Please shower before entering the pool

Now this is the one topic in eschatology that is mostly Catholic related. It is wildly controversial and often neglected among scholars. I have heard and read many arguments against purgatory, but none of them seem to add up to the weight of the facts that there should be a purgatory. Some arguments are really clever and well-thought and researched, which makes them very enticing, but others are just ill-conceived anti-Catholic hoopla that is meant more to incite than to inform. But what is all this fuss about really? The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines purgatory as a "purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven," which is experienced by those "who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified" (CCC 1030). It notes that "this final purification of the elect . . . is entirely different from the punishment of the damned" (CCC 1031). Yes, that means that there is a third place you can go after your physical death and it is a real place just as heaven and hell are real places. What of this purification business? The purification is necessary because, as Scripture teaches, nothing unclean will enter the presence of God in heaven (Rev. 21:27) and, while we may die with our mortal sins forgiven, there can still be many impurities in us, specifically venial sins and the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven. The need for continual forgiveness of sins is also a Catholic thing. I believe that Christ did die for my sins and indeed the sin of the world, but if you sin you need to seek earthly, as well as spiritual repentance. Let me be completely upfront, I know that I sin and I feel that just asking for forgiveness may not be enough, thus I seek repentance by whatever means there may be; as a Catholic that means is Reconciliation. The residue of sin sticks with you, I believe, so even though I may die with the sin forgiven, I may need to take a spiritual "shower" in purgatory before I go into the calm, relaxing "pool" of heaven (I hope everyone catches the metaphor there). Please remember that from here on out I will be speaking about Catholic belief and the arguments made against this belief, but this is in no way an attack on anyone’s particular faith.

Two Judgments
When we die, we undergo what is called the particular, or individual, judgment. Scripture says that "it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27). We are judged instantly and receive our reward, for good or ill. We know at once what our final destiny will be. At the end of time, when Jesus returns, there will come the general judgment to which the Bible refers, for example, in Matthew 25:31-32: "When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 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." In this general judgment all our sins will be publicly revealed (Luke 12:2–5). Augustine said, in The City of God, that "temporary punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment" (21:13). It is between the particular and general judgments, then, that the soul is purified of the remaining consequences of sin: "I tell you, you will never get out till you have paid the very last copper" (Luke 12:59). If you die and are judged worthy to be called one of God's children, but not clean enough to enter his presence, then you will be sent to purgatory where you can become clean.

Money, Money, Money
One argument anti-Catholics often use to attack purgatory is the idea that the Catholic Church makes money from promulgating the doctrine. Without purgatory, the claim asserts, the Church would go broke. Any number of anti-Catholic books claim the Church owes the majority of its wealth to this doctrine. But the numbers just don't add up. When a Catholic requests a memorial Mass for the dead, that is, a Mass said for the benefit of someone in purgatory, it is customary to give the parish priest a stipend, on the principles that the laborer is worth his hire (Luke 10:7) and that those who preside at the altar share the altar's offerings (1 Cor. 9:13–14). In the United States, a stipend is commonly around five dollars; but the indigent do not have to pay anything. A few people, of course, freely offer more. This money goes to the parish priest, and priests are only allowed to receive one such stipend per day. No one gets rich on five dollars a day, and certainly not the Church, which does not receive the money anyway. But look at what happens on a Sunday. There are often hundreds of people at Mass. In a crowded parish such as St. Francis (Frisco, TX) or St. Joseph (Richardson, TX), there may be thousands. Many families and individuals deposit five dollars or more into the collection basket; others deposit less. A few give much more. A parish might have four or five or six Masses on a Sunday. The total from the Sunday collections far surpasses the paltry amount received from the memorial Masses. Also, the collection from Masses goes toward the operation of the church itself, which includes paying bills and salaries. And I can't think of any Catholic churches in Dallas that are so far in the black they have money to send to the Vatican.

"A Catholic Invention"
Anti-Catholics may be fond of saying the Catholic Church "invented" the doctrine of purgatory to make money, but they have difficulty saying just when. Most professional anti-Catholics, the ones who make their living attacking "Romanism", seem to place the blame on Pope Gregory the Great, who reigned from A.D. 590–604. But that hardly accounts for the request of Monica, mother of Augustine, who asked her son, in the fourth century, to remember her soul in his Masses. This would make no sense if she thought her soul would not benefit from prayers, as would be the case if she were in hell or in the full glory of heaven. Nor does ascribing the doctrine to Gregory explain the graffiti in the catacombs, where Christians during the persecutions of the first three centuries recorded prayers for the dead. Indeed, some of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament, like the Acts of Paul and Thecla and the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity (both written during the second century), refer to the Christian practice of praying for the dead. Such prayers would have been offered only if Christians believed in purgatory, even if they did not use that name for it. This is not to mention the biblical references to purgatory which will be discussed later on.

Why No Protests?
Whenever a date is set for the "invention" of purgatory, you can point to historical evidence to show the doctrine was in existence before that date. Besides, if at some point the doctrine was pulled out of a clerical hat, why does ecclesiastical history record no protest against it? A study of the history of doctrines indicates that Christians in the first centuries were up in arms (sometimes quite literally) if anyone suggested the least change in beliefs. They were extremely conservative people who tested a doctrine's truth by asking: Was this believed by our ancestors? Was it handed on from the apostles? Surely belief in purgatory would be considered a great change, if it had not been believed from the first…so where are the records of protests? They don't exist. There is no hint at all, in the oldest writings available to us (or in later ones, for that matter), that "true believers" in the immediate post-apostolic years spoke of purgatory as a novel doctrine. They must have understood that the oral teaching of the Apostles, what we as Catholics call Tradition (with a capital T), and the Bible not only failed to contradict the doctrine, but, in fact, confirmed it.

"Purgatory Not in Scripture"
Some anti-Catholics also charge, as though it actually proved something, "The word purgatory is nowhere found in Scripture." This is true, and yet it does not disprove the existence of purgatory or the fact that belief in it has always been part of Church teaching. The words Trinity and Incarnation aren't in Scripture either, yet those doctrines are clearly taught in it. Likewise, Scripture teaches that purgatory exists, even if it doesn't use that word. Christ refers to the sinner who "will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come" (Matt. 12:32), suggesting that one can be freed after death of the consequences of one's sins. Similarly, Paul tells us that, when we are judged, each man's work will be tried. And what happens if a righteous man's work fails the test? "He will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire" (1 Cor 3:15). Now this loss, this penalty, can't refer to consignment to hell, since no one is saved there; and heaven can't be meant, since there is no suffering ("fire") there. The Catholic doctrine of purgatory alone explains this passage. Then, of course, there is the Bible's approval of prayers for the dead: "In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection of the dead in view; for if he were not expecting the dead to rise again, it would have been useless and foolish to pray for them in death. But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from this sin" (2 Macc. 12:43–46). Prayers are not needed by those in heaven, and no one can help those in hell. That means some people must be in a third condition, at least temporarily. This verse so clearly illustrates the existence of purgatory that according to biblical scholars, at the time of the Reformation, Protestants trying to distance themselves from the Catholic Church had to cut the books of the Maccabees out of their Bibles in order to avoid accepting the doctrine.

Purgatory makes sense because there is a requirement that a soul not just be declared to be clean, but actually be clean, before a man may enter into eternal life. After all, if its sinful state still exists but is officially ignored, then it is still a guilty soul. It is still unclean. Catholic theology takes seriously the notion that "nothing unclean shall enter heaven." From this it is inferred that a less than cleansed soul remains a dirty soul and isn't fit for heaven. It needs to be cleansed or "purged" of its remaining imperfections. The cleansing occurs in purgatory. Indeed, the necessity of the purging is taught in other passages of Scripture, such as 2 Thessalonians 2:13, which declares that God chose us "to be saved through sanctification by the Spirit." Sanctification is thus not an option, something that may or may not happen before one gets into heaven. It is an absolute requirement, as Hebrews 12:14 states that we must strive "for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord."