Why is so much importance placed on our state at the moment of death

[BT3241]

Its catholic only theology what about other Christians and people?

 

[meltzerboy2]

Yes, of course. But I was referring literally to the birds nesting in your hair.

 

[Kei]

does the Church accept such a thing as confession by desire without an external perfect act of contrition

In contrast to what @oliver109 said, I’m pretty sure She does. A perfect act of contrition doesn’t need to be external.

 

[fhansen]

We don’t all get the same advantages-some live longer while others die young, some suffer from abusive backgrounds with little love experienced while others have much more positive environments growing up. Some are given more education about the true God while others have none. But we’re judged based on our knowledge- and based on what we did with whatever gifts we’ve been given including such knowledge/revelation as well as time, individual backgrounds and experiences, intelligence, etc. The degree of our culpability varies for each person IOW. But the general, basic human condition and expectations by God are summed up here in the catechism:

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that man should be ‘left in the hand of his own counsel,’ so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and is master over his acts.

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.

 

[Kei]

Did he go directly to heaven, or did he have to endure the pains of purgatory first?

I don’t think we know. Some try to say Jesus told him, “I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” intimating a speedy route to Paradise. I can see this being a possibility. He is celebrated as St Dismas, “the goodly thief”. We don’t know the extent of his supposed crimes, and he did literally suffer a terrible crucifixion (talk about paying your dues!). But, the original language doesn’t have the comma. I don’t see why it couldn’t be “I tell you today, you will be with Me in Paradise” instead. But I’m no expert.

 

[po18guy]

To suffer twice?

Cruel J dude.

 

[Usagi]

We are not the fallen angels, we do not have full knowledge over how they rejected God, better for us to focus on why some sinners are saved and others are not, like i said in my previous analogy lets take two sinners, A and B, sinner A lives their life sinning, going to confession, sinning, going to confession rinse and repeat. They go to confession and immediately after are killed after going to confession, they go to Heaven. Sinner B lives exactly the same life, the only difference is that after going to confession they sin and then are immediately killed, they go to Hell, i will say that if God let that person live they would have another chance to ask for forgiveness and go to Heaven, this is cruel.

Then God would not do that, and if prominent churchmen have said otherwise, then their understanding of God was deficient.