German Bishop Claims: Purgatory is “No Place of Torment"

Mainz Bishop Peter Kohlgraf claimed in his All Souls' Day sermon that he wanted to spread a "positive idea" of the divine judgment.

He said that Christians should fear neither judgment nor purgatory. Contradicting the Bible, he claimed that Christ allegedly "does not meet men as a strict judge who thrones above them."

Death is for Kohlgraf a moment of self-knowledge about one's own life, which could also be "painful."

He interpreted purgatory as a "personal purification"; not as a "place of torture", but as an "encounter, an act of self-knowledge and change".

The prayer for the deceased should "strengthen" the dead and maintain the connection with them.

In contrast to these claims, the Catholic All Souls’ liturgy commemorates the "Dies irae", the "Day of Wrath". According to Catholic doctrine, only those who die in the grace of God, but still have to atone for their sins in this fire, enter purgatory.

Picture: © Olaf Kosinsky, CC BY-SA, #newsNsmppfcybi