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What Is Eternal Life? Msgr. Charles Pope • November 15, 2017 • This is the seventh in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.I often think that we haven’t done a very good job of setting forth the doctrine of eternal life. For most people, the concept seems a rather shallow one: that we will live forever. Frankly, many may not consider it all that appealing if the place where we live forever is Heaven. Too often, Heaven is reduced to merely this: a place where I’ll be happy. I’ll have a...

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WIVB) — According to the Rochester Police Department, the mother of a 10-day-old baby has been arrested for the infant’s death. Police say that when police arrived on scene around 2:30 p.m. Monday, they were told the child was found in bathtub of the home. The baby was immediately transported to Rochester General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

How to Influence the Way the Lord Will Judge Us Msgr. Charles Pope • November 13, 2017 • This is the seventh in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Works of Mercy, Pieter Bruegel In the past several posts, we have been considering the judgment that awaits us. Not only must we be ready in the ways we have described, but should allow our looming judgment to help our attitude today.Scripture says, Always speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the Law that gives freedom. For judgment...

Parables by Jesus on the Day of Judgment and on Our Need to be Ready Msgr. Charles Pope • November 9, 2017 • This is the fifth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.credit: Ashland CTC Jesus was urgent in warning us to be ready for judgment. He did this in many ways, but most notably in the parables. In this post let’s ponder His teachings and hear His urgency.Most casual readers of the Bible tend to view the parables as merely interesting, entertaining stories. While that is so, they are...

Pondering Judgment, One of the Four Last Things Msgr. Charles Pope • November 8, 2017 • This is the fourth in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell.We turn our attention now to the judgment that awaits us all. Scripture speaks in the Book of Hebrews speaks rather plainly to this day for us all:It is appointed for us to die once, and after that to face judgment (Heb 9:27).For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he...

And Death Is Gain: A Reflection on the Proper Christian Sense of Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 7, 2017 • This is the third in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Yesterday we pondered the fear of death and some understandable reasons for it, but we also considered how a lack of lively faith can lead to a fear of death that is unchristian. As St. Paul admonishes regarding death,We do not want you to … grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died...

On the Fear of Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2017 • This is the second in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.For the faithful, the day we die is the greatest day of our life on this earth. Even if some final purifications await us, the beatific vision for which we long lies just ahead; our exile in this valley of tears is ended.Is calling the day we die the greatest day of our life too strong a statement? I have seen some fellow Christians wince at this statement....

A Florida woman is accused of suffocating her 4-year-old daughter and then tossing her body in a dumpster, police said. Tina Farrington, 31, was held without bond Monday at the Miami-Dade County jail on a first-degree murder charge, officials said. According to an arrest report, Farrington told police she was at her home on Halloween night with 4-year-old Tania Paige and another child when she became upset with the girl. Farrington lured Tania and her brother to a bedroom, according to police, and then used a pillow to suffocate her.

The Mystery of Life and Death Msgr. Charles Pope • November 5, 2017 • This is the first in a series of articles on the Four Last Things: Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.Note: I wrote this post prior to the terrible shooting that occurred Sunday in Texas. Once again we are confronted with terrible violence and the specter of sudden death. Please offer your prayers for those who have died and their families. As we begin here a series on the Four Last Things, a shooting like this confronts us not only with the death and life, but also...

Stuart Varney: Bergdahl gets no prison time

Losing a child is the worst thing anyone can imagine. Already I know nothing will ever be the same. A month ago, my wife and I lost one. She was the twin sister of our son. He had been adopted last year and we were in the process of bringing her here this Christmas. We knew her very well. She stayed with us during the initial hosting period over a year ago and we remained in regular contact. My wife and I felt sure her coming here was God’s will. When we first were married, my wife and I decided...

They love death “like you love life.” They are the enemies of life, and of creation, and of creativity, of love, of art, of civilization. All they love is death and pain and destruction. They are the quintessential force of evil.“ISIS Vows to ‘Fill The Streets Of Paris With Dead Bodies,'” by Vladi Vovcuk and Gilad Shiloach, Vocativ, July 22, 2015 (thanks to Jerk Chicken): ISIS’ official media wing in Syria’s Hama province published a video Wednesday showing a French-speaking militant shooting a Syrian army prisoner and declaring that the Islamic State “will fill the streets of Paris with dead...

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<p>At about 3 p.m. on Friday, February 3, Tim Piazza, a sophomore at Penn State University, arrived at Hershey Medical Center by helicopter. Eighteen hours earlier, he had been in the kind of raging good health that only teenagers enjoy. He was a handsome, redheaded kid with a shy smile, a hometown girlfriend, and a family who loved him very much. Now he had a lacerated spleen, an abdomen full of blood, and multiple traumatic brain injuries. He had fallen down a flight of stairs during a hazing event at his fraternity, Beta Theta Pi, but the members had waited nearly 12 hours before calling 911, relenting only when their pledge “looked fucking dead.” Tim underwent surgery shortly after arriving at Hershey, but it was too late. He died early the next morning.</p>

Whole Woman’s Health, a reproductive health care organization, in collaboration with other groups, is offering free abortions to women affected by Hurricane Harvey. At least 74 women have already taken the organization up on the offer, or have scheduled an appointment for the procedure, the Dallas Morning News reported. The price will be fully covered, as will the cost of transportation and accommodations, the group said. But Texas Right to Life, an anti-abortion group, argued against the notion of a free abortion, claiming that "there is always a cost.

A Christian man in Pakistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy after he sent a WhatsApp message to a friend that insulted Islam, his lawyer said on Friday. His trial continued for more than a year at the Gujrat Jail, about 200 kilometres from the provincial capital Lahore. Lahore -- A Christian man in Pakistan was sentenced to death for blasphemy after he sent a WhatsApp message to a friend that insulted Islam, his lawyer said on Friday. Nadeem James Masih was charged in July after his friend Yasir Bashir told the police that he sent him a poem on...

Fox News just announced the decision to terminate popular host Eric Bolling amid allegations of inappropriate text messages — but as of Saturday morning, that was the least of Bolling's troubles. Sources are now reporting that Bolling's 19-year-old son, affectionately known as “Eric Chase,” passed away on Friday night. A source close to Eric Bolling confirmed the news to Mediaite. A statement from Fox News is expected soon. Bolling has spoken of his son fondly and often on Twitter: It is clear that Bolling deeply loved his son and took great pride in watching him grow up.

A new Netflix documentary shows the incredible story about how an episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was used to stop a man from being put to death for a crime he didn’t commit. "Long Shot" tells the story of Juan Catalan, arrested for the murder of a 16-year-old girl in 2003. NME reports that he had long maintained his innocence by saying he was at a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game on the night of the crime. Catalan mentioned that it looked like somebody was filming something at the game, but he wasn’t sure what. The filming was for the...

On the Paradoxical Beauty of Dying Msgr. Charles Pope • November 6, 2016 • As most of you know, the Washington, D.C. City Council recently took a step toward legalizing physician-assisted suicide for those with less than six months to live.Although I have written elsewhere about the dangerous implications of this legislation, in today’s post I want to stand up for the dying, at home and in nursing homes, the fully lucid and those with advanced Alzheimer’s, those who are moving toward death relatively painlessly and those who are suffering.As a priest, it has been my privilege to accompany...

“I KEPT the four girls in an abandoned house. Each night I would have sex with a different one,” a grubby looking man said, unperturbed.“Sometimes they seemed scared, but they never said no. They were all virgins when I got them and more beautiful than you can imagine.”It was the world’s single largest military operation in nearly 15 years.The battle for the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the largest offensive in the war against Islamic State - and no doubt, the bloodiest - took a mighty three years for allied forces to remove Islamic State’s tight grip.But with freedom, comes...