Can masses be said for non Catholics?

[wisdomseeker]

From the CCC:

So I take it to mean that the only requirement you need to have a mass said for the repose of someone’s soul is that they die in God’s grace and friendship. Since we have no way of knowing whether someone is in God’s grace of friendship or not, despite any past sins or errors they may have committed during the course of their lives, isn’t it better to err in their favor? There’s no such thing as a wasted prayer.

This is only to Catholics and not for those outside the Church. The Catechism of the CC.

 

[midori]

This is only to Catholics and not for those outside the Church. The Catechism of the CC.

Generally, when we pray for the repose of someone’s soul, we pray for their speedy entrance into Heaven. That assumes that, to profit from our prayers, they’re in a state where they’re not yet in Heaven, enjoying the beatific vision, and that they’re not in a state where they have no hope of ever enjoying the beatific vision. That would be Purgatory, right?

The Catechism is just defining who goes to Purgatory: All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified.

Are you arguing that non-Catholics are admitted into Heaven while being imperfectly purified? Or that non-Catholics are denied the opportunity to purify themselves after death? And that Purgatory is only a process permitted to followers of religions that subscribe to that concept?

 

[oneGODoneCHURCH]

Can’t find an online copy but this is what it says in the Canon law book …

http://forums.catholic-questions.org/picture.php?albumid=812&pictureid=10102

per your articule

"Only he who has been
publicly declared a vitandus and denounced by name
by the Holy See is considered a vitandus (2258). "

vitandus/ from uk.ask.com/wiki/Vitandus
A vitandus (Latin for “one to be avoided”) excommunicate was someone affected by a rare and grave form of excommunication, in which the Church ordered, as a remedial measure, that the faithful were not to associate with him “except in the case of husband and wife, parents, children, servants, subjects”, and in general unless there was some reasonable excusing cause.[1]

It thus imposed a form of shunning somewhat similar to Jewish cherem.

Since the coming into effect of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, this form of excommunication is no longer envisaged in the canon law of the Catholic Church. The 1917 Code still included it, imposing it automatically (a latae sententiae excommunication) on anyone who did physical violence to the Pope himself,[2] and declaring that with that exception, “nobody is a vitandus excommunicate unless the Apostolic See has excommunicated him by name and has proclaimed the excommunication publicly and in the decree has stated expressly that he must be avoided”.[3]

The distinction between a vitandus and a toleratus (“tolerated”) excommunicate was introduced for the first time by Pope Martin V in 1418.[4]

since this would not apply to the normal everyday person that leaves the church and starts
going to another religious body having mass said for a them would be fine.

 

[jeanannemarie]

Is it correct that you can also have Masses said for anyone that is living?

 

[Sirach2]

Yes. I often see these masses scheduled in our bulletin, such as “for health of so-and-so”. Sometimes it is a mass of thanksgiving that the couple offers for 25-50 years of marriage, and the like.