Do soldiers go to Hell or Purgatory?

[KRAS]

My Father recently Passed away in October, He was distant from the Church and even Started to deny The Church, I did make Sure that it was a catholic funeral, Did not make to many people happy. But As he son I felt responsiable to Finish His sacrements.

Now tha he has passed away, My Prayers for him have been about Purgatory and his many castls, He was a Soldier in Vietnam and I know he had taken lives in Battle. He wore His St. Christopher Medallian the whole time, Interesting Note i Have his Medallion, << whisper and i am named christopher >> Ok i am Rambling …

My question is what is the Belief in Death of a Solder who has killed … what Is His Fate…

 

[TLM08]

My Father recently Passed away in October, He was distant from the Church and even Started to deny The Church, I did make Sure that it was a catholic funeral, Did not make to many people happy. But As he son I felt responsiable to Finish His sacrements.

Now tha he has passed away, My Prayers for him have been about Purgatory and his many castls, He was a Soldier in Vietnam and I know he had taken lives in Battle. He wore His St. Christopher Medallian the whole time, Interesting Note i Have his Medallion, << whisper and i am named christopher >> Ok i am Rambling …

My question is what is the Belief in Death of a Solder who has killed … what Is His Fate…

Your father is a patriot and a hero for serving his country. If your father God and accepted Jesus as the Son of God who gave his life to pay our sin debt, it’s very possible that he is at home with the Lord.

Thank You for your father’s service to our great nation and God Bless you!

 

[bilop]

My Father recently Passed away in October, He was distant from the Church and even Started to deny The Church, I did make Sure that it was a catholic funeral, Did not make to many people happy. But As he son I felt responsiable to Finish His sacrements.

Now tha he has passed away, My Prayers for him have been about Purgatory and his many castls, He was a Soldier in Vietnam and I know he had taken lives in Battle. He wore His St. Christopher Medallian the whole time, Interesting Note i Have his Medallion, << whisper and i am named christopher >> Ok i am Rambling …

My question is what is the Belief in Death of a Solder who has killed … what Is His Fate…

Killing in military service is not sinful. I don’t know your father, so have no idea about his faith or his fate, but I can say that legitimate killing in wartime would** not **lead to his damnation.

God Bless, and I will say a prayer for his soul.

PS. Make sure to pray for your father and have Masses offered for him!

 

[AdriannaJean]

No one can really speculate on the state of your father’s soul right before he died. But as for killing people in battle he would not go to hell. Now as for him falling away from the Church I can’t say. No one but your father and God knows how far away he was in his heart so it’s a judgement call we simply cannot make. That said, prayers for his soul in Purgatory are never offside

I’m sorry for your loss.

 

[Newbie2]

Killing in military service is not sinful. I don’t know your father, so have no idea about his faith or his fate, but I can say that legitimate killing in wartime would** not **lead to his damnation.

God Bless, and I will say a prayer for his soul.

PS. Make sure to pray for your father and have Masses offered for him!

Not necessarily sinful, as you pointed out that legitimate killing is OK. Some killing in wartime is not “legitimate”, as you implied. Such would be up to the Almighty to judge, in any case.

 

[mdgspencer]

You might like to get a copy of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” which deals with basic questions like this one. The Cathechism teaches that it is not a sin to kill when defending yourself or your society in war. If you don’t mind me saying, you may be one of the countless Catholics who suffer from the large-scale collapse of relgious education in the Church since Vatican II (though perhaps this has begun to become better).

 

[Shin]

I don’t know the fate of your father. . . You should pray for his soul.

But soldiers do go to Heaven. There have been some soldier saints.

 

[Michael_David]

Interesting topic!

I too fought in VietNam… and yes, killed others.

In the process of ‘the heat of battle’ self-defense and survival takes over… and it is either that or don’t try to survive and commit suicide.

Although when returning home, not all liked me with the condition of the war protests going on here… my family and friends did. However, my girl friend (who stayed true to me) after getting back together for a few months said I had changed… how could I not after going through that, front-line and first hand, even having a hand in it. My folks noticed it too… and so did I, but did not know what to do or really what was wrong… that uneasy feeling. Could of been PTS… but even more then that, there was no way to rectify what I had done to those other fellow humans who went back to there loved ones in body-bags (the enemy was just like we were… both of us were from another country, doing our countries bidding, in a country that belonged to others). What were we doing there? Was it self-defense? Was it obedience to the country I lived in? Was it that the homeland people couldn’t defend themselves? Was it an oil rich land we wanted to ease our drive back home? Was it Communism like we were told up front? Was it helping a fellow human friend? In any case, it was war!

The uneasy feeling still hasn’t left me, but is softer and not as harsh on me now, 40 years later. Just so you know, confession did not help with this, although every Priest I talked with, has thanked me for my service, and said I did nothing wrong… why don’t I feel like that then. I know what your dad was going through… what can help with this if the church seems ineffective? If your girl friend leaves you because she can’t handle the change in you? If your parents try to listen, but turn away in horror of what went on in disbelief? If other soldiers who are going through it are up to their necks in water trying to stay afloat to help you who are doing the same (again, survival… only back home, in the land of the free). The only psychologists to talk with were ‘interns’ trying to learn what this thing was, this PTS without a name yet. Help had to come from ‘within’ as it sure didn’t have answers from ‘without’.

Most things one does in life can be amended, even sins. Confession sets one right with God, but the amends are still to be made. But the taking of a life cannot be made… how does one give it back to the grieving? Why was he intent on killing me, that I had to kill him? No one wins!!!

Back home here, I see a Cop sometimes put in this circumstance… It is not as massive as a full out war, but it amounts to the same thing. Now, those ‘intern’ psychologists have a few answers, some good and some not so good, but at least they know more about it and try to listen and help settle it down. You can thank the Korean and Vietnam Vets for that learned knowledge now in use… we were the ‘experiments’.

When you talk with your dad, say Hi, and Thanks from me…

 

[Silvereel]

Many soldiers are saints, including my patron St. George. A soldier who kills someone in battle is alot different than a murderer. The soldier is defending himself and his country.
You also might find it comforting to read about this and pray the prayer: ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/index.htm
The Divine Mercy can be used to ask for mercy on yourself, or of others.
Here are some soldier saints: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_saint
As for Purgatory, most all of us will go through there. But try not to think of it as a place of suffering and punishment - it’s not. It may well be painful, but it is cleansing us of our sins, and it is a joyful cleansing.

 

[kingJesus]

Killing in military service is not sinful. I don’t know your father, so have no idea about his faith or his fate, but I can say that legitimate killing in wartime would** not **lead to his damnation.

God Bless, and I will say a prayer for his soul.

PS. Make sure to pray for your father and have Masses offered for him!

Where does it say that it would not lead to damnation???
I thought if you killed in wartime or not , that you are and have sinned!!! Forgive me , I am just asking!

God save our Soldiers and our freedom!

 

[mdgspencer]

Where does it say that it would not lead to damnation???
I thought if you killed in wartime or not , that you are and have sinned!!! Forgive me , I am just asking!

 Christian tradition holds that a soldier defending his society in a just war has not sinned. What about Saint Joqan of Arc for example? I'm afraid that if you say that being a soldier in war is sinful, the burden of proof is on you.

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

My Father recently Passed away in October, He was distant from the Church and even Started to deny The Church, I did make Sure that it was a catholic funeral, Did not make to many people happy. But As he son I felt responsiable to Finish His sacrements.

Now tha he has passed away, My Prayers for him have been about Purgatory and his many castls, He was a Soldier in Vietnam and I know he had taken lives in Battle. He wore His St. Christopher Medallian the whole time, Interesting Note i Have his Medallion, << whisper and i am named christopher >> Ok i am Rambling …

My question is what is the Belief in Death of a Solder who has killed … what Is His Fate…

The same as anyone else?

I believe in the concept of a just war and so does the Church. May your father see the face of God.

 

[katgee]

Michael David,

I worked in the missions with foreign missionary priests. The country went from a colonial power to a Leninist-Marxist state. I decided to leave when some of the priests started to make anti-American comments. I went to a seminar and the whole day was spent demonstrating how much Americans consume in comparison to the rest of the world, and our institutional racism against blacks. I was a pretty simple young adult and myself had grown up in the inner city in an interracial neighborhood that became primarily black.

Anyway, the suffering of the people profoundly touched me. I came home and everything that was once so much a part of me now left me isolated and unfulfilled. My friends took me out to a nice seafood dinner. I looked out the window and down to the lake water, and immediately the cloudy sky and the muddy bank of the lake looked like the water I lived by, and right away I saw suffering people with little food come to my mind. I almost vomited over the dinner table. My friends and others gradually pulled back from me. I wanted to be alone. My pastor wasn’t well and wasn’t able to give me the time he wanted. I worked in graduate school with a black neo-Marxist Ph.D. candidate, and hearing him talk made it worse. I just couldn’t adjust back home.

I went to confession to the priest I knew since I was a child. I got in there and finally told him I was carrying the sins of my country on my back and it was breaking me. I confessed my own selfishness and materialism, I confessed being an American, I mean I felt weird, but I said it. I can’t remember what happened after that. But as I left, the priest opened the door of his confessional to peak out. I felt OK.

I went back to the office at graduate school and they noticed that what was burdening me was now gone. Go in to confession and unburden on to the Lord what was bothering you about yourself. Forgive yourself. There are alot of Far Left non-Christians who think we are hypocrites because we say we are Pro Life but support going off to war. Whatever.

There are people like myself out there, irregardless of what the Church sanctions or not that still have sensitive consciences. May be if you could define and put into words and bring it to the Lord through the priest – in faith – you can be set free. It is in Jesus Christ we find true freedom.

 

[Michael_David]

Thank You Katgee for your open experience and this: “There are people like myself out there, irregardless of what the Church sanctions or not that still have sensitive consciences. May be if you could define and put into words and bring it to the Lord through the priest – in faith – you can be set free. It is in Jesus Christ we find true freedom.”

The “sensitive conscience” I believe is God’s touch guiding one’s own ‘uniqueness’… even within the Church and any such sanctions.

Yes, the last Priest I talked with said I should write a book… perhaps, in doing so, I’d find the wisdom you described in your post… that it may not be only what one ‘does’ where they are, but the what one ‘is’ in the representation of where they are doing it.

Again, THANK YOU!!!

 

[CK9]

President Woodrow Wilson recognized that moral damage and the brutalization of human nature are natural consequences of war, and these considerations held him back from proposing a declaration of war to the US Congress during WW1.

Contrast the spiritual state of a man at war with the ‘fruits of the Spirit’ described by Paul in Galatians 5:22: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.”

At the same time, loyalty to one’s country is a duty, and force can and should be a servant of Justice.

 

[katgee]

You are welcome, Michael David.

There are probably some graces as well that you need to have come forth into society from your experience.

When something hangs on to our souls, it implies there is some kind of moral action happening that is bigger than just you and your experience. And what comes out of you needs to be heard in society, you need to communicate it to somebody out there…part of the problem is looking into yourself and accurately defining it. You have images and experiences or words but they don’t capture some thing that is continuing to live on in you.

What you have is real…start writing and doing so, recording everything, the message will come, and with the passing of time, your experience happening some time ago, the message will be subtle, because it will be both simple and complex at the same time. And once it is expressed, it will redefine you and possibly give you a new turn for a more fulfilling life…and with greater integrity.

I will pray for you today at Adoration that your mission be realized and that you enter more deeply into the Kingdom.

 

[Holly3278]

Soldiers do not go to Hell for killing during war. You, as a soldier, are ordered to kill during war and so it is not like you have much of a choice.

 

[katgee]

Michael David,

I thought of this after completing my other email…a priest told me years ago that the day would come that I would begin sharing my experiences. I guess the catalyst was last year with the talk about Black Liberation Theology. It came out and was discussed here on Catholic Answers and a priest came in and clarified some points. It really helped me.

I later came on a Far Left popular forum and began sharing, first with the topic about more intelligent people do not believe in God. It was a dialogue that went on for a number of weeks. I finally got down to sharing about my experience overseas. One fellow is one of the most strident and cutting atheists on the forum, brilliant fellow. I spoke about all the good people did in Christ’s name. Their humanity really spoke to him. I pray for him now. I shared with others, but don’t know the effects or results.

In the meantime, I heard from the priest I worked with after a 10 year lapse who is now retired and writes about his experience. It facilitated me into spiritual renewal and new direction as well.

 

[Michael_David]

Katgee,

True, sometimes we do not know what happens when we share our life with another or others, perhaps the answer is in the ‘quiet’ one hears after doing so…

And yes, after Father told me to do the book, about 2 years ago, I started a journal about it, but that is what I had done and experienced… now you bring up the perspective of the ‘what’ I represented while doing it to the one’s there. And no doubt, some are here now living in this country as my neighbors (as many left when we also pulled out). Perhaps, it was a good example I cast on those I interacted with while there… that had so many want out of their own country and move here… don’t know. I sometimes wonder if one really knows the ‘subtleties’ of what one is doing for the ‘conscious’ reasons they tell themselves they are doing it. (Does that make sense?)

But, as it goes now (for about a year), I have befriended a psychologist here at the Vet Center who works with returning Vets and the PTS (shell shock) after-affects… he seems to be studying me as I am studying him. A lot of our conversations are being ‘passed-around’ to others in the field and I see ‘spots’ of it here and there coming to the surface with the Iraqi vets. So perhaps, that “Touch” has guided me to where I should be at this point in time. I like to write, but seem to be more of a doer, hands on sort of guy… I don’t want to live my life behind a keyboard, rather in the ‘field’… and so it has been.

Katgee, I really feel your insights; again, Thank You

 

[TeresaofRoses]

In the Old Testament God gave specific instructions to slaughter the enemies of the “Chosen Ones”. So on that note I would say that God would have to accept the soldiers that were defending their country from evil. Of course I’m guessing.