Catholic Church- Dont know what to think

[Crazydaisy11]

I'm a lapsed catholic, go to mass at christmas, funerals etc but not regularly.
My dh is really religious, goes to mass every week, confessions and generally just believes.
I'm not sure about it all, he doesn't preach at me but sometimes will say he is going to confessions and when I ask why he explains about penance and if you die before you confess you go straight to hell.
I haven't been for about 25 years and now I'm scared! I dont know if it's true or if I believe, but I'm scared that if I dont I'll burn in hell.
Part of me thinks that's just a story to control people by the church to get money but what if I'm wrong??
I'm really worried and cant sleep. Any thoughts or should I just ignore and carry on. My general feeling is if you have led a relatively good life, not intentionally hurt people you'll be ok.

I’m a practicing Catholic. I do attend confession and I think I do it out of habit however this morning I was listening to radio 4 during that small section where they have someone religious-y on and they were saying that we shouldn’t attend confession to go to heaven/for ourselves but we should go to confession to acknowledge when we’ve done wrong to others. I like this idea. It’s less about the individual and looking out for number one but more about being aware of how we fit into the world and what contribution we make....

The Church doesn't do purgatory any more really. All this venal and mortal sin stuff - is your DH a convert or something? I'm in my fifties. My mum was born in Ireland in the 30s. That sound like the stuff she was taught not what I was taught. She was very devout but never came out with that stuff.

This whole dying without confession and going to hell - rubbish. My devout mum that I just mentioned was given the Last Rites - although I think, like Confession, it's called something else now. She was still conscious then. But the priest came again and anointed her as per the Last Rites when she had lost consciousness and was hours from death. We were with her then and we prayed with the priest as he did it. There was no "oh my god she's going to hell because it's a while since she's been to confession ".
Seriously, this all sounds like Opus Dei weird shit.

If it's costing you sleep, just go to confession. You feel better, everything's forgiven, job done, sleep well that night.

The Priest is hardly about to chase you down the road, pitchfork in hand whilst the altar servers brandish burning torches because you haven't been for a while.

You don't need to have absolute belief and an unswerving faith - just that element of doubt in your mind about whether there are going to be repercussions spiritually for your acts/inaction is enough for it to make you feel better.

I do not go to confession, there is a long complicated reason why but its not really relevant to this. But I asked my brother, who is a Catholic priest, he says you should go to confession and huffed at me a bit but he says you will not burn in hell so long as you are truly repentant for all your sins.

No hes not a convert! His parents are devout Catholics, I've never seen anything like it, mass every day, pilgrimages. In fairness they never discuss religion with me but I think hes a bit brainwashed by it all. 90% of the time it's not an issue, he goes to mass on a Sunday and its not something we discuss.
He might be wrong in some of the stuff he believes. I went to a catholic convent school and have never heard of half of it. I thought it was just me but reassured to know he is extreme

@bellinisurge I’m sorry but what you’ve said about the Catholic Church “not doing purgatory anymore” and dismissing the idea of venial and mortal sins, is patently untrue.

That’s all absolutely still part of the tenets of the Catholic faith and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It’s all still taught today, even in the latest edition of the YouCat (the Youth Catechism).

OP, seek out a spiritual advisor, do Alpha or RCIA and read the YouCat (it’s in layman’s terms) so you know what the Catholic Church teaches and then make your own decisions based on what the church really is about rather than what your OH or indeed anyone else tells you about it.

Vi's confession not having basis in the bible, what about "Those whose sins you forgive are forgiven, those whose sins you retain are retained" (or similar)

OP, your dh isn't extreme, he's just actually catholic.

The Pope gave a series of interviews in 2016-2017 in which he made it very clear that purgatory, hell and paradise don't exist.
There was obviously a lot of hoohah in the press afterwards and everyone waited for a "clarification" from the Vatican press office, but none came.
I find it fascinating that it's Italian and Papal Catholicism which seems to be modernising while people like the OP's husband are still spouting hellfire and damnation.
Mind you, dd's Religion supply teacher did just do a lesson about homosexuality being a physical illness that the church can cure. The school removed her when we complained.

BookMeOnTheSudExpress , precisely. Even the pope has dismissed this purgatory bollocks.
When I went to church and even at school you got the odd extremist. Even my devout mum didn't bother trotting out this tripe. And she was a Mass Every Day kind of Catholic in her later years.

I was told as a young teenager, by nuns and a priest, that if I rejected my Catholic faith I would burn in Hell for all eternity. It was at that point I realised what an abhorrent institution the Church was and what twisted, evil people they were.

I thought confession was used in medieval times so the local priest could basically spy on the whole village. A form of control.
Remember pre Henry v111 England was a Catholic country.

I am not usually this candid on here. Your husband is trying to control you in the name of religion.

As a bisexual female, the church has no time for me, but at the moment, it sounds as if l am living a happier life.

Everyone is entitled to their beliefs but not when it makes others unhappy along the way.

Pope Francis never said that Hell, Purgatory and Paradise don’t exist and most of those comments came out into the press through a “friend” remembering things he’d apparently verbally said years before. For example Francis said that Hell is not a place of punishment but of annihilation - so in his opinion, after death those souls would simply vanish and cease to exist. This absolutely makes sense in terms of the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church which says that the main punishment of hell is “Separation from God”...well of course you would be separate from God if you don’t have an eternal soul anymore.

This article explains more about the fallacies that people believe about Purgatory and dispels the myth that has been referred to on here that the Catholic Church no longer teaches it. It absolutely does and it is spreading misinformation to say it doesn’t.

www.learnreligions.com/does-the-catholic-church-still-believe-in-purgatory-4096467

I wonder if people on here are confusing Purgatory with Limbo which the church does not teach exists? Purgatory is simply a place of purification where you go temporarily in order to be ready for heaven. Everyone who goes to purgatory eventually goes to heaven anyway, you aren’t there for all eternity!

The Catholic church may teach it somewhere, but not here in Italy they don't.
I have trainee priests in some of my classes, and an ex student of mine is currently working as a Papal ambassador. I've had many interesting conversations over the years as a non Catholic in a very Catholic place.
If you read the Italian word for word transcript of the interview Bergoglio gave, along with his papal audience on the particular Wednesday in question, while he doesn't use the word "purgatory" it is overwhelmingly clear that's what he means.
I have never heard the word purgatory used in a mass in the 25 years I've lived here.

Limbo as a concept for unbaptised children was officially discounted in 2007. The idea being that a merciful God would have no truck with the innocent being kept in a holding pen permanently.

Purgatory isn’t mentioned in mass...it’s nothing to do with mass!

It’s in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Which is exactly the same in Italy as it is anywhere else in the world.

It’s the official document which sets out the beliefs and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church...it has not changed to have hell and purgatory removed...the church still teaches it.

There is no hell. Religion exists to control the masses. The Catholic Church is a massive, corrupt and very wealthy company that pays no taxes (and covers up abuse on a massive scale).

If there was a hell, which there isn’t, you would be more likely to go there for supporting such awful, child abusing, homophobic, sexist cults.

I think there is still purgatory but not now for unbaptised babies. Somehow the rules changed with regards to Purgatory even though they were allegedly God given presumably because God realised, after a millennia that condemning stillborn babies to a life in purgatory was cruel to their distraught parents, some of whom killed themselves so that they too could live in purgatory. I haven't been to confession since my confirmation when I was 14. I think your husband should be more concerned about what he is doing to his wife in this life, and ask his priest whether terrifying you into not sleeping is something he should be doing.

Noodle. That’s not purgatory that you are referring to it’s Limbo (which was rightfully removed from any Church teaching). They are completely different concepts.

Limbo = a place where you are forever stuck and cannot move from.

Purgatory = a place where we exist temporarily in order to be purified and made ready for heaven. Everyone who goes to purgatory eventually goes to heaven. It’s not a place of punishment.

just a story to control people by the church to get money but what if I'm wrong??

Have a think about how you would run things, if you were in charge, yes, if you were God. How would you value people being kind, treating people as they would like to be treated 'doing onto your neighbour as you would be done by'. Would you honestly value someone attending church more highly, not caring how they lived their life.

The explanation that makes sense to me is how to pass on those 'commandments', given how easy we know it is for messages to go wrong even for people trying their best., never mind people actually setting out to control others.

Find the way that makes sense to you. No God of love would really punish you for being a decent human being. Find that voice inside yourself, the one that encourages you to be the best you can be. Stay 'reconciled' to that voice. Sometimes it does help to talk things through with someone outside yourself. Enjoy xx

Namechange- it is really not. I have attended enough masses here and talked to enough priests and catechism teachers to know. I'm not talking about the actual wording of the mass- I'm talking about the lesson.
It always intrigues me when I hear about Catholic practices elsewhere that here, despite kind of being in the middle of it all, are very often far more relaxed. When I told dd's priest I wasn't Catholic so wouldn't be taking Communion or confessing etc he said "doesn't matter, you can if you want". We often see threads here insisting that Catholics who take Communion drink the wine. Here, only the priest drinks the wine. Never ever has the wine been offered to the people taking Communion, yet apparently in the UK it is.
So it's quite clear that practices and teachings do differ- especially if what the OPs husband is going on about is what is taught in his church!

@Bookmeonthesudexpress

The “lesson” or Sermon is almost always based on the Gospel of the day. There aren’t Gospels about purgatory so it wouldn’t be mentioned at Mass.

You seem to be failing to understand the fact that the official document of the Catholic Church, The Catechism, is the same throughout the world.

What you’ve said about Communion Wine makes no sense to me at all. There are thousands of churches in the UK where only the Priest and Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist will take the wine! The wine doesn’t have to be offered to the congregation. Even when it is offered you don’t have to take the wine, many people just bypass the chalice. At many churches wine will be offered at Sunday mass but not in the week. In huge congregations of many hundreds or thousands or busy places of pilgrimage the wine is rarely offered to the congregation.

Ask one of your priests or catechist friends to show you the catechism of the church and you will see for yourself, hell and purgatory are absolutely a part of the tenets of the faith throughout the world and you are spreading misinformation by insisting otherwise.

We don’t have confession as such in my Protestant (Church of Scotland) church. We each have an individual, personal relationship with God, rather than via a priest.
The minister does lead prayers of confession, intercession, etc, during which we can silently unburden ourselves to God, as well as joining in the general “apology” for our failings that week, and our promises to try and do better.
God is not some merciless headmaster, consigning people to Hell if they fail the entrance exam for Heaven!
God loves us all so much, He was willing to leave Heaven, take human form, and suffer agony on a cross, to bring that love and message of eternal life to His people.
As for PPs who ask why God allows evil to happen- He gave us all free will. We are not robots, programmed to behave well. We can choose to commit crime and violence - God asks us to choose love and service instead. Only a free choice has any meaning.
Would you prefer a clockwork toy that recited “I love you mummy” and was never naughty - or your own exasperating, messy, tantrumming, adorable toddlers, who will grow up to say “I love you mummy” and actually mean it? It’s the same for God.

For those in doubt, this is taken from the latest edition of the YouCat (Youth Catechism). This is official church teaching and what the Catholic Church believes about Purgatory and Hell.