[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

If you believed in Jesus you would accept “It is Finished” and then you wouldn’t need purgatory.

There's a difference between Christ's atoning death, our personal salvation, and our personal sanctification.

2 Maccabees

39 On the following day, since the task had now become urgent, Judas and his companions went to gather up the bodies of the fallen and bury them with their kindred in their ancestral tombs.

40 But under the tunic of each of the dead they found amulets sacred to the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. So it was clear to all that this was why these men had fallen.

41 They all therefore praised the ways of the Lord, the just judge who brings to light the things that are hidden.

42 Turning to supplication, they prayed that the sinful deed might be fully blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened because of the sin of those who had fallen.

43 He then took up a collection among all his soldiers, amounting to two thousand silver drachmas, which he sent to Jerusalem to provide for an expiatory sacrifice. In doing this he acted in a very excellent and noble way, inasmuch as he had the resurrection in mind;

44 for if he were not expecting the fallen to rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead.

45 But if he did this with a view to the splendid reward that awaits those who had gone to rest in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought.

46 Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be absolved from their sin.

Yes, Luther removed 2 Maccabees from his Bible because of its support for the practice of praying for the dead, and its support for the Church's doctrine of Purgatory.

But Luther couldn't erase the fact that this is a historical Jewish practice that continues to this day with the Orthodox Jews.

Is Purgatory a Catholic Invention?

[metmom]

So what if someone made atonement for the dead on their behalf?

Someone doing something does not equate to God requiring it or even saying that it was effective.

Like most of the OT, it’s just an historical account of someone doing something.

[editor-surveyor]

The books 1Maccabees, and 2Maccabees are historical writings, not doctrinal instruction.

Their description of the defeat of Helenism and its tyranny is important history of the House of Judah, but do not take it further than what was written. It makes no claim of doctrinal authority.
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[boatbums]

Doesn’t the Roman Catholic church teach those who die in mortal sin cannot benefit from purgatory but go straight to hell?