12. Testimony from Tradition on Purgatory
INFERNAL INTERNET
My Dear Rehtulnitram,
Good! Getting a panel of like-minded anti-Catholic fundamentalists together was a great idea. They will affirm each other's views and more easily seduce into their ranks the feeble-minded Catholics who have joined them for fellowship. I understand that one of the pathetic Catholics actually came to defend his faith, but having nothing to offer, fell readily into their clutches. Good! Two others were Catholics encouraged by their churches to participate as an ecumenical gesture. Good! Now they are ours. Admittedly, those who have come under the influence of that pesty priest in the neighborhood will be harder to keep. You note that several questions come up still in the study group about Purgatory. Have your expert authorities tell the prodigal children that as a required papist belief it only emeged in 1439. It is a half-lie, which makes for the most effective. Avoid at all costs Scripture citations which indicate that this Jewish teaching was accepted by Jeezus and St. Paul, who himself had been a Pharisee knowledgeable in their ancient faith. They must never know that the first Christians who were Jewish converts who retained their faith in God's mercy, even on the other side of the grave. Rather, say that purgatory was a borrowed construct from paganism. Such is a pleasing slap in the face to the early believers.
Reading your report further, I am a bit surprised. Do you know so little yourself about purgatory. Badness! What are they teaching you young devils in Infernal Prep School these days? You must know the truth if you are to distort it. Okay, let me give you a refresher. Squeeze your thinking cap in between your horns. Here goes, listen up.
History, unfortunately, provides abundant evidence for the Christian practice of praying for the dead, even from the earliest centuries. Some might argue that this in itself is proof of a need for purgation after death. This much we can handle with a little revisionist history. During the first few centuries of the Christian era, the Church fathers commonly utilized language about purgation. In later centuries (especially the 13th), there was a merging between the notions that this must be both a state and a place, the latter seeming obvious since it could not be located on the terrestrial plain, or in heaven or hell. The seed of truth planted by the enemy's son, Khrist, was growing upon this matter. By the medieval period, there was a definite tie between purgatory, penance, confession indulgences and the power of the keys given to Peter and his successors to loose and to bind from sin-- literally the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Both the Western and the Eastern branches of the Church have emphasized and developed different elements of this mystery. Keeping the Church divided and argumentative on this matter serves our purposes. The West has tended to stress the penal or punishment aspect of purgatory. The East has steered toward a process of purgation that may be likened to a coming of age, the deceased grows in his contemplation of the divine. Let them see such differences of approach as exclusive of each other. We know all too well from the analogy of the human person, that growth from childhood to adulthood requires both elements. Let them forget this. Know the history of the question, but keep them from it. This belief in purgation derived from the Hebrews, the first People of God, and then adopted by the second, the Christian Church, and was believed without interruption until the 16th century. Luther's teaching of justification by faith alone necessarily denied the value of any prayer for the dead. Actually, it abbrogates any intercessory form of prayer, for anyone-- living or dead; but, I digress. A new kind of Christian had entered the scene, breached from St. Paul and all those who had come before.
The doctrine of purgatory was affirmed at both the council of Florence (1439 AD) and of Lyons (1274 AD). If such dates come up, make sure that the gullible Catholic is told that such was the time when the new dogma was manufactured. As I have said before, saying it makes it so. The stupid will never check your assertions and facts. If they try, steer them to sympathetic sources.
In actuality, this long-standing teaching was clarified even further at the Council of Trent (1563 AD) and in more recent times at the Vatican II Council in the 1960's. The world's bishops have cemented this teaching as counciliar and magesterial, safeguarded by the Holy Spirit. Cardinal Ratzinger, who is the Pope's number one man, in charge of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggests that the purgatorial encounter defies the usual spacial and temporal perameters with which we are accustomed. Its duration cannot be measured as either short or long. Rather, it is to be evaluated in regard to the strands of tension which must be severed between the divine and the human person. The deeper the resistence, the more intense is the purgatorial encounter. The fire must burn deeper to eradicate that which stands in opposition to God. May we be spared many such insightful shepherds.
Don't forget to fix that pesty priest mentioned in the last report.
Your devilish tutor,
Slubgob
My Dear Rehtulnitram,
Good! Getting a panel of like-minded anti-Catholic fundamentalists together was a great idea. They will affirm each other's views and more easily seduce into their ranks the feeble-minded Catholics who have joined them for fellowship. I understand that one of the pathetic Catholics actually came to defend his faith, but having nothing to offer, fell readily into their clutches. Good! Two others were Catholics encouraged by their churches to participate as an ecumenical gesture. Good! Now they are ours. Admittedly, those who have come under the influence of that pesty priest in the neighborhood will be harder to keep. You note that several questions come up still in the study group about Purgatory. Have your expert authorities tell the prodigal children that as a required papist belief it only emeged in 1439. It is a half-lie, which makes for the most effective. Avoid at all costs Scripture citations which indicate that this Jewish teaching was accepted by Jeezus and St. Paul, who himself had been a Pharisee knowledgeable in their ancient faith. They must never know that the first Christians who were Jewish converts who retained their faith in God's mercy, even on the other side of the grave. Rather, say that purgatory was a borrowed construct from paganism. Such is a pleasing slap in the face to the early believers.
Reading your report further, I am a bit surprised. Do you know so little yourself about purgatory. Badness! What are they teaching you young devils in Infernal Prep School these days? You must know the truth if you are to distort it. Okay, let me give you a refresher. Squeeze your thinking cap in between your horns. Here goes, listen up.
History, unfortunately, provides abundant evidence for the Christian practice of praying for the dead, even from the earliest centuries. Some might argue that this in itself is proof of a need for purgation after death. This much we can handle with a little revisionist history. During the first few centuries of the Christian era, the Church fathers commonly utilized language about purgation. In later centuries (especially the 13th), there was a merging between the notions that this must be both a state and a place, the latter seeming obvious since it could not be located on the terrestrial plain, or in heaven or hell. The seed of truth planted by the enemy's son, Khrist, was growing upon this matter. By the medieval period, there was a definite tie between purgatory, penance, confession indulgences and the power of the keys given to Peter and his successors to loose and to bind from sin-- literally the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Both the Western and the Eastern branches of the Church have emphasized and developed different elements of this mystery. Keeping the Church divided and argumentative on this matter serves our purposes. The West has tended to stress the penal or punishment aspect of purgatory. The East has steered toward a process of purgation that may be likened to a coming of age, the deceased grows in his contemplation of the divine. Let them see such differences of approach as exclusive of each other. We know all too well from the analogy of the human person, that growth from childhood to adulthood requires both elements. Let them forget this. Know the history of the question, but keep them from it. This belief in purgation derived from the Hebrews, the first People of God, and then adopted by the second, the Christian Church, and was believed without interruption until the 16th century. Luther's teaching of justification by faith alone necessarily denied the value of any prayer for the dead. Actually, it abbrogates any intercessory form of prayer, for anyone-- living or dead; but, I digress. A new kind of Christian had entered the scene, breached from St. Paul and all those who had come before.
The doctrine of purgatory was affirmed at both the council of Florence (1439 AD) and of Lyons (1274 AD). If such dates come up, make sure that the gullible Catholic is told that such was the time when the new dogma was manufactured. As I have said before, saying it makes it so. The stupid will never check your assertions and facts. If they try, steer them to sympathetic sources.
In actuality, this long-standing teaching was clarified even further at the Council of Trent (1563 AD) and in more recent times at the Vatican II Council in the 1960's. The world's bishops have cemented this teaching as counciliar and magesterial, safeguarded by the Holy Spirit. Cardinal Ratzinger, who is the Pope's number one man, in charge of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, suggests that the purgatorial encounter defies the usual spacial and temporal perameters with which we are accustomed. Its duration cannot be measured as either short or long. Rather, it is to be evaluated in regard to the strands of tension which must be severed between the divine and the human person. The deeper the resistence, the more intense is the purgatorial encounter. The fire must burn deeper to eradicate that which stands in opposition to God. May we be spared many such insightful shepherds.
Don't forget to fix that pesty priest mentioned in the last report.
Your devilish tutor,
Slubgob
posted by Father Joe Jenkins at
9:19 PM
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