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The Western formulation of purgatory proved to be a sticking point in the Great Schism between East and West. [citation needed] [11] The Roman Catholic Church believes that the living faithful can help souls complete their purification from sins by praying for them, and by gaining indulgences for them [12] as an act of intercession. [13]
The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification after death, which the church calls purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".
The Catholic Church believes that the living can help those whose purification from their sins is not yet completed not only by praying for them but also by gaining indulgences for them [20] as an act of intercession. [4] All Souls' Day commemorates the souls in purgatory. The Late Middle Ages saw the growth of considerable abuses, such as the ...
Mainstream Catholic theology maintains that certain human actions can affect the purification process of the soul in purgatory. [2] According to this theology, good works are held to reduce the degree of purification required, which every person's soul must undergo after death in order to stand in God's holy presence.
[42] [43] Mortalists’ theological arguments were also used to contest the Catholic doctrine of purgatory and masses for the dead. [44] [45] [46] The British Evangelical Alliance ACUTE report states the doctrine of soul sleep is a "significant minority evangelical view" that has "grown within evangelicalism in recent years". [47]
The Catholic Church had technically banned the practice of selling indulgences as long ago as 1567. As the Times points out, a monetary donation wouldn't go amiss toward earning an indulgence.
Paul the Apostle generally depicts death as sleep awaiting the resurrection of a glorified body (1 Thessalonians 4:13–18), [2] and (in 2 Corinthians 5) longs to be absent from the body that he may be present to the Lord, evidently understanding death to be the entrance into his reward at an unspecified time (cf. Philippians 1:21–30). [3] [4]
A traditional Requiem Mass. In Roman Catholicism, the practice of Gregorian Masses is an ancient tradition in which it is believed that a continuous series of thirty consecutive Masses said in thirty days for the soul of a deceased person will release them from the punishments of Purgatory.