Catholicism. The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification, which the church calls purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".
At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory, in two points: some souls are purified after death; such souls benefit from the prayers and pious duties that the living do for them.
The Catholic Church teaches that death is not the end. When someone dies, it is only their physical body that stops living. The eternal part of a person, the soul, may go to Heaven or Purgatory . Purgatory is where the souls with unforgiven sins will go, so that they can be purified and reach Heaven.
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that there is a place where sins are punished and a soul is purified before it can go to Heaven. This is called Purgatory .
The most prominent modern historian of the idea of Purgatory, Jacques Le Goff, dates the term purgatorium to around 1170; and in 1215 the Church began to set out the actual length of time in Purgatory required of souls. It is easy to see how this might have been a useful development for the Church.
Life after death centred on a passionate belief that just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives forever, so will the righteous be raised and live forever with the risen Christ. Belief in this is an essential part of the Christian faith.
Purgatory is not a state of punishment or pain, but rather a state of purification and transition, so that the souls of the just will be freed from whatever imperfection clings to them in order to achieve the holiness necessary to enter heaven.
The Catholic Church has included in its teaching the idea of a purgatory rather as a condition than a place. On 4 August 1999, Pope John Paul II, speaking of purgatory, said: "The term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence.
purgatory, the condition, process, or place of purification or temporary punishment in which, according to medieval Christian and Roman Catholic belief, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for heaven.
Though the community led by the pope in Rome is known as the Catholic Church, the traits of catholicity, and thus the term catholic, are also ascribed to denominations such as the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East.
Visitations from Purgatory
Such apparitions have been recorded for thousands of years. It is a mystery why God allows certain souls to seek spiritual aid, and why some people among the living—though very few—are able to communicate with them.
A Spanish theologian from the late Middle Ages once argued that the average Christian spends 1000 to 2000 years in purgatory (according to Stephen Greenblatt's Hamlet in Purgatory). But there's no official take on the average sentence.
In its traditional form, however, it has not been understood as a second chance for salvation after death, but rather, only as chance for postmortem transformation and purging for persons who die in grace. Nevertheless, it is often popularly understood as a second chance to obtain salvation.
At the shores of Purgatory, Dante and Virgil meet Cato, a pagan who was placed by God as the general guardian of the approach to the mountain (his symbolic significance has been much debated).
1. : an intermediate state after death for expiatory purification. specifically : a place or state of punishment wherein according to Roman Catholic doctrine the souls of those who die in God's grace may make satisfaction for past sins and so become fit for heaven.
Catholics do not pray to Mary as if she were God. Prayer to Mary is memory of the great mysteries of our faith (Incarnation, Redemption through Christ in the rosary), praise to God for the wonderful things he has done in and through one of his creatures (Hail Mary) and intercession (second half of the Hail Mary).
For half a millennium, followers of Jesus have argued, excommunicated and occasionally killed each other--at least in part--over the concept of an intermediate state between Heaven and Hell. First Eastern Orthodox, then Protestants rejected the doctrine. Lately, even a lot of Catholics seem skeptical.
But apologist Karlo Broussard says that purgatory is fact, not fiction. The Bible supports it, Christians have historically believed in it, and it makes theological sense.
We can avoid Purgatory living a holy life, staying away from sin, confessing our sins regularly, having the Holy Eucharist in a state of grace and practicing works of Mercy, especially having a devotion to the Holy Souls in Purgatory.
For Catholics, though not Irish Protestants, this formed part of a spiritual cosmos which viewed Heaven and Hell as opposite poles, with Purgatory and Limbo occupying rather vaguely defined intermediate positions. But Limbo appears to have disappeared off the spiritual map."
Divided into three sections, Antepurgatory, Purgatory proper, and the Earthly Paradise, the lower slopes are reserved for souls whose penance was delayed.
Nonetheless, the Church has always encouraged fervent prayer for those suffering in purgatory because our prayers help to alleviate their suffering.
The idea of the temporary suffering period of the soul (purgatory) finds parallels in several religions like Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism, among others. The concept of purgatory deepens the bond between the living world and the journey beyond.
Pope Francis teaches that: Even now we experience a communion between the Church on earth and the Church in heaven through our union with those who have died. The souls in heaven assist us with their prayers, while we assist the souls in purgatory through our good works, prayer and participation in the Eucharist.
One particularly well-known Catholic method of exploitation in the Middle Ages was the practice of selling indulgences, a monetary payment of penalty which, supposedly, absolved one of past sins and/or released one from purgatory after death.