Clueless as usual where Catholicism is concerned, the secular media have tended to treat Benedict XVI’s action in political terms, as a power grab. This interpretation ignores the fact that the Anglican traditionalists most likely to take advantage of the new provision for “personal ordinariates” have been pleading for something like this for years. The Pope has simply responded to those pleas.

But secular journalists aren’t the only ones to get it wrong. Catholic voices also have been raised in this chorus of callousness. Consider the final paragraph of an article in the London Tablet, a reliable platform for progressive Catholic views: “It is hard to see how this new development will do anything but further sow division in the Anglican Communion and confusion among Catholics who have long been committed to the work of ecumenism.”

As to Anglican “division”: the departure of Anglicans who’ve anguished for a long time over the direction of their fractured communion is much more likely to restore a semblance of unity to that deeply troubled body than it is to create more division.

As to Catholic “confusion”: the confusion admittedly felt by many Catholics about the nature and intent of ecumenism is largely a product of a post-Vatican II interpretation that reduces the ecumenical enterprise to endless dialogue leading—God knows how—to some sort of corporate merger in an unimaginable future. Confusion is a mild word for it.

Most of all, though, such critical comments miss the fundamental point—the relief potentially afforded to those Anglican groups most directly affected by Benedict’s generous gesture. That is best understood in human terms.

A year ago in Rome I had a substantial chat with an Anglican woman who is a member of one of these groups. Moved by her faith and her ardent desire for communion with the Holy See, I told her at the end of our conversation: “I can only hope and pray that you get what you want—and get it soon.”

It’s often said that conservative Anglicans are upset about things like women bishops and openly homosexual bishops. No doubt they are. But much else is involved.

Several years ago an American woman—a contented member of the Episcopal Church—told me an anecdote concerning an Episcopal clergyman which she insisted was true. It seems that this gentleman, in a fit of whimsy, was seen one day to give communion to a dog. The lady seemed to think that was just fine. I was appalled—at what had happened, at her approval of it, and at what it disclosed concerning the state of Episcopalian belief in the Eucharist.

A man who’d been an Episcopalian for years but finally came over to Rome once shared a useful insight with me. “The trouble with those people,” he said of his former co-religionists, “is that they’re sentimental.”

A number of present Anglicans seem to agree. I am glad that Pope Benedict has offered these troubled believers a congenial way out of the dilemma in which their sentimental Anglican brethren placed them. As for those who don’t like what the Pope has done, I suggest they remove their blinders and congratulate him on an act of Christian charity.

Even the Washington Post was shocked; its editors said Clinton’s comments were “misguided.” But now it seems that Clinton was only stating what was to be official Obama administration policy.

We saw this same attitude last month when Barack Obama declined to meet with the Dali Lama. The snub was an apparent effort to curry favor with Chinese leaders—leaders who deny religious liberty and human rights, not only to their own citizens, but also to Tibetans.

Obama’s refusal to meet with the Tibetan spiritual leader reminded me of when President Ford wrongly refused to meet with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the heroic Russian dissident.

Obama and his aides have also reportedly refused to meet with a representative of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.

And now we learn that the President has been quietly cutting off aid to groups that monitor human rights abuses and fight on behalf of human freedom—especially in Iran.

In the Wall Street Journal, David Feith and Bar Weiss write that the administration has eliminated millions of dollars in funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Freedom House, and the State Department’s Iran Democracy Fund.

These actions go against everything America stands for. Our worldview is largely informed by our Christian heritage—one that puts human dignity first. Has this administration forgotten that human rights have always been America’s greatest export?

We believe that all humans are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, as our Declaration of Independence says. We can’t just write off these rights for the sake of climate change or the economy; they’re central to who we are. function fbs_click() {u=location.href.substring(0,location.href.lastIndexOf(’/'));t=document.title;window.open(’http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=’+encodeURIComponent(u)+’&t=’+encodeURIComponent(t),’sharer’,'toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436′);return false;}

I knew this before I became a Christian. In 1973 President Nixon sent me to Moscow to negotiate for the release of Soviet Jews. I told Vasily Kuznetsov, the hard-line Soviet negotiator, that if the Soviets did not loosen their restrictions, Congress would not pass the trade treaty, which the Soviets desperately needed. Release the Jews, I said—or kiss American grain goodbye.

Kuznetsov pounded the table and shouted, “You have no right to interfere in our internal affairs!”

“These aren’t your internal affairs,” I replied. “Human rights are not conferred by government; they cannot be denied by government. They are God-given. We call them ‘inalienable.’”

Kuznetsov finally agreed to release the Jews—and America shipped its grain.

I can’t take credit for that; it was the U.S. Congress and the American people who freed those captives. And it will take the same pressure from Congress and the American people to free captives in China, Iran, North Korea, and anywhere else people are denied their God-given rights.

I hope you’ll contact the White House, Hillary Clinton, and your representatives with a strong message—one loud enough to be heard by people languishing in prisons around the world: The principles that guided us throughout our history are not for sale.

Then we hear two more people, Beverly Shellrude Thompson and Rich Darr, talking about sacrifice. But their perspective is very different. Thompson, Darr, and others in the film say that they themselves were sacrificed when they were children. Sent to a Christian and Missionary Alliance boarding school while their parents served as missionaries in Africa, they claim they were physically, sexually, emotionally, and spiritually abused by their house parents and teachers.

All God’s Children tells the devastating story of at least two decades of abuse that went on at Mamou Alliance Academy in Guinea. Missionary parents in the denomination were required to send their children to boarding schools at an early age. Today, some of them can’t talk about their time at those schools without weeping. They recall beatings, molestation, and other “sadistic” treatment.

The students were terrorized into staying silent. Teachers told them if they distracted their parents from their mission, souls could be lost. One man recalls, “Everything was either going to send you to hell…or cause Africans to not be saved.”

Many of the alumni of these schools suffer from depression, shame, and suicidal feelings. Not surprisingly, they also struggle with their faith. When they got the story into the media, the denomination set up an Independent Commission of Inquiry that revealed a “consistent systemic problem.” The former president of the denomination has issued a formal apology.

How could this happen in a Christian community, and what can Christians learn to keep such things from happening again?

In the film, the victims of abuse and their parents identify factors that contributed to the problem. The parents and children describe how the mission board undermined family ties. Not only did they insist that children be sent away from their parents, they also made it hard for siblings at the school to interact with each other. Children were expected not to show any homesickness, and family bonds were treated as something that got in the way of the mission.

The parents now say they should have seen this as a warning sign. One mother, looking back on it, says now, “What was I thinking of?” But she concludes, “For me, it was a matter of obedience.”

And that leads to another factor: the demand to obey even extra-biblical commands without question. Obedience to authority is a good and necessary thing, in context, but when the authority goes too far, a discerning Christian has to know where to draw the line.

Near the end of this film, one former victim declares, “I continue to refuse to be sacrificed.” It’s a strong and powerful reminder that we serve a God who does not require this kind of human sacrifice.

And that anyone who claims that children have to be sacrificed in order to lift up God’s name or the Gospel is serving the wrong god.

Film Website: All God’s Children

Everyone has something that gets their inner fires burning, and thankfully, these things generally coincide with gifts that have been bestowed upon them from God. The combination of our talents and our passions is the fuel which keeps us going in life. It is the impetus for civilization and relationships and contributions to society. The women whom I am lucky to call friends are all passionate people, yet when we got to the question “Describe a passion you have, for example, a desire to achieve some goal or work on a particular project which gives you lots of energy. What can you do to develop this passion?” the room became eerily silent. We are all mothers, and homeschooling mothers at that. There are so many things we would like to do, some desires admittedly more noble than others, yet they are squashed by a lack of time. There is only so much “emotional energy” that one can muster after a full day of parenting. Even when the energy is there, the time and opportunity are not.

It is true – we mothers do have ample opportunity to practice things like love, patience, kindness, generosity, and self-control. Motherhood is a noble pursuit. I know some women who were truly made to be mothers. I, however, am not one of them. I love my children with all my heart and do all I can for them. They were given to me by God and I treasure the gift and acknowledge the responsibility. I was called to homeschool, despite my initial reluctance. It was definitely the right decision for our family. I’m trying to be the very best mom I can be. I know that I am lucky to have this opportunity. Yet, I am more than that. I am more than the person who takes care of the kids and cleans the house (and I admit, I don’t do that chore particularly well). God gave me other gifts. I was also blessed with the opportunity to obtain an advanced education.

Like my friends, I do try to make use of my passions and talents to contribute to the world at large. It is always in small doses, however. I’ve had older mothers assure me that the day will come when I will get the opportunity to make more use of my gifts. That may be true, or it may not. There is no guarantee that I will live to see that day. Even if I do, there may very well be other people who will need my time and attention – sick parents or caring for grandchildren, for example. The future is a great unknown. All I have is today and the circumstances I find myself in. The unfulfilled desires are frustrating. I sometimes wonder why God made me, what my purpose is in the big scheme of things. I have to trust that he knows better than I do my reason for being here. All I can do is keep going, praying and trying to do the best I can with the time I have. Another wise woman at Bible Study (I told you I was lucky to be among these women!) reminded us all of the importance of acceptance. I need to work on that. I need to be happy where I am and let God take care of the restlessness in my heart.

And people are irritated with the President for taking so long to decide. Now, I don’t agree often with the President’s policies, but I have great sympathy for him here—because the moral implications of his decision are staggering. I would not want to be in his shoes.

What the President must examine is this: whether our cause and goals are just. And the answer no longer seems crystal clear.

For nearly two millennia, Christian thinkers starting with Augustine, joined by many Muslim intellectuals, have developed what is known as the just war theory. For a war to be seen as just, it must meet several conditions. It must be waged by legitimate authority. The cause itself must be just, as well as the intention behind going to war. War must be a last resort, waged by means proportional to the threat. We must not target non-combatants, and we must have a reasonable chance of success.

There is no doubt in my mind that when the United States invaded Afghanistan, the just war criteria was met. We had been deliberately attacked by al Qaeda, which was harbored and aided by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Our goal was clear—eliminate the bad guys.

I also, as it turns out, backed our invasion in Iraq because Donald Rumsfeld personally told me that the Iraqis were harboring weapons of mass destruction. That would make a preemptive strike justified. Sadly, that information was wrong.

But now, I’ve got to wonder about the continuing effort in Afghanistan. If nation building has become our chief goal, and if we simply want to prop up a generally corrupt government and reshape Afghanistan into a state that suits our interests, then the President may justly decide to not send more troops. Using war as merely another tool of foreign policy does not meet the just-war standard. function fbs_click() {u=location.href.substring(0,location.href.lastIndexOf(’/'));t=document.title;window.open(’http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=’+encodeURIComponent(u)+’&t=’+encodeURIComponent(t),’sharer’,'toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436′);return false;}

However, it’s not that simple. A return of the Taliban to power and the return of al Qaeda to Afghanistan would pose an imminent threat to the United States. So if our intent is to eliminate them in the face of the danger, then committing more troops, or some troops, may be justified.

But just war doctrine doesn’t let us off the hook there, either. We still have to ensure that our troops act justly, that they minimize civilian casualties—and every indication is that they are doing so with honor and at great risk to themselves.

But yet another question arises: Do we have a reasonable chance of succeeding? There’s a reason Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires—from Alexander the Great to the British Empire to the Soviet Union.

If we do not have a reasonable chance that our rightly intentioned, just cause will succeed, then it would be unjust to send more troops.

These are really tough questions for any leader. I know, having served in the White House at the side of a President. There is clearly a moral dilemma, and no simple answers.

So what’s the best thing we can do? Join me in praying for President Obama. May God lead him to a decision that will protect our country, help our troops who have sacrificed so much, and advance the cause of a just peace.

In this expectation, we see a curiously secularized echo of the Christian Tradition, which also teaches us to live in Hope. But for Christianity the object of Hope is not Progress, but Jesus Christ. We are called to “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:2-4).

This means that our hope is not in the future, but in eternity with Christ, which is a whole ‘nother thing entirely. The future is part of this world; and this world is passing away. If you want the quickest and most accurate description of the Future, it is that time when you and all you know and love in this world will be dead.

Now that doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as the bright shiny Future promised in the glossy brochures of the Futurists with the Jetsonesque Flying Cars and the Star Trek interplanetary multicultural conflict resolution counselors in leotards, but it happens to be true. And taken together with the rest of the Christian revelation, it even happens to be Good News.

That may sound weird. But it’s why the Latin tradition of Christianity speaks of the Four Last Things—Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell—as the Novissima or the Four Newest Things. In other words, it’s why the Tradition combines the notion of our mortality with the notion of… well, what do we associate with the New: youthfulness, freshness, morning, vitality?

How can it do something so daring? Because the Christ of paradox is, after all, the one who said that if you try to keep your life you will lose it, but if you lose your life for his sake you will keep it to eternal life.

The world is all about trying to keep its life. So it prattles on as though you and I are not going to die but live forever in a sort of eternal dream of the Pepsi Generation. This is worldly hope and it leads inevitably to worldly despair. That’s what is fueling the present movement toward euthanasia. A post-Christian culture that gives up on God inevitably gives up on real hope. The world says, “If I can’t have eternal Pepsi Generation happiness then, by golly, I’m going to assert my power one last time and end it all on my terms!” That’s despair as old and weary as Adam.

But in Christ we “die before we die” as T.S. Eliot put it. We begin, in this life, to live out what the ancients knew: that “the love of wisdom is the practice of death”. So Christians practice wisdom by little acts of death to self and love for God and neighbor that we might receive, in little bites of living bread and little sips of the cup of life, the life of God who cannot die. We start clearing out the rubbish of selfishness that clutters the soul and furnishing our hearts with the furniture of our Father’s House. Of course, none of that is possible without the help of God in Christ. Indeed, the very ability to turn from self to Christ for help is, itself, a work of grace. But it is one that requires our cooperation and it is one which has to begin, in however small a measure, before we die.

For die we shall, sooner or later. This is one of the hard truths the Faith confronts us with out of the great mercy of God. Death is the devil’s greatest triumph, the fruit of sin. But it is also the key to the victory of Christ. Like a chess move in which Satan stupidly rushes in his pride and greed to take God’s best piece, so too the devil puts into the heart of Judas to betray Jesus and all the powers of darkness rush blindly to put the Son of God to death. And by his very concession to their will to power God triumphs by putting our sins to death with Christ on the cross and then raising him fr0m death to immortal life—and us with him. In the world, death is a hole. In Christ, it is a Door to everlasting joy.

“Proposed health-reform legislation, H.R. 3200 … radically departs from the current federal government policy of not paying for elective abortion or subsidizing plans that cover abortion. None of the bills reported out of the three committees of jurisdiction have addressed our serious concerns about public funding for abortion. The version that was approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, containing the Capps Amendment, actually explicitly authorizes the federal government (the Department of Health and Human Services) to directly fund elective abortions, with federal (public) funds drawn on a federal Treasury account. Widely circulated claims that these would be ‘private’ funds are misleading; they are contrary to law and the until-now universal understanding of what constitutes federal funds. The simple fact is that under the Capps language, the U.S. Treasury will be permitted to issue checks to abortion clinics to reimburse for abortion on demand for the first time in decades.

“The bill also explicitly provides for government subsidies to pay the premiums for private insurance policies that include elective abortion coverage. This, too, is a drastic break from longstanding federal policy. The Hyde Amendment has, for over 30 years, prevented programs funded by the annual Health and Human Services Appropriations bill from financing abortion. However, H.R. 3200 bypasses the annual appropriations bills and directly appropriates funding for both the public options and the affordability credits. This means the Hyde amendment will not apply to the public option or to the premium subsidy program created by H.R. 3200. In two memos … the Congressional Research Services has confirmed that these programs will not require any future appropriations. In addition, legislation of this magnitude should include permanent language to ensure that federal funds are not used to support abortion.”
The 187 members then requested the Speaker and the Rules Committee Chair to permit a clean vote, up or down, on the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which would bar all federal funding for abortion. As of late October, Pelosi, who has cut stalwart pro-life  Democrats and Republicans out of the negotiations to determine the content of the health-care reform bill that the entire House is to consider, had persistently and obstinately refused that request.
This is an outrage in terms of the comity and collegiality of the House: the Speaker is using the considerable powers of her office to coerce the consciences of her fellow members. The outrage is compounded by the fact that Nancy Pelosi regularly describes herself as an “ardent” Catholic formed by the Church’s social justice traditions. An “ardent Catholic” won’t permit fellow Members of Congress from across the political and religious spectrum an open, clean, up-or-down vote on federal funding for abortion? Where is the social justice in this?

And where is the president who promised at Notre Dame to seek “common ground” on abortion? Has he called Speaker Pelosi to urge an open vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment? Or do both Speaker Pelosi and President Obama fear that they would lose any such vote, further aggravating their base on the lifestyle left? Do Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama care more about the rage of pro-abortion activists than they do about the consciences of the Members of the House—and the conscience of the American people?

The period between Halloween and Christmas will likely tell the tale on health-care reform. The moment to act is now. It will be a dark day in the history of Catholicism in America if the Speaker of the House of Representatives, an “ardently” Catholic woman formed by 16 years of Catholic education, willfully blocks an open vote by the people’s duly elected representatives on federal funding of abortion. Write your member of Congress, urging him or her to support a rule allowing an open, clean, up-or-down vote on the Stupak-Pitts amendment. Write Speaker Pelosi, urging her to let her House colleagues vote their consciences on this grave matter.

Now, to be fair to Roland Emmerich, he is simply trying to entertain people by literally projecting their anxieties onto the big screen.

If you Google “December 21, 2012,” you will get nearly 7 million hits. Do a similar search at Amazon and you find more than 400 books on the subject. There is obviously a lot of interest and more than a little anxiety about that date and both will only grow as we get closer to what’s already being called “12/21.”

December 12, 2012, is the last day listed on what is known as the Maya “long count calendar.” That calendar marks what the Maya—a now non-existent civilization—regarded as the end of the present cycle of creation.

What makes this fact rise above the level of a historical curiosity is, first of all, the Maya’s astronomical prowess. They charted the movements of celestial bodies with an accuracy unmatched until the invention of the telescope and, in some instances, not until the 20th century.

This alone isn’t enough to explain the unease about December 21, 2012, especially since, according to archaeologists, the Maya themselves never said anything about what would happen that day. Their real-world descendants find the hype annoying and are tired of getting letters from fourth-graders saying “they’re too young to die.”

This unwarranted and unwelcome attention to a long-extinct civilization is, like all apocalyptic thinking, a manifestation of cultural anxiety. Events like the 2004 tsunami and concerns about the economy, terrorism, and the environment remind us how vulnerable we really are.

Until relatively recently, we, like the psalmist, knew where are our help came from, and wouldn’t fear even if the mountains fell into the sea. function fbs_click() {u=location.href.substring(0,location.href.lastIndexOf(’/'));t=document.title;window.open(’http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=’+encodeURIComponent(u)+’&t=’+encodeURIComponent(t),’sharer’,'toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436′);return false;}

Then that faith in the biblical God was replaced by a faith in human prowess and, eventually, faith in nothing.

Well, Western culture might have lost its faith, but folks have not lost their anxieties. So since we are no longer willing to embrace the ancient faith, many looked for solace or explanation in other ancient faiths, or at least new-age versions of these faiths.

So we’re told that the ancient Maya, the Hopi Indians, and the Chinese text I Ching all predict that 2012 will be a time of “extraordinary shift.”

But they don’t. It’s all hype.

What’s going on here is the idea that we live in a random and unintelligible universe, and that’s more terrifying than the cataclysms predicted for the year 2012. So we grasp at straws or over-interpret obscure texts, or we despair.

But there is a third alternative—real faith. Christians know that God is working out His purposes in history, and that faith removes all anxieties.

At least that’s what you conclude watching the History Channel.

For many years, the network was nicknamed the “Hitler Channel” because of all the shows it ran on World War II and the Nazis. Today, a better nickname would be the “Nostradamus Channel.” Hardly a day goes by without at least one show touting some doomsday scenario and how it was foretold.

At the center of this programming strategy lies Nostradamus, the 16th-century French apothecary whose devotees claim foresaw everything from the rise of Napoleon to 9/11. Everyone who has ever written a book on Nostradamus gets extended face time on the History Channel, where their claims are treated with the utmost seriousness.

It isn’t only Nostradamus. Name a doomsday prediction made by some long-dead person or group and chances are the Nostradamus Channel has given it a respectful airing, no matter how unhinged the claims might be.

The latest and greatest example is the new series The Nostradamus Effect . That’s the name the producers have given to the “convergence” of “doomsday prophecy” and “current events.”

We are told that for “5,000 years, prophets around the world”—including, of course, Nostradamus—“have predicted the end of days.” Operating “independently,” they have concluded that 2012 will be a “time of extraordinary shift.”

One so-called expert told viewers that “we’re on the verge of the biggest riot of all time.” Another said that “we are reaching a confluence of tipping points.” These tipping points include climate change, financial upheaval, political unrest, crop failures, terrorism, and nuclear war, to name but a few. function fbs_click() {u=location.href.substring(0,location.href.lastIndexOf(’/'));t=document.title;window.open(’http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=’+encodeURIComponent(u)+’&t=’+encodeURIComponent(t),’sharer’,'toolbar=0,status=0,width=626,height=436′);return false;}

That sounds ominous. Of course, nobody can cite anything that sounds like an actual prediction, such as, “In 2012, the world blows up.” It’s speaking nonsense, rank speculation.

It’s not much to go on, but then again, this isn’t about facts or reason—it’s about fear. It’s about understandable anxiety made worse because in rejecting Christianity, the West has rejected the basis of its hope. A world in which God’s purposes are being fulfilled for our good has been replaced by one that leaves man in charge, mostly for ill.

The world has become literally senseless to us. We live in, as theologian Robert Jensen once put, a meaningless world wishing we could believe in something. The more events seem to spin out of control, the more we succumb to superstition and irrationality. And of course there’s always a media conglomerate ready to sell the credulous what they crave.

There’s no better example than the subject of tomorrow’s commentary, which will give you the date of December 21, 2012. Please tune in. And in the meantime, please pay your bills on time.

But imagine this scene.  You are an unborn child who has lived in cozy but cramped quarters with your twin for nine months.  But now you both are experiencing tremendous pressure, and your twin is squeezed through a narrow opening leaving you alone in the darkness.

Now think of it from the point of view of little one who just was squeezed through the bottleneck of the womb.   He has to learn to breathe the air of this new world.  His eyes now must adjust to blinding light and his skin to much cooler temperatures.

But what if he was born premature?  What if his body was not ready for this new, challenging environment?  What if he emerged from the womb with a dangerous infection?  Would he not have to stay in an incubator in the hospital for a while until he was infection-free and strong enough to endure the challenges of life on planet earth?

On the first two days of November, as daylight shrinks in the Northern Hemisphere and frost turns vegetation brown, the Church leads us to confront the mystery of death.

These days remind us that love is stronger than death, that Christ’s death for us means that our beloved deceased who believed in Christ are very much alive.  They may be among those whose lungs breathe the exhilarating air of heaven and whose eyes gaze upon the glory of God.   In this case, they help us through their prayers.

Yet they may also be among those whose lungs were not ready for breathing and whose eyes were not ready for the brilliance of the beatific vision, whose body carried an infection that needed to be eliminated.  In which case, we must help them through our prayers.  Our loving intercession can hasten the purification and preparation necessary for the full enjoyment of their inheritance.

The Catholic Church has always been very reserved in its teaching about the mystery of life after death, including the mystery of purgatory.  Here’s what we know.  Christ’s death and resurrection won eternal life for everyone.  Yet the fruit of his redeeming work needs to be personally appropriated.  Each person must say yes to Christ, and yield to the liberating power of his grace which progressively breaks the sin’s power and heals sin’s wounds.  Everyone is obliged to actively participate in this process and to renounce all sin, great or small.  God, through his church, provides all the means of grace necessary to facilitate this purification and healing.

Yet what about people who say a fundamental yes to Christ, but drag their feet, clinging to some “small” sins, nursing some attachments to the evil that they’ve supposedly renounced?  Purgatory is the process after death where these attachments, the umbilical cord which binds people to the old world, are cut so that people can be free to enter into the life to come.  It is the hospital where the infection of sin is eliminated.  It is the incubator where heart, lungs, and vision are made ready for a much larger life.

Purgatory is not a temporary hell.  The Church does not teach that there is physical fire there (how could fire hurt spirits, anyway?) or that people spend a certain number of years or months there (after death, how do we measure time?) or that everyone but the greatest saints must go there after death (all the means are provided for purification to happen here!).

We can’t know for sure where our beloved deceased are, unless they happen to be canonized saints.  So when in doubt, we pray for them.  If they happen to need our help, our act of kindness can have great impact on them.  If not, this kind act still has great impact on us, exercising our love muscles so that we will be ready to enter directly into the wedding feast of the Lamb when our own time inevitably comes.