Purgatory is not an essential doctrine, but an optional one, just like limbo?

In the following posts, I will be attempting to share some sort of a Q & A series taken from Karl Keating's book "What Catholics Really Believe" which I thought was pretty appropriate for this blog's originally intended purpose, and that is to educate and inform Lukewarm Christians, in particular Catholics, about common misconceptions of our Catholic faith and teachings and thereby find ourselves living the faith merely in mediocrity or none at all. Sometimes I may add or edit a few to make some more points or extra emphasis.

#31 Purgatory is not an essential doctrine, but an optional one, just like limbo?

Double mistake: 1. Putting purgatory and limbo at the same doctrinal level. 2. Saying purgatory is an optional doctrine.

Pope Gregory the Great Saving the Souls of Purgatory by Sebastiano Ricci oil painting

Purgatory is a defined dogma of the Catholic faith. Meaning, as a Catholic you MUST believe in it.

Limbo has a different status. It arises from theological speculation, not revelation. If you find the speculation convincing, you may believe in limbo but if you find it unconvincing, that's fine too, you have the option not to believe in it. Probably it is fair to say, today, fewer theologians writing in favor of limbo than there were 50 years ago. When they refer to limbo, they mean the limbo of infants, where unbaptized infants are said to go, as distinguished from the limbo of the Fathers, where good people who died before Jesus' resurrection were waiting for heaven to be opened to them. Since the limbo of the Fathers is specifically mentioned in 1st Peter 3:19, Catholics must believe it.

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Thank you.

To get the full scope of the explanation, find Karl Keating's book at Amazon below