A famous story runs like this: a woman once told Padre Pio she did not believe in Hell "because God is too good". His response? "Madam, you will when you go there."
Yet many modern Catholics share this attitude. They do not regard themselves as great sinners, like Hitler, Stalin or the Borgias; they may have fiddled their expenses, indulged in malicious gossip or engaged in (minor) lustful behaviour, but they are still decent people and "God is too good". Mgr Charles Pope, a well-known scripture scholar, writer and priest in Washington, DC, comprehensively demolishes this false belief in his book The Hell There Is.
