To Whomever it Concerns in Purgatory; James is an actor. He was just pretending to be a bad motherfucker

James Joseph Gandolfini Jr.

1961-2013

 

 

It must be acknowledged that the Church has a very limited understanding of the specifics related to Purgatory, yet Church teaching on the existence of Purgatory is made clear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles 1030-32, which begins with “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (1030). The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned (1031)”.

 

Ancient Christians believed in the practice of praying for the dead.   Many locations in the ancient catacombs reveal passages marked into the walls reminding the living to pray for the dead.  St. Monica begged her son, St. Augustine, to pray for her after her own death.   In 1439, the Second Council of Florence acknowledged that some souls must still expiate for past sins after their death and they do so in Purgatory.   The 16^th Century Council of Trent, legislated “that purgatory exists, and that the souls detained therein are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, but especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar.”

The Catholic faith is unambiguous in its belief that those who die without moral sin but with
many of life’s imperfections still unhealed will experience a time of perfect healing from sin and brokenness and a time for whatever expiation from sin the merciful God requires of a soul before that soul may enter Heaven.  Further, the Church has been clarifying for centuries that prayers, sacrifices and most particularly, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, are of assistance to those souls who are in Purgatory.

 

 

Source: Father Michael Monshau, O.P., S.T.L., Ph.D.