(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John Henry Westen Show is Monsignor Charles Pope. We discussed his book The Hell There Is: An Exploration of an Often-Rejected Doctrine of the Church.

I opened the episode by asking Pope why he decided to write a book on such an unpopular subject. Pope stressed that unfortunately Catholic doctrine on hell is practically rejected by the Church hierarchy.

“What I mean by the practical rejection is people are going to say, ‘Well, it exists, but I don’t think many people go there,’ and ‘God’s not going to do that,'” the monsignor said.

Pope emphasized that this mentality creates a grave lack of urgency among the faithful, as they believe everyone goes to heaven anyway.

“Almost everything that we do is positive, in the fact that we need help. We need a savior, first of all, and we also need sacraments, we need the liturgy… and we need his holy word, we need to pray,” he said. “If you don’t, why bother? Everyone’s basically going to go to heaven anyway.”

READ: Pope Francis: ‘I like to think of an empty hell’

“And so it just knocks the stuffings out of any sense of urgency that I really need to run to the Lord and say, ‘I need your help to be saved,'” he added. “And we just have this sort of smug presumption, and it affects all the levels of the Church.”

A bit later, I noted that the confusion about hell being empty has spread widely over the past 13 years under Pope Francis. The late pontiff’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia even included a line which stated, “No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel.” I highlighted how many Catholics could look at that line, along with the view of modern Catholic theologians like Hans Urs von Balthasar, and think there’s nothing wrong with believing hell is empty.

WATCH NEXT: Unpacking Pope Francis’ opinion of an ‘Empty Hell’

“I believe that it’s an error. Now sometimes they fudge it, they play with the words a little bit [and say] ‘We can hope, we can wish [that hell is empty],'” he said. “But most people pick up on the idea that, ‘Yeah, I think even the pope doesn’t really think there’s many people in hell.'”

Pope emphasized that while we can certainly wish that hell is empty, this contradicts what Our Lord told the apostles in Sacred Scripture.

“When [Our Lord] was asked a direct question, ‘Are those to be saved many or few?’ And He said, ‘Few.’ And He said it very directly …’ The road to damnation is wide; many follow it. How narrow the road to salvation, how difficult and how few there are who find it,'” the monsignor said. “I just don’t think we’re taking Jesus seriously when we say, ‘Well, we can hope that hell’s empty.’ That’s dismissive. I think what we have to do is hope that we can keep hell empty by preaching the Gospel and living a holy life.”

To hear more from Msgr. Charles Pope, tune in to this episode of The John-Henry Westen Show.

To order Msgr. Pope’s book, click HERE.

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