child, and there are all sorts of ways in which the communication there is not, you know, it's not rational, it's not propositional. And yet, you know, the baby in the womb somehow already knows the mother. Right. You know, this is really it's a very difficult point to remember when we think about surrogacy, for instance, because, you know, people who claim that the surrogate mother is not the mother will try explaining that to the child. You know, who you know, who only knows the woman whose womb has been at home, you know, for for nine months, you know, as like so intimately and such a kind of you could say like it's biological. But I mean, we are biological. I mean, we are. |
| Betsy | Yeah. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah. And the babies know the sense, you know, they know they have this the smell kind of marked out. They can tell the differences between between breastmilk. You know, they, they can identify like which one is their mother's. You know something. Yeah. I mean, there is a lot of increased able research being done here in the area of like the science of the embryo and the fetus in the womb and the the way in which like the voices of the parents to, you know, are known to the child. And it's all very beautiful and it's all ignored. You know, whenever someone says, well, I don't I don't care to know that. Right. You know, I mean, the rejection of the child in the womb is something that. Yeah, I mean, people think they can take upon themselves. But yeah, the research is out there. I mean, it's. |
| MSGR Pope | All right. |
| Betsy | Let me ask you this. How do you weave the Blessed mother into this philosophy of motherhood that you're developing? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | She is absolutely the beginning and the end of, I think, all of our reflections on on motherhood as Catholic women. But, you know, I mean, in my own life as a convert, I recognized as soon as I learned, you know, what Catholic theology has to offer us about the Blessed Mother, I realized, you know, she has been here all along in my life and I have not recognized her. You know, I have not seen her. |
| Betsy | That's really a beautiful way of putting that. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah. And I think I mean, in the sense, too, that, you know, all of us need, you know, such a mother and Jesus gives her to all of us. And, you know, I just I just one day, you know, this was when I was at Princeton, you know, a senior, I just realized, you know, who has kept her from me, Right? Like, why? You know, why with certain Christian denominations, you know, de-emphasize her role to the extent that, you know, I mean, the you know, the body of Christian faithful was kind of, you know, a kind of, you know, distance herself from such a mother. Right. I mean, there was something very sad about the realization that through history, the mother that we all need, you know, has been kept kept far from us in such a way. But yeah, well. |
| Betsy | And also you just realize one of the beauties of our faith is that we've we've honored and revered this woman from day one where a lot of people who were wrestling with the way women are thought about or treated. And here we've had her from day one. Another person that I think is is featured in some of your research or your writings is Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta, and what she had to say about women in the role of, you know, she was an intellectual, she was a phenomenal ologist, but she also really understood the dignity of of housework. What what do you say about her? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah, I mean, Saint Edition is I mean, she has this whole book, this volume of essays on women that I think are very rich. They're not uncontroversial. You're right that she says a lot about housework. She also says, you know, by the way, that, you know, it is there are certain occupations that are particularly well-suited for, you know, for the feminine kind of intelligence. And and they're not nursing and primaries, you know, primary school teachers. I mean, she says we need women, OB-GYNs in particular. We need women medical doctors, you know, working in that field. And we also need women educators at the university level. And so, you know, I think Stein recognized that, yes, women are, you know, distinct from men. Of course, You know, I mean, she really emphasizes these differences. And we have our kind of own set of virtues and even vices, you know, that that correspond accordingly, Right? Yeah, But but, you know, I mean, with respect to the Blessed Mother, too, by the way, she said something really startling, which I. But I but I think it's probably true. And she says there's been a kind of transformation of the original human relationship from that of man and woman, right. The original relationship of Adam and Eve to that of mother and son. And we see a kind of new in her words, human couple, a new human couple in the relationship between Mary and Jesus. |
| Betsy | That's fascinating. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | And that's I mean, there's a kind of purity of that relationship that that takes over in her view, Right? Yeah. I mean, there's a lot to plumb there. It's it's really, really interesting what she has to say about the feminine kind of relationship here with regards to work as well. |
| Betsy | You know, I'm glad that you said that about women in roles in universities because I and all my co hostesses for this show went to the University of Notre Dame for a conference called True Genius, and it was Reflections on Evangelion V Day and John Paul, the second letter to women just in general, discussion about women in the church and what really struck me was that several of the speakers were university professors, is how many of them said, I have women come into my office every week, or they say they are looking for a way to use their education but be married like you're doing, be a mother and they're looking for role models. And I think especially in secular schools, that's hard to find. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | It's very hard to find, Yeah. Yeah. |
| Betsy | Do you do you have a you have female students come in and talk to you about all this? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah. I talked to a lot of female students about this question and I actually I mean, I talked to a lot of male students too, you know? |
| Betsy | Yeah. You know what? I shouldn't have. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah. No, I mean, it's okay. I mean, but. But from the perspective, too, of male students searching for a vocation, you know, in the modern world, right? I mean, we it's very, very hard nowadays to expect that one will be, you know, in a kind of situation in which a single income, you know, can can support the whole family. Right. And I think the men are wondering, too, like, what does this mean for their you know, their masculinity may be what does it mean for family life? But yeah, certainly the women I mean, I've given lots and lots of talks, you know, on this question. You know, can women have it all? You know, usually it's like the popular title of a talk like this. |
| Betsy | And your reply and your answer is, well. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | I mean, it's Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean at Woodrow of the sorry, of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. She was so I was in that school when I was. |
| Betsy | yeah, she's great. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | At that famous essay, you know, like, yes, you can't have it all. I mean, I think, you know, I think in many ways we need to recognize the question as like a badly formed question. Right? |
| Betsy | Yeah. I mean. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | You know, and I think a lot of people have pointed out that it's kind of striking that the men, generally speaking, are not asking this question. |
| Betsy | Right. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | You know, but I think like the the younger generations are starting to see that they have to ask that question. You know, I'm married to someone who helps a lot in the home. I'm very grateful to my husband. I wouldn't be able to do what I do if I wasn't married to someone who was so domestically cooperative and collaborative. |
| Betsy | You know, it's a big difference. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Yeah, it really does. He loves that, too. You know, it's not I hope I'm not. You know, it's not because I'm harnessing him, you know? |
| Betsy | Well, I'm glad that you brought up the men, because I think it is important that you're having these conversations, not just with the, you know, female students, but with the male students. We have just a little bit of time left. And I do have a curious question. You had a list of talks on your website, so you gave a talk at the Fashion Institute of Technology on the philosophy of fashion. What what kind of things were you saying in that talk? |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Well, yeah, that was I think that was ten years ago. And since then I've continued thinking about the topic. Really. The I think that the the charge for me with that talk was to try to convince some of the people working in this industry that beauty, you know, is a value that should matter to us. And yeah, I mean I think it's it's something that we moderns sometimes don't think about when we get dressed is like how, you know, can I make myself look beautiful or does my beauty matter? I mean, certainly it seems like a very antifeminist, you know, approach to getting just right. And yet I think it is something that resonates with, you know, our particular community, you know, like in Catholic circles and and even, you know, intellectual circles here, right. Where, you know, I mean, it seems important to us that we want to be attractive to people, you know, in a in a way that retains professionalism. And, you know, a talk I recently gave to the the institute here at of Emory University, to the the young women, you know, who were wondering, you know, how do we dress professionally? How do we convey convey the values of professionalism, intelligence and competence while still being women while still seeming feminine. And so I think there are really complicated and unique questions that come out of that, that the men just do not have to worry about. I mean, the. |
| Betsy | Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I think it's terrific you're having these conversations with that. I think it's really great. I am so pleased that you are working on this. I think it's really important. I hope you'll do a book on it. I think we really need a philosophy of motherhood. It's it's just I do. So thank you for coming on the show. I want to direct people to your website. Janice Chee But you say there's a K on it for you. Don't say it. So it's Janice Chee J and I cch i k dot com. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | That's right. Thank you so much Betsy. |
| Betsy | And to learn more about us, visit the Catholic Association doc. Org to follow everything we do in radio, TV, print online in our local communities. Janice, thank you so much for joining us. |
| Dr. Janice Chik | Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for all you do. |
| Ashely | Welcome to Conversations with Consequences on EWTN Radio. I am your host, Mary Fiorito. And I'm Ashley McGuire. And we are thrilled to have for the first time on our show, Monsignor Charles Pope, who is a priest of the diocese of Washington, D.C. He is known to EWTN listeners and viewers and Catholics around the world for his commentaries and his homilies. And the most interesting thing about Monsignor Pope is that he was born in Chicago, where I was born. So that already elevates you, Monsignor, to a level above many other guests. But thank you for making the time for us today. |
| MSGR Pope | Happy to do it. And I guess, yeah, I'm honored. I guess I'm an EWTN radio by way of ground network. I got that show, the quest to I'm out there. |
| Ashely | Right. And it's so funny how people can just kind of happened upon you in so many different venues. Well, you you're with us today because you've got a new book out which is making big waves and that the non provocative title of it is The Hell. There is an exploration of the often rejected doctrine of the church. So tell us what what I was going to say. What possessed you to write this book? That's probably not the thing I want to say. What inspired you, Monsignor, to write this book? |
| MSGR Pope | Angel Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, I've come to find that this is the most widespread. I'm going to say heresy, not in the formal sense. I think most people reject not hell in toto, but they pretty much relegated, though, to the realm of the extremely unlikely, not really relevant aspect of spiritual life. And that's just not what Jesus did. So I want to even people go to daily Mass or just kind of dismissive or Calcutta's not going to do that, you know. And so I wanted to make sure that we don't just, you know, our own vision, just dismiss something that Jesus taught quite vigorously and frequently. And it had different views than most of us moderns do. So we'll get back to that in a moment. But the second reason I wrote it is that on account of the dismissal of hell as a very likely outcome for the vast majority of people, there's almost no urgency in the church today. You know, what are we? 17% of Catholics even bother going to mass anymore. You know, there isn't any sense that like, well, who needs sacraments? Who needs to go to church? Who needs to pray or live a good moral life? Basically, I'm a nice person, you know, I can go and so on. There's a kind of a blandness that's come upon, you know, even some of the most devout of Catholics think, thanks be to God, those who still go to mass, but the vast majority don't even bother. And again, it's there's nothing to be saved from or there's no present danger that I might need to run to the Lord and take him seriously and receive the sacraments like medicine, and then, you know, why bother with it all? So I think, hell is it is something that we have to recover in a healthy way so that we can be more urgent about our faith. And the final maybe flipside of that coin is also more joyful, you know, to go before a crucifix and say, Wow, you did that for me, you saved me, and I'm so happy, Lord. I mean, you know. |
| Ashely | A sense of gratitude, right? Yeah, I could. |
| MSGR Pope | Slide into hell. And yet you're calling your grabbing me by the hand, and I thank you. Help me never to let go, Lord. But there's a joy that's also missing in the church today. There aren't any heaven either. |
| Ashely | You know, Monsignor, I was at a funeral. Yes. Last week, rather. And I mentioned to a member of the family, a close member of the family as I was leaving, that I would arrange to have a man's mind. May I said and may I said on the deceased person's birthday. And, you know, not in a way that they were making fun of it or anything. They were just completely puzzled and sort of shocked and said, why would you need to do that? Right. |
| MSGR Pope | Right. |
| Ashely | I mean, so part of this, too, is a just a lack of general catechesis, is it not? |
| MSGR Pope | It is general lack of democratic. He's also the rejection of purgatory. That's a whole nother book I could write there. But I would say that I think that what we want to do is once again recover these things in a healthy way. And most people reject the doctrine of hell today, I think on a false premise that what it really means is that there's a mean, angry God trying to keep people out of heaven. He's mean, he's angry, and he's going to just throw people in the eternal hellfire. That that that's what it means. It doesn't mean that that's not why there's a hell hell does not exist for that reason. Hell exists because God who is love, has a deep reverence for our freedom. And he really needs and wants our Yes. And without it, he won't. He won't force us. And there's a lot of people that are not really interested in what God is offering, and I can talk about that later if you want to develop it. But it's not true that just everybody really wants to go to heaven and and God wants to save them. So it's all nice. And people, people, it's not about God at all. It's about, well, we are freely choosing and not choosing and how that accumulates in our life. So those are the things I want to do. To recast the conversation. |
| Ashely | Monsignor, in your book, you tell a story of a woman who approaches you after her homily. You broach the topic of hell, and she said, That's not the Jesus I know. And you write that for many, quote, The father has become a doting grandfather and Jesus has become a harmless hippie. And it's true. You see these images of Jesus and it's almost weaponized. But culturally, how did we get here to the point that Jesus is a harmless hippie and, you know, we're recasting God as the God that we know, which is the God that, you know, we think we'd like to know. |
| MSGR Pope | Yeah, there are both theological and socially logical answers to your question. Now you ask more, more really the cultural or the sociological question. But I would just say in terms of theology, modernism is pretty much kind of come in and largely dismiss lots of aspects that don't appeal to the modern world. So let's get back then to the modern world. See, I think the issue for a lot of people today is that in our culture we have tended to reduce love to mere kindness, mere kindness. And so, again, kindness is certainly an aspect of love, but so is correction. So it is rebuke, so is punishment. I mean, there are all kinds of aspects of love that are sort of sort of set aside today, and that's why you get this stuff in the culture that if you don't agree with the agenda of this or that group, you hate us. You're racist or you're homophobic or you know, you're full of hate. Well, wait a minute. How did we get to this all or nothing? Because we've reduced love to mere kindness or more tolerance rather than to really want what's best for the other. And that's also then affected our notion of God, because God is love. God doesn't care about other stuff, man. And so that's Jesus, the harmless hippie token on a number and saying, Hey man, don't worry about others rules, dude. Let's go out and serve the poor and all others Well, you know, And so it's a kind of a watered down gospel Jesus calls us to profound discipleship and holiness, and he doesn't do that just to make life hard. It's just the opposite. He he wants to free us and we're a hard case. We're in real trouble. And he has to do a lot of work to get our hearts right. And so he's urgent about this and warns quite a bit about hell in, you know, in his I have a whole chapter on all the things he said. |
| Ashely | Well, Monsignor, there's also sort of a parallel danger, is there with first of all and on the one extreme not believing that hell exists or if it does very, very few people accept if you're Pol Pot or Hitler, only they go there. Right. And you know, and then on the other hand, people who are so afraid of of the Lord that they can't accept his mercy and his compassion. And, you know, as we would say in the civil law, mitigating factors in our lives. Right. That the Lord who created us knows, you know, if, for example, we were raised in an abusive home and really weren't taught how to worship him properly, etc., how do you find it's the best way to address those two particular polar ends, if you will? |
| MSGR Pope | Well, I think my book is best designed for those at the other end of the spectrum, you know, except for Hitler and so on. So I would say my book itself probably speaks to that in terms of scrupulously this. Of course, most of us have been scrupulous at some point in our life about something. But but, but clinical scrupulously is a whole thing all by itself. It's it's so but let's just sort of address more of a mild scrupulously were are you going to aren't you going to say more fear and so on. Well, again, I guess to answer to that, first of all, Jesus didn't seem to worry about that. No, I mean, we're not called to a a servile fear. The real call is to a filial fear where we love God so much that we don't want to offend him. That's that's that's what we call filial fear. But if servile fear of punishment is all you got, go with it. But on the other hand, talk to someone and work your way through it. But here's the deal. I want to just say, for anybody who might feel this concern that even the smallest sins might send them to hell, no God, it's just God. He loves you. He wants to save you. And so the point is, I think that if we're trying, he gives us a way out. He says, follow me. And and so he basically says, look, take the sacraments I offer you, read and study my word, keep holy fellowship and pray, and you're largely going to be moving in the right direction. No, I think that therefore, it's not as though, we all going to sit here in fear and wonder, when am I going? I'm going to go to hell for having a dirty thought. Well, none of your regular, I think, with the sacraments and so on. And likewise, if you're trying you're trying your best to live a good holy life. But here's the deal. And this is the way I think it still remains that a lot of people end up going to hell because it's not because God is, you know, you know, looking at every little tiny detail and not taking anything else into account. But it's just that not everybody wants to go to heaven and God respects our freedom. And we say, But Father, but Father, everybody wants to go to heaven. Not necessarily. Let me let me explain. Heaven isn't just a designer paradise that I make up. It would be for me a golf course or something like that. It is what it is. It is the Kingdom of God in all of its it was all of its values and all of its qualities. Now there's a lot of things in the Kingdom of God that people today, many people, even basically nice people, it in quotes, don't want anything to do with, for example, chastity or, for example, love of one's enemy or forgiveness or generosity to the poor. And rather than maybe greed or, you know, more often than not in the Book of Revelation liturgy, heaven is described as a great liturgy. And people say, But church is boring. I don't want to go there. And so, again, a lot of theoretically nice people are saying there's a lot of aspects of the kingdom of heaven that I'm not interested in. Chastity, please. In fact, there's a lot of defiance today about that, you know, how dare you tell me what to do? There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing, you know, Get your rosaries off my ovaries. Go away. You know, that kind of thinking. And we've also got a lot of people today that forgiveness and love of one's enemies. My gosh, I want to kill my enemy. In fact, our whole entertainment culture in the movies are largely based on vengeance movies. You know, our hero comes in after 90 minutes of breaking things and blowing up stuff. He has the final showdown, kills the bad guy, and off he goes, girl and arm burning, sitting in the background roll credits. And I mean, that's not the gospel, you know, But we see we just go for these things. And and then when we hear about things like, you know, forgiving your loving your enemy, forgiving chastity, you know, the people are like, I'm not interested in that. Well, okay, now here's the deal. You don't have to be interested in it, but you're not going to want heaven because heaven is about things like that. It isn't just about what you want it to be. So what I'm trying to show here is that it's not on God, it's on what we do now with one final thing and I'll throw it back to you. Jesus puts it this way in John Chapter three, He says, Here's the nature of the judgment that the light has come into the world. But many prefer the darkness. that's it. my gosh, they prefer it. And there are a lot of people today who are not bad, evil people. They're not Hitler, but they're going they don't really are not all that interested in what God is really offering. And so that's what we wanted to Lord, change my heart, get me on board with what you're really offering. |
| Ashely | Once your on the topic of invincible indifference, ignorance. I mean, you know, there's obviously clear cut cases of a woman in Saudi Arabia who's never had any exposure to the gospel and, you know, just tries to live a good life. But I struggle with our culture where, you know, as you say, people, they they are, I guess, exposed to the truth. But the cultural forces are so strong. And you have children who are, you know, raised from the beginning, not just with no exposure, but actually it was like outright bigoted ideologies. You know, you know how do we how do we grapple with this? And the topic of how. |
| MSGR Pope | I deal with that a little bit in the book, you know, about invincible ignorance and so on. I think the danger, though, with Invincible ignorance is not that it doesn't exist. It does. And God will certainly take things like that into account, but that we tend to turn invincible ignorance into a carte blanche. You know, it's like I've just, you know, complete no matter what. Therefore they're just going to just come right into heaven because they didn't know any better. Well, there's a lot of things that people do know better about, even if they're not instructed in the gospel, something called the natural law and so on. And so God will judge them based on what they could have reasonably known. And so I think that's the direct answer to that question, though. I think, though, that if you go to the Lumen Gentium Chapter 16, and by the way, Dr. Ralph Martin had a very good book on he is mainly this is his thesis on Lumen Gentium 16 Where Will Many be Saved as the title of the book and so magnificent treatment of this. But it does say in Lumen Gentium 16. The document on the church, the Second Vatican Council, that those who you know can't reasonably know God will certainly we can regard, though we also regard them who are in other religious traditions as somehow on their way to the fullness of the truth. So there's a lot of sort of sort of openness to accepting that people are on a journey. Okay. But it does say at the very end and most people leave the last verse off. However, on account of our tendency to call good evil and evil good, and on the of the darkness of our mind, our intellect and our will, the weakness of our will, many, many have decided firmly against God and His kingdom, even in these traditions. And so, again, what we ought to do is say, look, we have to leave the details of the judgment up to God, but we have got to get better about being explicitly bringing people to Jesus Christ, because Lumen Gentium says, okay, technically they can make it possibly without Christ, but it's not as likely as we think. And they have the same forces of sin that anybody else does, but without the grace of baptism and the and the other helps that God gives us the sacraments. And that's a terrible place to be. And we have every obligation to once again rekindle missionary activity, not just say, well, they're all in God, we'll just take all that into account. And I'm not saying you're saying that actually, but I'm just saying that's the thinking that I think in fact, most people I mean, one final thought on this. I'll toss it back, which is Saint Paul. I'm sorry, Pope Paul, the six said many people ask, are those who didn't read Jesus, can they be saved? He said, I think that's the wrong question. The question is, can we be saved for having failed to preach him to them? And so the church in Lumen Gentium 16, concluded by saying, We've got to redouble our missionary efforts. Yes, they can possibly get there, but it's not as likely as we think. And we've got to work hard for the salvation of souls, but we don't anymore for all. Fall in the bag. You. And that's that's why I wanted to bring this back again, to rekindle in urgency. It's not it's not all in the bag. |
| Ashely | Well, Monsignor, we're entering into a passion tied now the final weeks leading up to Easter and to Holy Week and one of the great devotions that has sprung up thanks to Saint John Paul. The second is that to the Divine Mercy and the revelations given to Saint Faustina. And she and the one had had very explicit visions of hell and on the other hand, the Lord made it clear to her that no matter how scarlet scent I think is what the phrase that he used, I can wipe it away with my mercy. And that that every soul is given three opportunities before entering into eternal judgment to accept the Lord or to reject him. So I feel like that that poses yet another contradiction. Do you see it as such, or am I maybe just mystified? |
| MSGR Pope | I don't see it as a contradiction, actually. You know, you said nobody spoke or, you know, had a more powerful vision of Elle than she did. But I can say that that's why we need mercy. See, unfortunately, I think a lot of people think and again, this is not you, Mary. I'm just saying this is kind of in the air out there. People think that mercy means, hey, man, God is like way cool what I'm doing. Well, if that's the case, you don't need mercy. That's a logical fallacy. God is not way cool and we won't be able to tolerate his presence. I can get to that in a moment, but the point is that he wants to show us mercy. But the key is repentance. Where, say I'm wrong, I've done something and I need to turn to God. I can't save myself and God will pour out his mercy. I'm not so worried about people who are struggling with sins and they have to come to confession frequently and ask me again, Father is the same old, same old. Okay, but but at the end of the day, I'm not worried about them. I'm worried about the number of people today who are just defiant. I will not be told what to do. There's nothing wrong with my lifestyle or what I'm doing. I'm going to celebrate it with parades, you know, there's a lot of people out there today who are celebrating greed and vengeance and hatred and sexual error and, you know, all kinds of stuff. And I mean, they're not they're not they think mercy means God is cool with this. No, no. Call on him. He's not. And so this is where I think we lose one of the chief errors of our day is the constant preaching of mercy without any reference to repentance. And that's what she's getting at. She's not saying everything's fine. Don't worry. She's saying, No, it's not fine. There is a hill and people go there. She saw them and she says, Don't go there. And here's the way. Call on his mercy, repent. See, Admit you need it. |
| Ashely | Right? So humility has to come along with that, admitting that you've done something, you know, and being able to say to the Lord, even at the very end, I really screwed up. Please, you know, forgive me. |
| MSGR Pope | Well, I wanted to add, you know, there's something in the in the in the in the diary also that Faustina, there's a passage that always strikes me as amazing. The Lord says to her, Faustina, if you were ever to see the true horror that you are, you would die of fright. He's talking to a sister in a cloister. |
| Betsy | Right? |
| MSGR Pope | Then I must really be deformed. But I think we sometimes forget how awesomely holy and glorious God is and that we don't. We we're so disfigured and deformed that we can't possibly endure his presence unless he goes to work and prepares us. He has to kind of bring us up to the temperature of glory so that we can endure the blazing heat of his love. And likewise, in customers of the brightness of his truth. So that we can endure the bright light of heaven, otherwise will be horrified and slink back at it, wailing and grinding of tears. As Jesus puts it. I have a chapter in the book on the wrath of God. It does not mean God is mad. That's not what it means. But it is what I was just talking about. We can't just walk into God's presence in our current state and think we can adore who can endure the day of God's coming. You know who will stand when he appears? Only those who he has made ready and the work of mercy. |
| Ashely | Yeah. Similar to what our lady said to the children at Fadama. Remember there was one of their playmates who had died, and our lady says to them, they ask about her and she said she'll be in purgatory until the end of time. And you're thinking she was an adolescent in a small town in Portugal. What could she possibly have done? This is the question that I wanted to ask, which is personal to me, because I have five young children and they you know, they're well categorized. They were excellent schools. They're receiving excellent information. And I'm noticing that the older ones are starting to worry about people in their life, friends, family that they love, that they see as what you would say. You know, range of defiant, not baptized. How would you answer the questions of children about, you know, these people? You know, I've been asked point blank, is that person going to hell? Obviously, the easy deflection is that's for God to say. But there's got to be something more, you know, more consoling, but also not overly, you know, overly, I don't know, whitewashing it or know. |
| MSGR Pope | Let me address the question first at another level and see if that if you can tell me if this will help you answer your direct question. One of the things that almost never happens today is that someone will come go to someone else and talk like this, like, let's say a parent talking to an adult child. Dear, I'm really worried about you. You know, you're living outside of marriage with your boyfriend or girlfriend. I'm concerned, you know, and you know you're not going to church. And I'm just very deeply concerned that you might go to hell. And, you know, the scriptures say that fornicator do not inherit the kingdom of heaven. That's obviously unrepentant. And so but we never talk like that anymore. We know. When was the last time a clergy man ever said that certain sins can exclude one from the kingdom of heaven? Now, I appreciate that way a lot, but that's I mean, I'm not trying to sound like pawn, but I'm just saying that most of my brothers never mention this, or even how many times it has. You know, we've heard about these politicians who support abortion. Why don't bishops go and tell them to stop receiving communion? I want to go deeper and say, why don't bishops or their own pastors go to them and say, I'm concerned you might go to hell over this? I worry about, you know, none of us can be the judge, but I think we do need to recover a little bit of this and to say there are just things that Scripture says and I have them in the book, you know, that there's a lot of ordinary behaviors that we sort of tolerate today, which we didn't used to. I'm Not that old. I'm in my mid-sixties, but I remember a time when people didn't tolerate easily people living together outside of marriage or getting divorces or any of those things. And now they're just rampant and we just settle down with them. Listen, I mean, these things God says in his own word can so deform your heart that you won't want the heaven I'm offering. So I think somewhere we have to start there recovering this, understanding that some things left to themselves. If there were not repented, can lead to hell. No. Getting back to your question, I think what about a parent who's maybe anxious about that? Well, I think that's not bad. That's not a bad answer, to be anxious about it and don't run around in a panic, but develop a sense of urgency. I need to pray for this kid of mine. I really need to fast if I can. If they won't listen to me, I need to pray. Maybe God will send someone they will listen to. But we're very settled down today with kind of sin and a kind of an ordinariness that I think we we should have some anxiety about. Not not panic. I would simply say again, that that I think somewhere in there there's grace to be found, even in a painful kind of situation. |
| Ashely | Well, Monsignor, what would you say to Catholics now as we prepare to enter into the trade, a woman and the three holiest days of the year, someone who might be listening to this saying to themselves, wow, it's been a long time since I've been to confession or, you know, I have children who are all married outside of the church and haven't been to mass in years. How would you counsel people who perhaps through no direct fault of their own, are really off track? How do we get back on and how do we stay there? |
| MSGR Pope | You're saying Paul says it so beautifully on the Ash Wednesday reading it, doesn't it? He says, We are like ambassadors for Christ crying out be reckless child to God. And so I think that all in all, all the time, you know, I'm often mentioning we have confessions in my peers all the time. Clergy have to get better about offering it easily. I always have it before every Sunday mass, every week in mass and also other times during the week. But the point is that we have to start there, but we also have to again, I would say to my people, some of you are holier than I am. I mean, I go to confession like once a week and some of you don't have to seem to go at all. How are you so holy? Tell me how you know, I mean, I play with them a little or use a little humor or sometimes I say, you know, a lunch celebrated lunch, celebrated without confession is kind of a disgrace. And you get people laughing a little. But I hope it also gets through to them that this is something serious to be about. We all need to go to the Lord and say, Lord, my biggest sin is, I don't know, have my sins or that I make light of them. But Lord, I come to you. I'm humbling myself and I love you. I want to be saved. I don't know what all that means. I'm not even sure how to stop doing some of the stuff. But, Lord, I'm not going to call good or no big deal what you call sin. You come to your, confess it and I'll try. I'm going to try to get on the straight and narrow path again. |
| Ashely | But I think you raise a very good point, Monsignor, about priests needing to make it more available. You know, if you build it, they will come. I had a priest friend who just at his parish as an experiment of sorts, offered ten straight hours of confession. I got a bunch of his classmates. They heard 225 confessions in 10 hours. So there's a hunger for it. But if it's not available, people can't, you know, avail themselves of it. |
| MSGR Pope | So absolutely. |
| Ashely | Well, Monsignor, thank you so much for joining us. And we have really enjoyed this conversation. Listeners, to learn more about Monsignor Charles Pope and his new book, please visit Tan Books at Tan Books Dotcom. And to learn more about us at the Who are scrambling going back and to learn more about us at the Catholic Association, please go to the Catholic Association dot org to follow everything we do in radio, TV and print online and in our local communities. Thank you for joining us today, and we'd like to thank all of our guests and listeners for joining us today. Make sure to follow us on social media and as always, go with our prayers. |