Blogging is hard work but is not purgatory

Dante's Purgatory, by Dore

Image from Wikipedia Commons

Last week my friend MY challenged me to write a blog post on the abolishment of purgatory by the Catholic Church. The group where we were in was all but convinced that the new catholic doctrine does not include purgatory anymore.

I never believed in purgatory anyway, not even when I still was a practicing catholic but I did think that it was a good opportunity for some fun research and a nice write up on how old square Pope Ratzinger had, incredibly, shown some good sense abolishing a doctrine that is antiquated, to say the least.

Alas, blogging is hard work. For me it usually involves research as I do not believe in just writing from what I heard. And, frack! Purgatory is still on!

There seems to have been a misinterpretation of the news by (no surprises here!) overzealous reporters looking for a catchy headline. In April 2007, the Catholic Church International Theological Comission revealed its findings on "limbo" and Pope Ratzinger gave his blessing on them. As per prevailing catholic doctrine, unbaptized babies who die cannot go to heaven but instead stay in "limbo", which is a "place" where they can enjoy happiness and contentment but without the direct presence of God.

According to all the sources I found on line (you can do a google search for "purgatory pope Benedict XVI" and will get the same answer), the veredict of the ITC was (quote) "...after extensive theological research, the commission has reported that there is a possibility that these unbaptized babies can go to heaven. They agree with past findings that there is no definite answer to this question in religious documents. However, they have found that there is enough evidence to revise the official Roman Catholic Church opinion."

Later Pope Ratzinger indicated that this limbo thing was a "theological hypothesis" (???) and not catholic dogma. Reporters then capitalized on a perceived relationship between "limbo" and "purgatory" and this is where confusion seems to have arisen.

Pope Ratzinger later indicated in many words that I really do not want to reproduce here, that Purgatory is actually the experience of meeting Jesuschrist and being absolved of all sins by this experience. He agrees, then, with Pope John Paul II in that Purgatory is not a metaphysical place but "a condition of existence".

In short MY, no warranty and no money back! Sorry about that!

A few thoughts on free will

My mind ran away last Sunday morning, again, while trying NOT to listen to the priest during his weekly rambling-paraphrasing-scolding which may take all of 20 minutes during mass. And my thoughts were revolving around free will.

The concept of free will is very dear to us and I have already written about it here in regards to religion. This Sunday morning, my musings were a little deeper: I am convinced that, as many of my atheist friends contend, an omniscient all-powerful and benevolent God is fully incompatible with human free will.

Consider this: I am free to "sin" or not to "sin". God has no power over my free will (or chooses not to exert it? not really clear). So, leaving aside that probable breach of God's all-mightiness, God allows me to sin all I want.

However, this presents me with two conclusions that are incompatible with all of God's usual attributes. If I am "free to sin" and God will not interfere with my choices either a) he is not omniscient and did not know I would sin or b) he is not benevolent at all, since he knows I will sind and be condemned but did not create me in such a I way that I would choose not to sin.

This is the kind of internal logical inconsistencies religious dogmas are full of. Maybe I am too simplistic but I just don't buy these illogical beliefs.

I would love to hear a religious apologist try to refute my argument. My feeling is that they would choose the cheap and easy way out: God's purposes are beyond human comprehension.

And that may be true for I do not understand. I am only human.