Two Views of Suffering

● Pope Pius XII, speaking to five hundred physicians in the Vatican, told them, according to the New York Times of February 25, 1957: “Suffering will never be completely banished from among men.” That is one view. Another is given in the Bible—by Christ Jesus in the revelation he gave to his apostle John. Says the Catholic Confraternity translation of Apocalypse Re 21:1, 3, 4 concerning the conditions among men after Armageddon: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold the dwelling of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.’”