Non Catholics being assured to enter purgatory

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I read somewhere in Catholic Answers that a non believer in Catholic doctrine has an assurance to enter purgatory when they die. If this is true then why become Catholic where as if you die with grave sin you have no chance of going to purgatory…?
 
The Catholic Church doesn’t even assure Catholics that they will enter purgatory.
 
Do you have the reference for that?
I feel like that assertion is part of a larger discussion about who can be saved, but got extrapolated and distorted badly…
 
Let’s analyze this claim. The Catholic Church has declared the “state” of purgatory to be the cleansing pathway between judgment and heaven for those who die in a state of grace. Those undergoing purgation have been judged worthy of heaven once their souls no longer bear attachment to sin and is evidence that they are paying the cost - the penance - associated with earthly sins. No other ecclesial community believes in the doctrine or apparently, even the concept. For a non-Catholic to make the claim seems nonsensical at first blush. If someone believes in purgatory, they are Catholic in that sense, but then choose to remain outside the Church?
 
Whoever wrote that was probably referring to “invincible ignorance”. You can read about it in the Catechism (1790-1794). It does not apply to the vast majority of people. It’s for cases where someone is never exposed to the faith or incapable of understanding it during their earthly life. For example, babies are invincibly ignorant because they have not developed enough to be able to understand the faith. In adults, a common example is the native people that live in such remote areas they may never encounter a Christian in their life. It also applies to people with severe mental illness. Since they cannot know right and wrong, God does not hold it against them. These examples are clear, but for other situations, only God knows what’s in the person’s heart. Only he knows if they are at fault for not believing.

As for why it is better to get into heaven as a Catholic following Church teachings and God’s commandments than to get in through ignorance, we believe in the merits of good deeds. Jesus said everyone will be paid according their deeds. Bad deeds result in punishment after death (if not forgiven and done penance for on earth). Good deeds will result in rewards after death in heaven. What those rewards will actually be is not really described in the Bible, but some saints have written about this.

St. Therese of Lisieux referred to it has people have differing “glory” in heaven and yet having no envy for others in heaven despite their different amounts of glory. Think of a large pale and a tiny glass. These represent two people’s capacity to love God. Even though they are different sizes, God’s love still fills them up completely, so no matter what, everyone is happy in heaven even the lowliest. The greater the capacity to love God, the greater the happiness and joy the person will experience in heaven.

Think about how we love different people to different degrees. We have some baseline amount of love towards strangers, more love towards friends, and even more love towards a spouse. The greater the love, the more happiness and joy it brings. In other words, in heaven those that have led heroic lives will experience more happiness and joy than those that just barely got into heaven. This is why we want to be Catholic. Even if others can get into heaven outside the Church, we Catholics have so much more potential to experience and reciprocate God’s love in heaven.
 
Even with invincible ignorance (which I believe applies to almost nobody) the Church states such people “may” (not will) be saved.
 
thistle said:
Even with invincible ignorance (which I believe applies to almost nobody) the Church states such people “may” (not will) be saved.
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Invincible Ignorance of what? God, The Catholic Church or so on? It seems you say people have no excuse of not “knowing something”? What is that?
 
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In my opinion non-Catholics do not have an excuse for not seeking the truth!

CCC 1260 “Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.” Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.
 
thistle said:
Even with invincible ignorance (which I believe applies to almost nobody) the Church states such people “may” (not will) be saved.
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I agree. The Church cannot say what happens to these people, just that for some people there is a chance of salvation outside the Church. In some cases it seems pretty clear, but only God knows where people will end up.
 
One of two things:

Either Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson are in hell, or everyone is saved no matter what.

We know that they both remained unrepentant to the last breath, and we know they were both incarnate evil.

If they’re not roasting, then everyone ought to be toasting cus aint nothing to worry bout if all are saved.
 
Spyridon said:
We know that they both remained unrepentant to the last breath,
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I wouldn’t say I know this. I may think this but I do not know this! What we think we know is not always what is!. And that can be applied to so many other things in life. ( Although this is an extreme example)
 
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Yes, we mustn’t ever lose hope for the salvation of any man alive today. Boy it sure would be nice to be assured of at least Purgatory 😏
 
Are you kidding?

Are you familiar with how Adolf Hitler died?

There’s only two options: either Adolf Hitler is in hell, or everyone is saved no matter what.

Don’t try to cop out by saying we don’t know. We DO know. You can read his last will and testament online. You can read from witnesses that he remained evil right to the end.

Don’t cop out - either admit Hitler is in hell, or that everyone is saved no matter what. There’s no other legitimate option.
 
Hitler committed suicide because he was on his last stand in Berlin and didn’t want to be captured by the Soviets. Perhaps there was something in that set of circumstances that lessened his culpability. Something that may or may not have been visible to others.
 
God would be unjust to let Hitler in heaven even if HE DID repent just before death. But Hitler didn’t. He was a type of the anti-Christ: do you believe the anti-Christ will repent and be saved too?

But the fact of the matter is we know Hitler did NOT repent. He remained violently obstinate to the bitter end while he chomped a bitter cyanide capsule then blew his brains out moments after blaming the Jews for all the worlds problems yet again.

If I honestly thought Hitler was anywhere but hell I wouldn’t go to Church - why would I bother doing anything or believing something if everyone is saved? Universal salvation renders salvation meaningless, it makes Christs death on the Cross nothing more than an unfortunate event, not the consummation of salvation history.
 
God is not just in letting virtually anyone in the last millennia into heaven, but merciful and incredibly loving. We justly deserve punishment for our sins against an infinitely good God, but Christ’s death and resurrection gives us hope of life after death. Who knows if what the witnesses said was true, let alone accurate? Who knows if he was sane enough to know of the gravity of suicide during his final minutes? God knows, but we just can’t.
 
I disagree

I think we can safely say Hitler, Stalin, Zedong, Pot, Manson et al. are enjoying each others company in front of a nice toasty fire.

Either that, or everyone is saved no matter what.

There’s no in between, theres no being able to be an abominable person your whole life, kill millions of people, then a minute before you die say the sinners prayer and instantly go to heaven.

If Stalin had had a sincere conversion, went to Confession, then lived out his last months in prayer and penance, he could be saved.

But for Stalin to just say the sinners prayer in an attempt to fool God at the last minute by some fancy legal footwork, it aint gonna fly.

Are you foolish enough to think Gods Perfect Justice can be fooled like some cheap card game?

That is Protestant heretical garbage - that’s not Catholic teaching.
 
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