Did the Second Vatican Council abandon Purgatory?

Common teaching Defined dogma

What the Church holds

No.

  • Common teaching Lumen Gentium teaches that "some having died are purified" (n. 49), and that the Church "offers suffrages for them" (n. 50).
  • Common teaching The Council "accepts with great devotion this venerable faith of our ancestors" about "our brethren who … having died are still being purified", and Defined dogma "proposes again the decrees" of Florence and Trent (n. 51).
  • Since then the doctrine has been taught again by the Catechism (nn. 1030–1032), John Paul II (1999), the Directory on Popular Piety (2001) and Benedict XVI (Spe Salvi, 2007).
  • The Church prays it at every funeral Mass, asking God "to purify his child of his sins and their consequences" (CCC 1689).

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