In Case You Think The Reformation is Just a Thing of the Past . . . I Present “The Expectant Church”
Purgatory is a complete, and total, false doctrine, and a potentially damning error of faith. Join the Reformation!
Please read the transcript below the video very carefully and you will see the horrendous heresy and apostasy that is inherent in Rome’s doctrine of purgatory. This is very, very serious stuff, folks, and precisely why the Church of Rome and the Pope is, in deed, the very Antichrist at work to this day.
Here is the transcript of the video. Please read this carefully.
October 30, 2011. (Romereports.com) According to recent reports, there are roughly 1.18 billion Catholics worldwide. But, some consider the number to be even higher. The Catholic Church, here on earth is also know as the ‘Church Militant.’ But there are two other categories as well. The first is ‘Church Triumphant,’ which refers to those who died and went to heaven. The second, is ‘Church Expectant,’ which includes souls in the purgatory.
Fr. Marcello Stanzione
Author, ’365 giorni con le anime del Purgatorio’
“Souls suffering in the purgatory need our prayers. When these souls go to heaven, they will remember our prayers.”
According to Catholic doctrine, the purgatory, just like heaven or hell, is not a physical place, but rather a state of the soul. To go to heaven, sins have to be forgiven, to purify the soul.
Fr. Marcello Stanzione
Author, ’365 giorni con le anime del Purgatorio’
“Those souls in the purgatory are Christians who have died in the grace of God. But during their life on earth they weren’t atoned for their sins, therefore they can’t enter paradise, because only those with completely cleansed souls can enter.”
Italian priest Marcello Stanzione published a book, which translates to “365 days with the souls of the Purgatory.”It includes daily prayers from saints, popes and theologians that reflect on the souls of the purgatory.
Fr. Marcello Stanzione
Author, ’365 giorni con le anime del Purgatorio’
“For every day of the year I collected thoughts of saints such as St. Catherine of Genoa and St. Faustina Kowalska. Also reflections of popes, especially from their encyclicals. In addition there are also traditional Catholic reflections.”
So now this book paves the way, so that people can remember and pray for the souls of the purgatory, every day of the year.
As an ex-Roman Catholic, I know this to be a hot button topic for the 1 billion remaining people in that church body. They, like me, need to go through a transformation and learn about the topic and be reformed. And there are so many other scary things that I don’t have the time or space to get into.
This is something I like about the LCMS. The pastors will actually talk about this stuff. It isn’t all just happy clappy feel good stuff. Where there are real issues, some here will actually speak up. So, thanks for that.
Yes, I prefer unhappy/slappy talk.
: )
Let’s count the heresies! Pr. McCain, perhaps CPH should come out with a book of prayers so that we might pray for those praying for souls in purgatory??
Hi, Paul! I can recall church members telling me that Rome no longer teaches purgatory. I asked if the Mass is still celebrated at weddings and funerals, complete with the Mass prayer. They responded in the affirmative, of course. I told them that, in that case, purgatory is still alive and well in the teachings of Rome. When my cousin, a Roman priest, died, the bishop remarked that my cousin “Father Andy” prays for us and we pray for Father Andy. Again, purgatory, and I’m not talking about good skiing in Colorado, is alive and well.
What I’m wondering and trying to identify is the corresponding teaching in American Evangelical circles. The way of the monks is very much a part of these circles, even though they would absolutely and spontaneously explode if you told them they taught the doctrines of the pope. What, if anyone can identify it, is the teaching of American evangelical circles that corresponds to purgatory? I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m fairly sure there is something.
God bless!
Well whadya know. Back in my day it was Ecclesia Penitens, or Church Suffering, Church Penitent. I guess Expectant is a little more upbeat.
The situation is actually worse than described. The souls in Purgatory are in fact saved. Their sins are forgiven, their salvation is assured, you cannot flunk Purgatory and go to Hell. And that’s where the real problem is, not that forgiveness is yet to be theirs, but that forgiveness is not enough.
So what else is needed? You have to be fully cleansed — that’s what the word means, purgatorium means cleansing in Latin, from which we get the English word purge — of the desires and attachments to things over their Creator that led you to sin in the first place, and have to have served such temporal punishment as the sins deserve though forgiven before God. And you may die before you do that. If you don’t, then you “walk right in” as we used to say. Otherwise, Purgatory, where the rest of it happens after you die. And worse, you don’t have to do it all yourself. You can be helped by prayers, even reception of the Eucharist, and indulgences (Latin indulgentia, leniency), by the living to work off the time temporal punishment would take. That’s why indulgences were expressed in days; it’s not time off in Purgatory but time off the temporal punishment you would have served here.
All of which makes perfect sense. The problem is, it’s not the Gospel, it’s a hideous confusion of justification and sanctification, by which justification comes to include sanctification and a way for the justified to be completely sanctified is worked out theologically. But the good news, literally, is, of course no-one is sanctified enough to enter the presence of God. That’s what it is to be redeemed, we have been bought back just like a coupon, and as our sinfulness is credited to Him who was sinless, his holiness is credited to us who are not holy. That’s the purging right there, ain’t no amount of purging you can do more not does Christ need to enable you to do more, he already did it all for you. Forgiveness IS enough because HE is enough!
Just as I am – without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
-O Lamb of God, I come!
Just as I am – and waiting not
To rid my soul of one dark blot,
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot,
-O Lamb of God, I come!
I agree the doctrine of purgatory is error – serious error. However, would this false doctrine alone make the RC church the “very Antichrist” of our day? I doubt it. Would Luther have started the Reformation if purgatory was the only issue? Unlikely.
The LCMS has serious objections with doctrines held by many different Christian denominations. I’d argue these other error ridden doctrines are equally false. But the LCMS hasn’t characterized the Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Orthodox, etc. as having the spirit of Antichrist. It seems to me the LCMS reserves the serious charge of Antichrist for the RC church because of additional errors – not just purgatory.
Purgatory, and indulgences related to it, is not the only issue or error. It is symptomatic of the corruption of Christianity into heterodoxy, and the BOC details that. The differences with other churches are another matter. If the BOC spends relatively little time on them, that is not because they are small, but because they do not come from a heterodox body that had a stranglehold on Christianity for centuries, but from contemporary extensions of the Reformation into areas the Lutheran Reformers did not extend it, not the areas which merit the designation “Antichrist”.