… Catholics believe in purgatory?
Catholic priest Louis LaRovoire Morrow teaches that there are three kinds of destiny awaiting each person on the day of God’s judgment: heaven, hell, and purgatory:
“The rewards or punishments appointed for men after the particular judgment are heaven, purgatory, or hell. …
“1. He who dies in his baptismal innocence, or after having fully satisfied for all the sins he committed, will be sent at once to heaven. …
“2. He who dies in the state of grace, but is in venial sin, or has not fully atoned for the temporal punishment due his forgiven sins, will be sent for a time to purgatory. …
“3. He who dies in mortal sin, even if only with one single mortal sin, will be sent at once to hell. ” (Most Rev. Louis L.R. Morrow, D.D. My Catholic Faith. p. 157)
BUT ACCORDING TO the Bible, each person shall receive God’s final judgment on the Second Advent of Christ. And on that day, each soul will be sent to either the heavenly kingdom or the everlasting fire. There is no such realm as purgatory:
“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.
“All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shephered divides his sheep from the goats.
“And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
“Then, the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’. …
“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels’. ” (Mt. 25:31-34, 41, NKJV)