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Christian beliefs about the Afterlife
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Purgatory:
A mainly Catholic belief about the afterlife

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Quotation:
 |
Anon: "Coming from a Catholic home, I often wondered
why the church taught that that I would burn in Hell if I ever died in a car
accident before -- rather than after -- doing 'confession.' I also wondered
why I would be tortured in purgatory -- perhaps for millennia -- if my
friends and relatives don't pray for me after my death." |

Overview:
"Purgatory (Lat., "purgare", to make clean, to purify) in accordance with
Catholic teaching is a place or condition of temporal punishment...." 1
Purgatory is believed by Roman Catholics, and very few other Christians, to
be a location or state where the souls of
most individuals go at the time of death. It has traditionally been viewed as a
place of torment, where "nearly all of us shall...have to pass a period more
or less long in the excruciating fires of Purgatory after death." 2 Gregory the Great wrote "that the pain be more
intolerable than any one can suffer in this life." Augustine 3
and St. Bonaventure 4 agree. The purpose of this pain is to
cleanse the individual from the temporal consequences of her or his sins while
on earth. Eventually, the person
will be sufficiently purified to be eligible to be transferred to Heaven. The end
result of this teaching is that many Catholics are particularly frightened of
death.
Belief in Purgatory as a place or process is rejected by essentially all
Protestants. Eastern Orthodox Churches have no detailed teaching of Purgatory.

Topics discussed in this section:

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References:
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"The Catholic Encyclopedia, Purgatory,"
(1911). See: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen
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Fr. Paul O'Sullivan, "How to avoid Purgatory." See:
http://www.marianland.com/hell007.html
- Op cit., Catholic Encyclopedia: Gregory the Great, Ps. 3 poenit., n. 1
- Op cit., Catholic Encyclopedia: Augustine, Ps. 37 n. 3
- Op cit., Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Bonaventure, IV, dist. xx, p.1,
a.1, q. ii

Web sites with multiple links to essays on Purgatory:

Copyright ©1998, to 2008 by Ontario
Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update and review: 2008-DEC-05
Author: B.A. Robinson

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