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Through faith in Christ, the Baptised person can call out to the Father, confident that her prayers are heard and answered. Because of her obedience to Christ, the Son of God, Who intercedes for her, it's as if she is held in Christ's arms, as Christ vouches for her, before Heaven, because she is a 'child of God' - unlike people who don't know Him, or who have refused to believe in Him.

We are foolish if we joke about 'a few years in Purgatory'. Those of the faithful who die in grace but are unworthy to enter Heaven go to Purgatory, as if along a dim corridor. Each realises that he is safe, but groans with sorrow and regret at how lukewarm had been his love for God, and how foolish and disobedient he has been.

Some Catholics speak rightly about God's love for us, but suggest that He is not strict about sin, and overlooks disobedience. Real love is both tender and strict, whether in our loving God, or in a loving parent who, for example, is strict in order to keep a child safe from a dangerous well or a live electric rail beneath a station platform.

People in mortal sin are being swept towards damnation as if in the waters of a great river that tumbles towards a large hole in the ground. The plight of many of them is due to abortion or pornography; but whoever calls out to God, 'I am sorry, Lord', can be rescued from her sinful state and restored to a life of grace and obedience.

A Pope can set a good example for us, showing that it is possible to maintain good relations with people of other religions, even visiting their mosques and synagogues, yet without betraying Christ by engaging in what some people call 'inter-faith' prayer, in which some Christians leave out the Name of Christ as if embarrassed by Him.

There are people who lead outwardly respectable lives but who are half-way to Hell, God sees, because of their disbelief, and their deliberate refusal to lead good lives in obedience to His laws of morality. Unless they repent before they die, they will fall into the bottomless pit, which represents eternal alienation from God chosen by the wicked.

By humility we can advance in holiness. No matter what way of life we believe the Lord calls us to, we sometimes act like the man in Christ's Gospel story. We might assure Christ that we will obey Him, yet then walk away, or we might refuse to serve - then regret our decision, and come back, contrite, like the man who returned, as Christ said, to do his father's will. Whoever returns like this gives joy to Christ, and follows the right path.

When a person convinces herself that she is justified in a course of action, freely deciding to disobey God's laws - especially His laws about married love, it's as if she slides away downhill, in a snowy landscape, so slippery as to be like a ski-slope. It is very hard for her to return to the heights of a state of grace after such a lapse in faith and morals. Indeed, it is impossible, without God's grace, and without a willingness to change.

St Paul was full of fervour, and ideas about how to spread the Gospel; yet Christ guided Saint Paul in specific ways, showing him what places to go to and which to avoid, with marvellous results. Yet Christ cannot guide Catholics today, to do great works, if they are not willing to obey Him in everyday matters, including morals, and if they ignore or argue about the Church's teachings.

It is Christ our God, our Saviour and High Priest, Who has become the Head of His Mystical Body, the Church. He has also given us a leader on earth: the Pope, the Bishop of Rome who, with the Catholic Bishops in Communion with him, teaches the Catholic Faith and encourages us to remain faithful. Christ is pleased when we show devotion and respect towards the papacy, and to each Pope.

It is only reasonable to believe the evidence of our eyes and ears. If we saw blood flowing in a gutter, we would search the road for an injured body, and would find it. If we see plain evidence that hundreds of thousands of Catholics have abandoned their vocations, or left the Church, we are sensible if we look back, to find the cause. It lies in the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, in the exaggeration, rebellion, dissent, and selfishness that cause traditional teaching and liturgy to be despised.