Promise of eternal life with God is foundation of hope, preacher says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — With Pope Francis watching from the hospital, the preacher of the papal household told top members of the Roman Curia that eternity “is not just a future reward but a reality that begins here, in the measure in which we learn to live in love and communion with Christ.”

“Ultimately, our destiny is not written in fear but in hope,” said Capuchin Father Roberto Pasolini, whom the pope appointed in November, to be the preacher of the papal household.

The Capuchin friar was leading a Lenten retreat for cardinals and senior officials of the Roman Curia and the Vatican March 9-14 in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall. He provided summaries of each reflection to Vatican News.

The theme chosen for the 2025 retreat, long before Pope Francis was hospitalized, was “The Hope of Eternal Life.”

The Vatican press office said Pope Francis watched the evening talk March 9 and the first morning talk March 10 from his room at Rome’s Gemelli hospital. Participants in the retreat could not see the pope, though.

Father Pasolini wrote in the summary of his first talk that “death is not a defeat but the moment when we will finally see the face of God and discover that the end was only the beginning.”

Citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, he noted that there are three possibilities for each person after death: heaven, “final damnation” or hell and purgatory.

Heaven or paradise is “an eternal communion with Christ in which each person finds their true identity,” while hell “is described as the definitive separation from God,” he said.

However, he added, “the church has never declared with certainty that anyone has been condemned there.”

In Catholic teaching, “purgatory is seen as a process of purification for those who, though in God’s grace, are not yet ready for heaven,” Father Pasolini said. “The possibility of a final ‘moment’ of purification is an opportunity to fully come to terms with God’s infinite love.”

“Purgatory,” he wrote in his summary, “can be understood as the ‘moment’ in which we finally stop trying to prove something to God and simply allow ourselves to be loved.”

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Copyright © 2025 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

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