I find these anonymous threads criticizing individual members and calling for their banning to be incredibly immature.  I'm pretty sure Matthew knows what's going on, and if he had a problem with Icterus, he probably would have done so already, or at least issued a warning.  

The man crush on Icterus needs to come to an end.  Let the guy post what he wants, within reason of course.

I wouldn't want him to be banned, I find our little insult duels to be great fun, he calls me a lunatic & a lap-dog, then I call him a chimp & tell him to dance & play & swing through the trees for our amusement (the comment in Castilian in the thread named for him).....I can't wait to see what he comes up with next, I hope he is more original than he has been lately ha ha.

Thank you, I am very special indeed ha ha ha! In all seriousness though, however ill-mannered  it was, I'm not the one who started it. I will finish it by ignoring icterus in future.

There are stories about Purgatory where the poor souls were there for their lack of charity in their use of the tongue.

Citations, please?  It'd be interesting to read about this.

Sometimes, reading something like that is depressing.  I only hear of monks and nuns going to Heaven, for the most part.  

Here is something about a layman who most assuredly went to heaven. He was young. he was single. He had a girlfriend.

  Here is a translation of a letter from Bartolomé Blanco Márquez, written to his girlfriend from prison the day before he was executed during religious persecution in 1930s Spain. Márquez was beatified Oct. 28; the letter is published in the “Summarium Super Martyrio” of his beatification cause.

Bartolomé Blanco Márquez was born in Cordoba in 1914. He was arrested as a Catholic leader -- he was the secretary of Catholic Action and a delegate to the Catholic Syndicates -- on Aug. 18, 1936. He was executed on Oct. 2, 1936, at age 21, while he cried out, “Long live Christ the King!”

* * *

Provincial prison of Jaen, Oct. 1, 1936

My dearest Maruja:

Your memory will remain with me to the grave and, as long as the slightest throb stirs my heart, it will beat for love of you. God has deemed fit to sublimate these worldly affections, ennobling them when we love each other in him. Though in my final days, God is my light and what I long for, this does not mean that the recollection of the one dearest to me will not accompany me until the hour of my death.

I am assisted by many priests who -- what a sweet comfort -- pour out the treasures of grace into my soul, strengthening it. I look death in the eye and, believe my words, it does not daunt me or make me afraid.

My sentence before the court of mankind will be my soundest defense before God's court; in their effort to revile me, they have ennobled me; in trying to sentence me, they have absolved me, and by attempting to lose me, they have saved me. Do you see what I mean? Why, of course! Because in killing me, they grant me true life and in condemning me for always upholding the highest ideals of religion, country and family, they swing open before me the doors of heaven.

My body will be buried in a grave in this cemetery of Jaen; while I am left with only a few hours before that definitive repose, allow me to ask but one thing of you: that in memory of the love we shared, which at this moment is enhanced, that you would take on as your primary objective the salvation of your soul. In that way, we will procure our reuniting in heaven for all eternity, where nothing will separate us.

Goodbye, until that moment, then, dearest Maruja! Do not forget that I am looking at you from heaven, and try to be a model Christian woman, since, in the end, worldly goods and delights are of no avail if we do not manage to save our souls.

My thoughts of gratitude to all your family and, for you, all my love, sublimated in the hours of death. Do not forget me, my Maruja, and let my memory always remind you there is a better life, and that attaining it should constitute our highest aspiration.

Be strong and make a new life; you are young and kind, and you will have God's help, which I will implore upon you from his kingdom. Goodbye, until eternity, then, when we shall continue to love each other for life everlasting.


http://www.piercedhearts.org/theology_heart/teaching_saints/letter_girlfriend_memory_bartolome_marquez.htm