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Some Catholic saints, theologians and laity have had ideas about purgatory beyond those adopted by the Catholic Church, reflecting or contributing to the popular image, which includes the notions of purification by actual fire, in a determined place and for a precise length of time.
Hell of the Damned, also known as "Gehenna" (Hebrew: גֵּיהִנּוֹם), is hell strictly speaking, which the Catholic Church defines as the "state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed". [4] Purgatory is where just souls are cleansed from any defilement before entering Heaven.
Such prayer came to be restricted to souls in Purgatory, [2] which idea has "ancient roots" and is demonstrated in early Church writings. [3] The Roman Catholic Church offers indulgences for those in purgatory, which evolved out of the earlier practice of canonical remissions. [4] Others, such as Lutherans and Anglicans, affirmed prayer for the ...
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.
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 defines hell as "a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed". One finds oneself in hell as the result of dying in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love, becoming eternally separated from him by one's own free choice [71] immediately after death. [72]
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes Christ's descent into Hell as meaning primarily that "the crucified one sojourned in the realm of the dead prior to his resurrection. This was the first meaning given in the apostolic preaching to Christ's descent into Hell: that Jesus, like all men, experienced death and in his soul joined the ...
Belief in the Last Judgment (often linked with the general judgment) is held firmly in Catholicism. Immediately upon death each person undergoes the particular judgment, and depending upon one's behavior on earth, goes to heaven, purgatory, or hell. Those in purgatory will always reach heaven, but those in hell will be there eternally.