Welcome to the Council of Trend Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Hey everyone, in today's episode I'm going to respond to Dr. Gavin Orton's recent video,

Pergatory, a Protestant perspective.

The majority of his original video is on how Pergatory is represented in the Church Fathers.

I'm going to focus on that part of his video because Dr. Orton makes a case that many Protestants don't normally make.

Which is that references to Pergatory he claims are actually rare in the Church Fathers,

and that Catholics have been misinterpreting their writings in order to support the doctrine of Pergatory.

It's not actually well supported in the Fathers. That's what he claims.

Before I respond though, two things, one, I'm getting over a cold, so sorry about my voice.

And two, I really like Dr. Orton. I think he's wrong about a fair number of things, but I think he's charitable.

He tries very hard to represent Catholic doctrine fairly.

So this makes engaging him a pleasant experience.

He's also said he's willing to publicly dialogue with me on issues that divide Catholics and Protestants.

So he might make a response to this video if he does. I'm happy to dialogue more with him about it.

I'll certainly take him up on the offer to have a dialogue.

I might have to wait till spring, summer of 2022, because I already have about four or five dialogues or debate schedule for the next year.

But it is something I would really look forward to to sit across the table and chat with him.

All right, so let's jump right into my response to Dr. Gavin Orton's video, Pergatory, a Protestant perspective.

Sometimes Catholic apologists claim that everyone believed in Pergatory for all 2000 years of Church history or almost everybody.

You know, they'll claim this is pretty universal throughout the Church Fathers.

It goes back to the beginning of Church history and as you see it everywhere.

And a lot of times Protestants aren't engaging on a question like this.

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