That sounds heretical. You are saying that there are two judgements?
Mickey, you are a long term member here at CAF so I would have though by now you would know that Roman Catholics have always taught that there are two judgements. But there is only one personal judgement - the 2nd judgement is for the judgement of all of creation and peoples as a community of human beings across all generations. As I am sure you know sin or good acts have a ripple effect that transcend one’s own mere human existence forward in time with eternal consequences (good or bad depending on which). It is important that each soul know the severity of how its caused others in the race of humankind to suffer and the extent of that impact in all of human history. Likewise it is fitting for God to reveal exactly how a greater good came out of His showing mercy on humans and sending Christ as redeemer. So the good supernatural works made manifest by Christianity are judged objectively against all the evil to reveal how Christian good deeds and patient suffering overcame evil and produced a greater good with God’s grace. This permits God to grant each soul its highest and best reward in heaven (for the elect) and to punish the wicked to the full degree that their sins caused others to fall and not just to the consequence of their actions created in their own lifetimes (punishment is intensified accordingly). The 2nd judgement does not change the elect or damned status - just increases reward or punishment which ever the case of each soul and also conveys knowledge of every soul’s deeds (good and bad) to every other soul. Through some mystery the elect will feel no shame for their forgiven sins that God reveals to all souls ever created.
Here is the catechism:
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Particular Judgment
1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.592 The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith. The parable of the poor man Lazarus and the words of Christ on the cross to the good thief, as well as other New Testament texts speak of a final destiny of the soul–a destiny which can be different for some and for others.593
1022 Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven-through a purification594 or immediately,595 – or immediate and everlasting damnation.596
At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.597
**V. THE LAST JUDGMENT **
1038 The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust,"623 will precede the Last Judgment. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of man’s] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."624 Then Christ will come "in his glory, and all the angels with him. . . . Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."625
1039 In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare.626 The Last Judgment will reveal even to its furthest consequences the good each person has done or failed to do during his earthly life:
All that the wicked do is recorded, and they do not know. When “our God comes, he does not keep silence.”. . . he will turn towards those at his left hand: . . . "I placed my poor little ones on earth for you. I as their head was seated in heaven at the right hand of my Father - but on earth my members were suffering, my members on earth were in need. If you gave anything to my members, what you gave would reach their Head. Would that you had known that my little ones were in need when I placed them on earth for you and appointed them your stewards to bring your good works into my treasury. But you have placed nothing in their hands; therefore you have found nothing in my presence."627
1040 The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment will reveal that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death.628
1041 The message of the Last Judgment calls men to conversion while God is still giving them "the acceptable time, . . . the day of salvation."629 It inspires a holy fear of God and commits them to the justice of the Kingdom of God. It proclaims the “blessed hope” of the Lord’s return, when he will come "to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at in all who have believed."630
BF
