CHICAGO—Contradicting long-held conventional wisdom, a report appearing this week in The Journal Of Theological Studies concludes that, among children who perish before the age of 4, only one in 150,000 becomes an angel. "While it's comforting for parents to believe the spirits of their dead children live on as angels, we found that fewer than one in 50 kids even goes to heaven," said head researcher Jerard Tinsley, a professor of Cherubic Studies at DePaul University. "Becoming an angel is one of the highest honors God can bestow on an individual, and not everyone makes the cut." Tinsley's research team was also responsible for last year's groundbreaking discovery of doggie hell.

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