{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/501",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 501,
    "subject": "Peace of Mind",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-04-20T15:14:57+00:00",
    "last": "1998-04-20T15:14:57+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0009-0758@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehyo at us.oracle.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-04-20T15:14:57+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Peace of Mind",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "This will wander, but I promise it will have some realio\ntrulio Wolfe content before we're done."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Adam wrote:\nIncidentally, what is the position of the Catholic church on\nghosts?  I would think that the idea of all souls going to\nheaven, hell or purgatory would be inconsistent with the idea\nof ghosts remaining on earth.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "While I'm not 100% certain whether the Roman Catholic Church \n(\"RCC\") has a strong position on the subject of ghosts per se,\nI believe that the general position of the RCC is to discourage\nsuperstition in general.  In terms of specifics, however, the\nRCC definitely acknowledges a number of manifestations that one\ncould, without unduly stretching the term, call \"ghosts\" -- i.e.,\napparitions of dead saints, etc.  I don't suppose any faithful\nCatholic would refer to such an apparition as a \"ghost\" (I \ncertainly would not), but it would be hard to draw a meaningful\ndistinction without going into a lot of theological nuances.\n\nWolfe content(I):\n\nThis, I think, relates to aquastors and, um, whatchamacallits.\nI think these are more like apparitions of saints than what we\nnormally think of as ghosts."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "(While I seem to recall reading an article stating that the\nCatholic church had within the past few years declared\npurgatory no longer official church doctrine, that would have\nbeen after the publication of _Peace_."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Not so.  What the RCC abandoned a while back was the quasi-\ndoctrine of Limbo.  Limbo was never a very well-defined idea; it\nwas an attempt to figure out what God did with the souls of, say,\nunbaptized infants or virtuous pagans.  Some theologians put them\nin \"Limbo,\" which is where the concept of Limbo is now.  I do not\nbelieve it was ever a fully-authorized teaching; rather it was a\nfolk teaching, like some of the more exaggerated ideas about the\nRosary and suchlike.\n\nPurgatory, on the other hand, is still official doctrine, but a\nvastly misunderstood one.  Many Protestants use the doctrine of\nPurgatory as \"proof\" that the RCC is \"un-Scriptural\" (by which\nthey mean \"against Scripture\"), when in fact the doctrine is\nderived from Scripture by the same general process, \"development\nof doctrine,\" which produced such concepts as the Trinity.\n\nThe basic idea is this.  (A) Scripture promises that we will all\nbe made perfect.  But (B) it seems painfully obvious to most of us\nthat, despite being baptised and working as hard as our particular\ncharacter permits at becoming perfect, we aren't, and those we \nknow who die in Christ (and I mean Catholics and Orthodox and\nProtestants and what-all-else) don't seem to have become perfect\nbefore dying.  Therefore, (C) we conclude that God completes the\nprocess in some way.  (Indeed, there is Scripture to this effect,\nthough I don't have my references handy.)  The RCC calls this\n_process_ -- a process of cleansing, or purging -- Purgatory.\n\nNote that it is not defined as a _place_ in even the vague way \nthat Heaven and Hell are defined as places.  Some have called it\n\"the first stage of Heaven;\" others think of it as something that\nhappens instantaneously upon death; still others actually do\nthink of it as a separate \"place.\"  But there is _no_ doctrine\nto that effect, and despite a really massive accretion of folk\ndoctrine, there never has been.  The main thing people seem to\nagree on is that the process may not be entirely comfortable \n-- though the pain is probably more like that of a scab coming\noff, a good-feeling pain, rather than the despairing pain we\nassociate with Hell.\n\n(So what about the whole \"indulgences\" thing?  That's pretty\ncomplex; but the basic idea, the concept that gave rise to the\nidea of a \"90 days' indulgence\" or whatever, is that the RCC, in\nits role as God's vicar and dispensor of grace, may remit some of\nthe pain we associate with the process of Purgation -- what the \nRCC calls \"temporal\" punishment as opposed to the eternal \npunishment of Hell.  One way to \"earn\" this remission is by \npenitential practices.  Other \"indulgences\" were described, not\nin \"how long in Purgatory\" they \"buy off\" -- though this is how\nfolk-Catholicism came, alas, to understand it -- but in terms of \nhow long a penitence they were equal to.  As part of the RCC's\noverall effort to dispense with the accretions of folk-\nCatholicism, I believe it has become quite rare to see this \nterminology at all.)\n\nWolfe content (II):\n\nSomeone asked GW in an interview whether PEACE might be read as\na description of Weer in Purgatory, and GW responded in a \ntypically vague but rather positive manner.  I believe that this \nis the _best_ reading of PEACE, and that Wolfe clearly intended \nthis reading.  I will probably be rereading PEACE in a few weeks,\nand will post more detailed comments on this if anyone really\ncares.\n\nPeace,\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------\n|--Dan'l Danehy-Oakes            | Can you believe that the eagle  |\n|  Staff Curriculum Developer    |    will fly with the dove?      |\n|  Oracle World-Wide Education   | Can you believe in the rose     |\n|  email: ddanehyo at us.oracle.com |    in the raised fisted glove?  |\n|  phone: 650-506-0793           |        -- John Michael Talbot   |\n--------------------------------------------------------------------"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}