Purgatory - One of the many, many reasons I could no longer remain a Catholic. As you said, it - and a thousand other Catholic teachings - are not in the Bible nor in any of it’s early history.
And I grew up as an altar boy learning the Mass in Latin. But after 20 years of learning, left for a Bible based church. And I won’t even get started on the history of the Catholic Church...
And I could show you 5, 10 maybe more Protestant churches that claim to be “based on biblical teaching only” that all have different beliefs and interpretations!
And when you talk of the history of the church, to me what you speak of is the history of the people of the church, who are not with out sin, not of the Catholic church itself. People in other churches are only human as well. The Catholic church has a much longer history then other Christian churches, and existed in different times with different standards of behavior. I bet if you showed church goers of just 100 years ago what
ALL of our places of worship find acceptable today, they’d be mortified!
When you are baptized a Catholic you remain a Catholic. You can always come back to the church. Sit down with a priest and get answers to your questions about Purgatory.
BTW, Trinity is not in the Bible either, but we all believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
There are many references to Purgatory from the Old Testament throughout the New Testament.
Please remember this is an Ecumenical thread — no antagonism or your post will be deleted by the Religion Moderator.