Darn, I thought conservatives were supposed to be all about personal responsibility.
However, since no one and nothing impure can enter the Presence of God, a person who has led a sinful life ( = everybody ) must also be cleansed of the temporal penalties of his/her sins. In other words, he or she must suffer punishment for his or her sins as a means of purification. This "purging" of the believer of the temporal penalties of his or her sins is called Purgatory. This is what the Apostle Paul meant in the third chapter of his first Letter to the Corinthians (I Cor 3:1-12) when he wrote "And every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour... Every man's work shall be manifest; for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed in fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire" [Source]
Rest assured that none of us will die perfectly free from the guilt of what we did to our fellow men in this life. By the Blood of His Son, God has preserved us from the eternal death we surely deserve for our rebellion against Him, but for divine Justice to be served, the "bill" for the suffering we caused our fellow men must also be paid. Thus as each of us dies, we are drawn towards the Presence of the Just Judge -- and that Judge will deliver us to the exacter, and the exacter will cast us into prison -- and not one of us will go out thence, until we have paid that bill to he last bitter penny! [Source]
I think of Purgatory not so much as a place but as a journey. As I die, I enter the Beyond cleaned of deadly sin by the Blood of Christ, but still bearing the guilt of the other sinful things I did in life. As I approach the Presence, the Glory of God acts as a refining fire, burning away and annihilating this guilt until I am worthy to arrive in the Presence.
Sometimes I think that Purgatory consists of God forcing you to relive every horrible thing you ever did in this life -- from the point of view of the people you did them to. "Saved as through fire" indeed...
One thing is certain, God is perfect, and that means He is perfectly just. And that means that come Judgment Day, we each of us will receive exactly what we deserve. And if that prospect scares you, thank God -- there's still hope. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” [Genesis 18:25]
It’s not the mumbling that counts. You have to truly repent in your heart. If he did that he will be forgiven in God’s own time. But the public example that he left should not have been sanctioned publicly by the Catholic Church. It makes a mockery of the beliefs of faithful Catholics.