[BlackElk]

Before turning atheist and communist, Josef Stalin was Russian Orthodox and a seminarian in that Church. It would not be surprising if a seminarian had been an altar boy in youth. Stalin was NEVER a Catholic, although the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church are quite close as to sacraments but still separated in several important ways.

I have heard that Hitler was a Catholic altar boy in his youth. He certainly did not die as a public adherent to Catholicism. His life suggests that his access to heaven was no better than Stalin's and for largely similar reasons of mass murder. Hitler also added to a mountain of crimes and sins, death by suicide, putting a gun in his mouth and blowing his brains out.

We Catholics believe that if a person with however vile a track record accepts a grace of final repentance, makes an act of perfect contrition (not out of fear of hell but for simply offending God and thus rejecting His love), then his sins may be forgiven by God. Many of Hitler's public sins were of a sort in which one such sin would excommunicate him latae sententiae. He did not have a lot of time between pulling the trigger and death and he would have been distracted by the pain. God certainly knows as does Hitler.

[silverleaf]

and also there was that charmer Il Duce, who received a Catholic funeral and burial

[Elsie]

He did not have a lot of time between pulling the trigger and death and he would have been distracted by the pain.

For a few microseconds...

[bad company]

Before turning atheist and communist, Josef Stalin was Russian Orthodox and a seminarian in that Church.

Actually it was the Georgian Orthodox Church and he flunked out of seminary.