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Re: Losing Purgatory, finding the Gospel would be true gift , commentary by Steve Gushee (Palm Beach Post ), Dec. 10 religion page

The writer goes out of his way to impugn the Catholic Church's teaching about the afterlife as being contrary to the Gospel story of Jesus as the savior of all humankind. While I do not pretend to speak for the church, I think someone has to check out what Jesus did say in that Gospel about who will be saved and who will not.

Gushee wants the Catholic Church to "find the Gospel," but he must be reading a version that has excised all that Jesus said about the sheep and the goats, those on the right and those on the left, those who believe in the son and those who disobey his teaching. Time after time in parables, Jesus taught that we have been entrusted with the promise of salvation, but then must ultimately answer for what we have done to achieve it.

Gushee correctly says the Gospel is the "outstanding good news of the salvation of the world. Jesus loved, forgave and saved everyone." Or as St. John put it, "God did not send his son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior" (John 3:17).

However, for Gushee to then conclude that "Everyone is going to the father, because that is the father's will, and God gets his way" is to overlook the fact that the father gave us free will, and depending on how we use it, we will have to answer to that loving savior at his second coming.

The meritocracy that Gushee demeans is not an invention of the church but is the teaching of Jesus in the Gospel. Hear him speaking in John's version: "(The Father) has given the son the right to judge, because he is the son of man. Do not be surprised at this: The time is coming when all the dead will hear his voice and come out of their graves; those who have done good will rise and live, and those who have done evil will rise and be condemned" (John 5: 27-29).

Gushee would have us believe that hell is a figment of the church's imagination, of its need to intimidate the faithful. The church does teach that "we cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him" and the "state of self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell"' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1033).

But the church is only repeating the warnings spoken of so often by Jesus when he alluded to the fire of hell (Matthew 5:22 and 18:9), to hypocrites deserving of going to hell (Matthew 23:15), to the great pain suffered in Hades (Luke 16:23), to the unquenchable fire where both soul and body can be lost (Matthew 10:28). In sum: "Whoever believes in the son has eternal life; whoever disobeys the son will not have life, but will remain under God's punishment" (John 3:36).

How does all this square with Jesus as savior of us all? He wants us all to have eternal life with him. He died to make it possible, for only a God-man could atone for sin's insult to the father. So we receive the saving waters of baptism, and the slate is washed clean and we are given free will to stay on the straight and narrow and turn the possible into the actual.

If we obey his command to keep his commandments, we can avail ourselves of an eternal reward. If we disobey, we deserve the unquenchable fire mandated by a just judge. But even here, the divine mercy of the father is mitigated by the clemency of the loving heart of the son, and our punishment may be commuted to a temporal punishment: to a stay in Purgatory.

What a shame that Gushee would also do away with Purgatory, the sinner's last chance, as it were. As a sinner, I am grateful for this gift given us by the Christmas babe.

Paper owes readers apology for diatribe against Catholics

Re: Losing Purgatory, finding the Gospel would be true gift , commentary by Steve Gushee (Palm Beach Post ), Dec. 10 religion page

I can barely believe your newspaper saw fit to print Gushee's commentary.

In addition to containing misunderstandings about the Catholic Church, it is full of insults and accusations. Witness the following: "The church has long been preoccupied with rewarding the saved - good baptized Catholics - and damning everyone else. Limbo, Purgatory, and even hell grew out of the need to intimidate Catholics and eternally punish those who fail to measure up to the church's standards."

Would you dare to print such a diatribe concerning the beliefs of any Protestant denomination, or, for that matter, any other faith? Is anti-Catholicism the last acceptable prejudice? Can any rubbish be printed as long as it is labeled "commentary"? What business is it of the St. Petersburg Times what the Catholic Church teaches about the afterlife? Is your newspaper prepared to be the forum for a full debate of the issues of the Reformation? I think you owe your Catholic readers an apology.

For the record, the Catholic Church does not condemn non-Catholics. Limbo is a theological theory that attempted to account for souls who are were not "born of water and Spirit" (John 3:5) as Jesus said was necessary to "enter the kingdom of God." The church does believe in hell (Matthew 25:41). Don't most Protestants? Purgatory is implied by a variety of Scriptures and in the practice from apostolic times of praying for the dead. Non-Catholics can find an accurate explanation of Catholic beliefs in the catechism of the Catholic Church, instead of relying on Gushee's caricature.

Meaning of Christmas is clear without such disturbing article

Re: Losing Purgatory, finding the Gospel would be true gift , commentary by Steve Gushee (Palm Beach Post ), Dec. 10 religion page

Now that the Vatican is about to do away with Limbo, the writer mistakenly thinks because, as he wrote, "Jesus loved, forgave and saved everyone," it means there is no need for Purgatory or hell. Unbelievable.

Logically, by his thinking, if there were no Purgatory or hell, there would be no punishment for sin. He can't be serious.

His irritating arrogance continued. "The church has long talked out of both sides of its mouth. It teaches that Christ died for you and loves you unconditionally, (but) ... by good works or faith alone, you have to earn that love." So, apparently, the writer is using his perception of double talk to rationalize his belief that there is no need for Purgatory or hell. Ridiculous.

This was a disturbing article. Sprinkled throughout are expressions of disrespect for the Catholic Church. "Purgatory is another "micromanager's dream,"' he wrote, and that "clever idea" (Purgatory and hell) is not in the Bible but in the "meritocracy of Catholic theology." Because his byline reveals no scriptural or theological credentials, he sounds to me a more disgruntled than distinguished writer.

His concluding statement that "doing away with Purgatory and hell would go a long way to finding the true meaning of Christmas" is astonishing. It sounds as if the rest of us have not found or do not know the true meaning of the birth of Christ.

Well, my hope is that whatever meaning the birth of Christ brings to him includes peace, joy and love.

And that he has a merry Christmas.

Article shows paper supports "only bigotry condoned' in U.S.

Re: Losing Purgatory, finding the Gospel would be true gift , commentary by Steve Gushee (Palm Beach Post ), Dec. 10 religion page

Once more, the St. Petersburg Times has dusted off its latent Ku Klux Klan garb and joined the only bigotry condoned in America: anti-Catholicism. How else could you describe your decision to reprint Gushee's article?

This article begins with inaccurate facts and follows with an anti-Catholic polemic about matters of Catholic faith. No wonder parishes such as mine refuse to support your paper with advertising. Thank God you do not do the same regarding other religions.

St. Ignatius Church, Tarpon Springs

[Last modified December 19, 2005, 01:38:18]