Aug 8, 2026 · 9 min · 10 segments
Fr. Chad Ripperger recently sat down with Shawn Ryan and shared some fascinating Catholic theology about what awaits us after death. Will we interact with relatives who have died? Will we really see…
The first question is, do we interact with relatives who have passed if they are in heaven? Father Chad Ripperger's answer is yes, but it's one-directional.
What we don't get is a two-way back-and-forth conversation the way that you would talk to somebody who's standing right in front of you.
His father had died three years ago, and Father Chad Ripperger explains that he had worked as a mechanic alongside of him for years.
More than once since his father's death, he's hit a mechanical problem that he couldn't solve, mentally asked his father for his help, and had the solution come to him instantly after already working on the problem unsuccessfully for close to an hour.
He also mentioned an exorcist he knows whose mother was a very holy woman during her life, and during difficult sessions, that priest will actually call on his deceased mother to be present, and the person who's possessed can perceive her there.
It's genuine interaction, but it flows through intercession and presence, not conversation.
People occasionally receive visible appearances from the deceased, but Father Chad was very careful to note that in his own experience, despite reading about such cases, he's never personally witnessed an authenticated one.
Rare doesn't mean impossible, but it does mean don't build your theology around expecting it.
The second point, and this is the one that should kind of make you pause a little.
When you die, you see your full lineage, so it's not just your grandparents or your great-grandparents, but all of it.
Sean Ryan had asked the obvious follow-up, but isn't technically everyone in our lineage [chuckles] if we all descend from Adam and Eve? And Father Chad Ripperger confirmed that, yes, we will see the whole line, both directions, everyone connected to us through the entire history of the human race.
So if you sit with that for a second, think about every single choice that you have made, and it ripples through a family line that stretches back to the beginning of humanity, and one day you're gonna actually see the whole entire picture laid out in front of you.
The first question is, do we interact with relatives who have passed if they are in heaven? Father Chad Ripperger's answer is yes, but it's one-directional.
What we don't get is a two-way back-and-forth conversation the way that you would talk to somebody who's standing right in front of you.
His father had died three years ago, and Father Chad Ripperger explains that he had worked as a mechanic alongside of him for years.
More than once since his father's death, he's hit a mechanical problem that he couldn't solve, mentally asked his father for his help, and had the solution come to him instantly after already working on the problem unsuccessfully for close to an hour.
He also mentioned an exorcist he knows whose mother was a very holy woman during her life, and during difficult sessions, that priest will actually call on his deceased mother to be present, and the person who's possessed can perceive her there.
It's genuine interaction, but it flows through intercession and presence, not conversation.
People occasionally receive visible appearances from the deceased, but Father Chad was very careful to note that in his own experience, despite reading about such cases, he's never personally witnessed an authenticated one.
Rare doesn't mean impossible, but it does mean don't build your theology around expecting it.
The second point, and this is the one that should kind of make you pause a little.
When you die, you see your full lineage, so it's not just your grandparents or your great-grandparents, but all of it.
Sean Ryan had asked the obvious follow-up, but isn't technically everyone in our lineage [chuckles] if we all descend from Adam and Eve? And Father Chad Ripperger confirmed that, yes, we will see the whole line, both directions, everyone connected to us through the entire history of the human race.
So if you sit with that for a second, think about every single choice that you have made, and it ripples through a family line that stretches back to the beginning of humanity, and one day you're gonna actually see the whole entire picture laid out in front of you.
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