A Catholic I know has just been to a funeral. That's not unusual. What's unusual is, he asked did I know what happens after death to guys like his friend, nice guys who live decent lives without ever seemingly giving a thought to God, let alone going to church.
I should have known the answer right off, but I didn't. That's not unusual either, because we're not taught Church doctrine now and it's blithely assumed now by most Catholics that God's so kind, we all go to heaven.
So I resorted to The Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail
to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren
(Matthew 25, 31-46). To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s
merciful love means being separated from him for ever by our own free choice.
This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed
is called “hell”.
But, you may say, God is “a forgiving God”. That’s true. In
the story of the prodigal son, when he realised how stupid he’d been, wasting
his inheritance etc, and went back home to ask his father’s forgiveness, his
father ran to meet him, hugged him and made a huge fuss of him.
Same
with us. God forgives us just as soon as we realise our mistake and ask his
forgiveness. But to be forgiven we must first ask to be forgiven - in
other words, repent, be converted, have a change of heart.
And when someone dies, even someone who says they don’t believe in God, or
even a convicted serial rapist/murderer, we normally have no way of knowing that
right up to the moment of death they didn’t change their mind and ask God for
forgiveness. In which case they’d go to Purgatory - but that’s another story.
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