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the reproach of Christ 
I don’t quite understand your last answer, so I’d better restate:
Someone dies who is clearly evidently disposed against God and unrepentant in mortal sin, and some people know of that. There is a theory that, roughly speaking, these people who know of it might be able to improve the possibility of a positive outcome, even well after the death, by praying that back at the moment before the soul left the body (here they cite that Our Lord told St. Faustina something about visiting a despairing soul three times at the moment/s leading up to seperation of soul and body, as I recall) that God show extra mercy to that soul so that it might change it’s course at it’s last opportunity. The theory goes that God, from eternity, and omniscient, knows of these future prayers, and can apply them during that process at the end by adding graces–thereby possibly increasing the odds that the soul chooses to respond positively and accept Jesus’ invitation to be saved.
Is that a sound theory?
No! A person who dies unrepentant from actual mortal sin goes to Hell. That is dogma. Future prayers cannot change the past.
Thank you again. So glad to have those clear answers.
Unfortunately, I’m too sloppy of a thinker to ask questions properly, and therefore, I am wasting too much of your time. So if you want to leave it there, I understand, and please delete this if you like.
But, I think the proponents would say there is a time between what we call death and when the soul is seperated from the body–which immediately precedes the judgement, when the person has a chance.
This has come up in my parish because of a book by Father Chris Alar: After Suicide: There’s Still Hope for Them and You.
In case you are interested, here are two short excerpts from an interview; giving his theory, and then citing Padre Pio as a practitioner of it.
(At the 9:06 mark:)
(At the 13:02 mark:)
Your help is surely appreciated.
Again, no!!! A special event between death and judgment, at which the person’s eternal destination is determined would ENTIRELY negate the teaching of Christ and His Church on what we must do IN THIS LIFE in order to be saved.
{10:25} And behold, a certain expert in the law rose up, testing him and saying, “Teacher, what must I do to possess eternal life?”
{10:26} But he said to him: “What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
{10:27} In response, he said: “You shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart, and from your whole soul, and from all your strength, and from all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
{10:28} And he said to him: “You have answered correctly. Do this, and you will live.”
That is very straight forward and clear, and makes me think it is correct; and it is how I have thought was the most prudent way to understand our obligation to Our God.
Thank you!
Mr. Conte I recently read something you wrote about the following, but don’t remember where:
If grace, as a potential result of others prayers, can be applied to deceased ‘retroactively’, so to speak, to effect the possibility of that one’s salvation, that really changes the responsibility for prayer! And the whole equation of salvation. Seems related to ‘not judging so we be not judged’.
Very big issue with other vast implications! Have you fleshed this out in articles you could point to? Thank you.
I’m not sure what you read. God is beyond time, so He can act at any point in time in answer to our prayers. But we cannot treat this like “time travel”. Once someone has died, their eternal fate is set in stone and cannot be changed, whether they died in the state of grace, or not.
I misrepresented you, I’m sorry. I must have conflated, in my mind, your article on the Cross with something from elsewhere. But, thank you for your answer which raises what I’m trying to find out:
There are some who hold that just before the soul–of one who died a damning type of death–is separated from the body, it has a final opportunity to turn to Our Lord and His final offer of saving grace and be saved, and that the prayers of those who know of this death, if specifically prayed that God provide mercy and grace for this moment, then perhaps that the soul may turn back. So Our Lord, in eternity, it is thought, is able to know of these prayers at the time, and apply them, in a sense, before the fact.
Please, is this correct?
No. The idea that eternal salvation is decided by the moment of death, nullifies all that the Church teaches on the path of salvation. A person can repent throughout their life, if they have sinned mortally. There is no special event at death that determines one’s eternal destination.
Edit: I know Our Lord is aware of the prayers, but is it an acceptable theory that He may apply them in how he addresses that soul in that moment?
I don’t really understand your question.
Hi Ron, can you talk more about the proper orientation of Catholics towards the Orthodox? My understanding is that at the ecumenical level, the Catholic Church is ever seeking reunion with the Orthodox, but we as individual lay Catholics shouldn’t be overly concerned with persuading the Orthodox to enter the Catholic Church, while of course being prepared to share our faith and defend the Catholic position if it’s called for. Is that accurate?
That sounds about right. They have 7 valid Sacraments and are known for devout worship of God. We should focus on fallen sinners who are more likely to be in danger of losing their salvation.
Hi Ron, hope you are well, I have 2 questions.
1) There is a bad article called Sexual Pleasure and Procreation that says NFP is always wrong. But in that article it talks about how every sexual act must be #1 for the positive intention of having a child, is this true? Or is being open to life sufficient?
2) Can a husband perform the full act of martial intercourse while purposely not ejaculating at all for health reasons. If so can he do this for a few weeks?
1. NFP is licit. It is based on a teaching of the Council of Trent:
CANON VIII — If anyone says that the Church errs when She decrees that, for many causes, a separation may take place between the spouses, in regard of bed or in regard of cohabitation, for a determinate or indeterminate period: let him be anathema.
Moreover, being open to life is sufficient, and this is the way it is always stated in Church teaching. One need not have the positive intention to procreate with each marital sexual act.
2. No. This was condemned by the Church as “amplexus reservatus” (meaning “reserved embrace”), see Denz. 3907. This type of act is deliberately deprived of the procreative meaning, and so it is immoral.
How can the fire in hell torture a purely spiritual souls of the damned (before the resurrection of the body)? After all, we can only be tormented by fire in our present bodies only thanks to the nerve endings, which the damned do not (presently) have.
Why is it necessary for the damned to receive immortal, incorrubtible bodies at the last judgement. Why cannot they simply exist as disembodied souls in hell?
Thank You for Your answers.
May God bless Your soul.
The fires of hell for the souls there are experienced alike pain, even though it is not really physical pain. This fire may be literal, but it is mainly used as a figure for what is called “active punishments” given to sinners based on their particular sins.
The bodies of the damned, after the General Resurrection, are “incorruptible” in the sense that the body cannot die or disintegrate. However, for the damned, the bodies suffer actual physical torments, whereas before the soul merely experienced what might be considered to be like pain. These physical punishments are fitting because these persons sinned in their bodies, and so are punished in both body and soul. Not all the damned in Hell have active punishments; but perhaps most do.
How authoritative is a teaching that has been traditionally believed, without the final approval of Magisterium?
Is it allowed to reject a doctrine that has been unanimously accepted by the church tradition (all theologians believed it since the 6th century, without any competing ideas) when Magisterium hasn’t decided on this issue?
I don’t think any teachings fall into that category. Many of the Fathers, Doctors, and Saints were also Bishops, teaching with authority. Any important doctrine would be taught at least non-infallibly by the ordinary magisterium. And while it might SEEM as if there were unanimity among theologians, there very likely was not. Do you have an example of such a teaching?
Dear Ron,
Thank you for your good responses to these diverse questions. I see that you believe that the petition for a new Marian dogma is linked to a false apparition (presumably that of Amsterdam). You are taking the same view as Fr. Salvatore Perrella, OSM, who published an article on this matter in 2021. Dr. Mark Miravalle, though, wrote a response to Fr Perrella in which he notes that his movement for a new Marian dogma began in 1991 after his meeting with the late Cardinal Eduoard Gagnon: https://eccematertua.com/sites/ecce/files/miravalle.pdf Dr. Miravalle says he began the movement before even knowing about the reported Amsterdam apparitions. He also notes that his movement is in certain respects a revival of an earlier movement of Cardinal Mercier (1915–1926) that petitioned for a dogmatic proclamation of Mary as Mediatrix of All Graces.
A dogma certainly cannot be based on a private revelation (even if it is approved). Dr. Miravalle knows this to be the case.
I believe that Ide Peerdeman took the idea of a Fifth Marian dogma and some of its contents from pre-existing material for her false messages. She did not originate the idea. However, her version of it is not theologically sound. Another problem is that, if the Apostolic See were to declare a dogma on this subject, it might mislead the faithful into believing that false apparition.
Other issues, separate from the apparition: the claim that there are currently only four Marian dogmas; the claim that the total number of Marian dogmas that exist are five; the idea that the infallible Magisterium would merely approve of the definitions currently given to the three titles (Mediatrix, co-Redemptrix, Advocate) by the movement; the manner of speaking of proponents of this movement, as if the “fifth dogma” is already infallible dogma and as if their specific definitions of the three terms is dogmatic. They do not ask the Magisterium to evaluate their speculative fallible theology; instead, they teach that this is in fact a dogma, that the correct definition is what they state, as if they are exercising the supreme Magisterium.
As I discussed by email with Miravale many years ago, Mary is Mediatrix of all graces, with two exceptions: 1. Mary is not the mediatrix of graces that flow from the divine nature to the human nature of Christ within the hypostatic union. There is no mediator between Christ’s human nature and the Divine nature. 2. Mary is not the mediatrix of graces that she herself receives; then she is only the recipient of those graces.
And I don’t think that most proponents of these titles have the correct definition of Mary’s role as co-Redemptrix and Advocate. Then the separate claim that these three roles are three expressions of one overarching role as Mother of All Peoples seems to me not theologically sound. The Church has never taught that Mary’s role is Three yet One, and this idea seems like an inappropriate use of the pattern of the Trinity onto Mary, as if she is somehow three yet one.