coracle wrote:....(re Jewel's memory of a conversation)..it's not what I would say about Jack. He certainly did not believe in the Roman Catholic confection of Purgatory, but he did believe in a sort of mental state in which when we suddenly find ourselves face to face with Jesus, we will not, or at least should not, feel "clean" enough to be there, and we will hope to be given something that will finally complete our cleansing that "something" will be puragative rather than purgatory...
It sounds like CS Lewis did not disagree with the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory according to what this explicitly states.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory does not state whether Purgatory is a place or merely a process before/upon our arrival into Heaven.
If this statement implies that we are not yet dead when this mental state takes place, then I would say that CS Lewis disagreed with the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory.
However, if it is implied that we have died and are in a mental state of feeling unclean before Christ (in other words, not quite in Heaven yet even though we have died), then CS Lewis's view would be consistent with the Catholic understanding of Purgatory.
With that said, it's possible CS Lewis thought his views of Purgatory differed with that of the Roman Catholic Church even though his views may have been consistent with what the Catholic Church actually teaches on the subject.
