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The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) offers the following explanation: We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves . . . To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him forever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.” (CCC 1033)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is an UnHerd-blog columnist. She is also a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Founder of the AHA Foundation, and host of The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast. Her new book is Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights.

This is interesting testimony from a person who says she is now a Christian, although she does not mention Christ in her remarks. Perhaps in a future essay she will. This needs to be said, since, as the French writer Paul Claudel pointed out, Christianity is a face to face encounter with a Person, whose Name is Jesus Christ, and He lives!

What the Church teaches about Purgatory can be found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

III. The Final Purification, or Purgatory

1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

Marco Meschini, a professor at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, explains in his book "Il Jihad e La Crociata" (The Jihad and the Crusade) published by Edizioni Ares, says that jihad and the Crusades are asymmetric. In this interview he explains why.