Fr. Mike Schmitz Explains What You Need To Know About Purgatory

So most people fall into one of two camps on this topic, and both camps are working with a wrong idea.

One camp assumes purgatory is this massive, complicated doctrine that the church built up over centuries, layered with rules and timelines that nobody can really explain.

The other camp assumes it isn't biblical at all, and it's just something that Catholics invented to fill in a gap that scripture never actually left open.

Father Mike's point, and it's a good one, is that neither of those are accurate.

Purgatory is a smaller doctrine than people think, and it has more scriptural support than people assume.

The whole doctrine comes down to three claims.

First, There exists a place, or maybe more accurately, a process of final purification for those who die in friendship with God but are not fully ready to enter his presence.

Second, that process involves very real discomfort.

It's not a waiting room.

Third, the prayers of people still living on earth can actually help those going through it.

That's the entire doctrine.

Three claims, nothing more elaborate than that.

And I think most of the confusion around purgatory comes from people assuming that there's more to it than there is.

The question that always comes up next is the obvious one.

If Jesus already paid the price for our sins, why would anyone need more purification after death? This is where the distinction matters most, and it's the part of Father Mike's video that stuck with me the longest.

Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, dealt with the eternal consequence of sin.

That eternal consequence is separation from God, which is what we mean by hell.

So through the cross, that door gets closed for anyone who dies in friendship with God.

But sin also carries what the church calls a temporal consequence— something that plays out in time rather than in eternity.

Even after I have been forgiven, I can still be attached to a sin.

I can still carry a habit or wound or a pattern that hasn't been fully healed just because I confessed it.

Forgiveness and full healing are not always the same thing or happen in the same event, even though we sometimes talk about them as if they are.

Purgatory, then, isn't God withholding grace from someone who's already been forgiven.

It's God extending that grace even further, finishing something that forgiveness started but that it didn't complete on its own.

I think that kind of reframe matters a lot because it changes purgatory from sounding like a punishment tacked onto forgiveness into what it actually is, which is forgiveness followed all the way through to its natural end.