The manifesto concisely summarizes the Catholic conception of eternal life in a lapidary paragraph:
Every human being has an immortal soul, which in death is separated from the body, hoping for the resurrection of the dead. Death makes the human person’s decision for or against God definitive. Everyone has to face the particular judgment immediately after death. Either a purification is necessary, or the person goes directly to heavenly bliss and is allowed to see God face to face. There is also the dreadful possibility that a person will remain opposed to God to the very end…. The punishment of hell is a terrible reality.
This reiteration of the Catholic belief in heaven, hell and purgatory might appear a recitation of the obvious, a reminder of simple truths learned in grade-school catechism classes. But it is no longer obvious in the contemporary approach to death and judgment operative in American Catholicism and elsewhere.
Catholic funeral services increasingly have little to say of the judgment the human person faces at the moment of death and at the end of time. It is as if the free choices we make in this life no longer have eternal consequences.
‘Catholic funeral services increasingly have little to say of the #judgment the human person faces at the moment of #death+at the end of time. It is as if the free choices we make in this life no longer have eternal consequences’ https://t.co/HBXPoGD1W6 true also of othr churches
— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 27, 2019