Briefly Reviewed: September 2025

The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church

By Msgr. Charles Pope

Publisher: TAN Books

Pages: 160

Price: $24.95

Review Author: Michael V. McIntire

Msgr. Charles Pope has written a much-needed iteration of the Church’s teaching on Hell, a fundamental doctrine that official “Churchdom” either minimizes or rejects and seldom preaches. Msgr. Pope writes with a prophet’s zeal and is rightly concerned that those ignorant of the truth of this doctrine will ultimately learn it the hard way. The current — and common — dismissive attitude toward Hell is of relatively recent origin. Prior to Vatican II and the cultural revolution of the 1960s, the doctrine of Hell was featured in Catholic preaching and teaching. No more. Now, writes Pope, “Even among the more devout, such as those who go to daily Mass, the teaching that God would send or consign anyone to hell is routinely dismissed…. For the vast majority — Catholic, non-Catholic, and atheist — Hell is a very remote possibility.” He warns us against this heretical thought while we still have time to rethink it.

Hell was a constant theme in Jesus’ teaching. Msgr. Pope says He gave us “warning after warning in parable after parable about final judgment and the reality of hell.” To convince the reader, Pope devotes a full 34 pages of this short book to quoting Jesus’ words of warning. Especially alarming is the message that those who enter Heaven are “few.” Only few? Jesus firmly states that “many” are those who are barred from it, and that Heaven is reached by a narrow road. That road is steep and hard to traverse because it is the way of the cross. The alternative is a “wide road,” smooth, pleasant, and heavily traveled. The problem is that we give little thought to where it leads. To accommodate those who choose that road, Hell is necessary.

The Baltimore Catechism teaches that “God created me to love, honor and serve Him in this world and so to be happy with Him in the next.” But love is not love if it is not free. We cannot love God unless we have the freedom to choose to do so. Heaven is the place God created for those who choose to love Him, who strive to think and act according to His will, and who accept the totality of God’s Word — all of it, chapter and verse, no exceptions, no novel translations. But living a virtuous life is incredibly hard. One-third of the angels, created sinless and with free will, fell. Adam and Eve, created sinless and with freedom to choose, fell. Rebellion against the discipline of God’s love is hardwired into our DNA. We can see where the hard road leads — where it took Jesus — and we want no part of that. The wide road is heavily traversed because we are resistant to training, discipline, and limits, and we are hard of heart. To our darkened eyes, the glory of Heaven is too bright, blinding, and even repulsive. Rather than work to grow accustomed to the light, we seek the comfort of the dark, where there is no one to correct us.

A recent Pew Research study of American Catholics (Feb. 26) confirms our addiction to sin and our refusal to repent. Although the first three of God’s commandments require that we first and foremost acknowledge and worship Him, Pew reveals that only 51 percent of Catholics pray daily and 18 percent seldom or never do. Although Scripture tells us again and again that sodomy is a sin so grievous that God destroyed entire cities devoted to practicing it, Pew finds that 70 percent of Catholics support this evil to the point of equating it with sacramental marriage. Although Scripture makes clear God’s horror at the murder of babies offered to Ba’al, Pew finds that 59 percent of Catholics approve of the sacrifice of babies through abortion. An older Pew poll (2016) found that 82 out of 100 Catholics regularly contracept, the same percentage as the wider population. Can we truly believe that those who deliberately flouted God’s law will be in Heaven with those who struggled to obey it?

In the secular world, we demand “justice” for wrongs. “Accountability” is commonly sought. So, too, in the spiritual world. Those who deny or diminish the existence of Hell nevertheless do not believe that the unrepentant rapist or murderer is in Heaven. If not in Heaven, then where is that soul? Considering the depravity that is reported every day in the news — wars, killings, child molestations, abortions, dissolution of the family, addiction, suicides — can any thinking person reasonably believe that Hell does not exist? Or that it is nearly empty? Satan’s call is strong! It cannot be resisted without God’s help, but God promises His help in the form of grace from the sacraments and the Eucharist.

Those who deny or minimize Hell are, in fact, practical heretics who deny almost all of the Old and New Testaments, which speak from beginning to end of sin and its eternal consequences, and of the promise of a Savior and redemption for the repentant. They deny the only reason the Son of God became incarnate, lived among us, suffered, died, and rose from the dead. If there is no Hell, or if it is so empty that it is of little risk, Jesus is reduced to merely a wise counselor or an ethical teacher. His call to “repent and believe the Gospel” (Mk. 1:15) is no longer an important warning to heed for the salvation of our souls but merely a nice thought to consider when we have some spare time. That stance carries with it a very high risk.

The subject matter of Msgr. Pope’s The Hell There Is, even its very title, is a topic unwelcome today and not to be mentioned in polite society. Which is the reason he has written it. When push comes to shove, it is more prudent to learn about Hell now, from the pen of Msgr. Charles Pope, than to learn about it later from firsthand experience.

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