Bob, Richard, et al: I don’t quite follow all the reasoning on this subject, and cannot provide a better explanation of purgatory than has already been by the early Church Fathers, or anything I’ve said in passing. For that matter, when I joined this merry band, I had no expectation of convincing anyone of anything. I haven’t been disappointed, and it’s been great fun.

People take words like “suffering” and attach their own meanings to it, as though “suffering” is like that of hell. If this is not our world, only “the shadowlands,” to quote Jack Lewis, then our life on earth is a form of suffering as well. It does not follow that we go around with dour faces, or that there is no joy amidst suffering. So it is with “the Poor Souls,” who wait for the inevitable reward following their purification.

As far as one person’s experience is concerned, it is just that—one person’s experience. As far as anything quoted from Bellarmine is concerned, he was a saintly man, but not infallible. (That’s not the same thing as saying he was wrong.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I hear last call.