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Illustration for Dante's Purgatorio (18), by Gustave Doré.

Purgatory, in Roman Catholicism, is the purification of souls that have died in a state of grace before entry into heaven. It is also the place in which this purification or punishment takes place. Catholics believe that Purgatory is experienced only by those souls judged by God at the moment of death to be destined for heaven, and only by those that are not yet perfectly holy. Purgatory involves temporal punishment for sin, which is entirely different from the eternal punishment of the damned in hell.

The concept of Purgatory originated from ideas about purification after death in the ancient world among Jews and Christians. Medievalist Jacques Le Goff dated the "birth" of Purgatory to the High Middle Ages, when it was conceived as a single distinct place named Purgatory. Other scholars have adopted a less strict definition. The concept is linked directly to the practice of prayer for the dead and the sense that not everyone who died without being condemned was yet ready for the eternal perfection of heaven. Important theologians, including St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, contributed to the understanding of the soul’s purification after death, and by the twelfth century Purgatory had emerged as a fully developed concept, achieving formal doctrinal definition at the Councils of Lyon (1245, 1274), Florence (1439), and Trent (1545-63).

The doctrine contributed greatly to Christian spirituality, ritual, piety, and imagination, giving rise to various devotions and literary works. Historically, descriptions of purgatory have emphasised the natural and supernatural bonding between the living and the dead – the belief that the souls in Purgatory were part of the church of the redeemed, and prayer for the dead, became a principal expression of the ties binding the Christian community together. The teaching became "a powerful symbol of all that the holiness of God requires of man and also of His mercy and His love for men."

Non-Catholic Christians have differing interpretations of the concept. Eastern Orthodox Christians pray for the dead, but teach that after the soul leaves the body it waits for Christ's final judgment. They regard the Roman Catholic view of purgatory and related penitance as needlessly innovative. Protestant reformers of the 16th century came to reject the doctrine, especially because of its relationship with the granting of indulgences. Today, few protestants believe in purgatory.

Purgatory in contemporary Roman Catholic teaching

Overview

Purgatory and its role in the Roman Catholic concept of the afterlife.

The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on purgatory is summed up in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as follows:

Purgatory is the state of those who die in God's friendship, assured of their eternal salvation, but who still have need of purification to enter into the happiness of heaven. Because of the communion of saints, the faithful who are still pilgrims on earth are able to help the souls in purgatory by offering prayers in suffrage for them, especially the Eucharistic sacrifice. They also help them by almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance.

The doctrine of Purgatory is intended to be understood in the context of other Catholic beliefs about the afterlife and sin. According to the Catechism, a sin is an offense against God, setting itself against God’s love for us and turning our hearts from God. As such, it is “love of oneself even to contempt of God”. Though all sin, to an extent, damages the person’s relationship with God, the Church makes a distinction between two kinds of sin. Venial sins are lesser faults that wound this relationship, but do not sever it. Mortal sins, on the other hand, are serious offences that constitute a turning away from God on man’s part; they necessitate a new initiative of God’s mercy and a conversion of heart. At the moment of death, each soul is judged by God according to the person's faith and works. If someone dies in a state of separation from God entailed by mortal sin, then his or her soul is condemned to hell and suffers eternal punishments. Those who die in a state of God’s grace and friendship, however, are destined for the eternal joys of heaven, where they will reign with Christ and behold the face of God, which is called the beatific vision.

Purgatory is for souls that die in a state of grace and destined for eternal reward in heaven, but impure. In purgatory, they are purified. Here, they atone for lighter, venial sins and satisfy any punishment still due for serious, mortal sins that have already been forgiven. Souls with unforgiven mortal sin or with original sin are not purified as these sins exclude one from a state of grace.

The Church applies the term ‘temporal punishment’ to this process of cleansing, distinguishing it in a radical way from the ‘eternal punishment’ of hell. Eternal punishment is the permanent deprivation of communion with God experienced forever in hell. Temporal punishment, on the other hand, is the sort that applies in Purgatory, cleansing the soul of an ‘unhealthy attachment to creatures’. The Catechism explains that, ‘These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin.’ Ultimately, the purification of Purgatory frees one from this temporal punishment so that the soul, having put off completely the ‘old man’ and put on the ‘new man’ (cf. Ephesians 4:24), may enter into the eternal joys of heaven.

And important part of the doctrine of Purgatory is the teaching that the dead undergoing purification and suffering temporal punishments can be aided by the living through their prayers, charitable acts done on behalf of the departed, and especially through the sacrifice of the mass (see below).

Prayer and other works for souls in purgatory

Prayer for the dead

Monastic Liturgy of the Hours in German, with a rosary and attached crucifix.

Church teaching on purgatory is based on the practice of praying for the dead, a practice followed by Christians from the beginning, one too that is mentioned in the Second Book of Maccabees, which Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox consider to be part of the Bible, while the writings of Paul the Apostle include what may be a prayer by him for a dead person.

Prayer for the dead, in the belief that the dead are thereby benefited, remains part of the practice not only of the Roman Catholic Church, but also of all the other ancient Christian Churches, even those that do not accept the Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory. In particular, the Latin, Greek, Coptic, Syrian, and Chaldaean Churches of ancient tradition offer the Eucharist on behalf of the dead.

The exhortation of Saint John Chrysostom (349– c. 407) bespeaks this practice: "Let us then give [the dead] aid and perform commemoration for them. For if the children of Job were purged by the sacrifice of their father, why do you doubt that when we too offer for the departed, some consolation arises to them? (Since God is wont to grant the petitions of those who ask for others).... Let us not then be weary in giving aid to the departed, both by offering on their behalf and obtaining prayers for them: for the common Expiation of the world is even before us. ... and it is possible from every source to gather pardon for them, from our prayers, from our gifts in their behalf, from those whose names are named with theirs. Why therefore do you grieve? Why mourn, when it is in your power to gather so much pardon for the departed?"

Other good works and indulgences

In addition to prayer for the dead, it is traditional to "do good works and labours of faith and love for them." Practices performed to assist them include almsgiving on their behalf and fasting and other penitential acts. To such prayers and good works, whether done for the performer's own benefit or for the good of other persons, living or dead, the Catholic Church attaches indulgences, granted from the "treasury of merits" (Christ's and the saints'), "at times remitting completely and at times partially the temporal punishment due to sin ... (urging) to perform works of piety, penitence and charity — particularly those which lead to growth in faith and which favour the common good. And if the faithful offer indulgences in suffrage for the dead, they cultivate charity in an excellent way."

Fire

Folio 113v of Très Riches Heures, a 15th c. Book of hours commissioned by Jean, Duc de Berry, "the Magnificent".

The imagery of fire has long been common, and has links tradition to certain texts of Scripture, in particular to 1 Corinthians 3:15 and 1 Peter 1:7, which also speak of fire, whether material or metaphorical. Although no dogmatic statement describes a material fire in the context of purgatory, the imagery of fire has long been common in the West. St. Augustine stated that the pain caused by purgatorial fire is more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life, and Gregory the Great mentioned those who after this life "will expiate their faults by purgatorial flames," adding "that the pain be more intolerable than any one can suffer in this life". St. Bonaventure (1221 – 1274) also stated that this punishment by fire is more severe than any punishment which comes to men in this life.

The First Council of Lyon (1245 AD) mentions a transitory fire that cleanses small or minor sins.

The conception of the purgatorial fire as material rather than metaphorical was a cause of disagreement between Latin Christendom and the Greeks, though at the Council of Florence, aimed at reconciliation between the groups, Bessarion argued against the existence of real purgatorial fire, and the Greeks were assured that the Roman Church had never committed itself to dogmatic belief in such fire (see below for dogmatic decrees). As dogmatic theologian Adrian Fortescue explained, "All a Catholic is bound to believe about Purgatory is contained in the definition of Trent, 'There is a Purgatory and souls there detained are helped by the prayers of the faithful and especially the Sacrifice of the Altar.'". Recent Catholic discussions of purgatory have respected the reserve of the Council of Trent.

The imagery of Purgatory involving various miseries, whether fire or more specific punishments tailored for particular vices, has a long history in Christian literature and visionary accounts. However these miseries, "like the physical horrors of the process of death itself, were evoked not to curdle the blood and oppress the spirit, but to stir the living to present action. Mortified lives of penance would make Purgatory superfluous, almsgiving and good works in time of prosperity would be better than last-minute fire insurance." As explained by historian Eamon Duffy, "In the noblest, most circumstantial, and most theologically sophisticated of all medieval visions of the other world, Dante’s Commedia, Purgatory is unequivocally a place of hope and a means of ascent towards Heaven. It thus has nothing in common with Hell.

Place

As with heaven and hell, purgatory is often spoken of as a place to which one goes or where one is. But as Pope John Paul II declared when stating that "the term ('purgatory') does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence", Church teaching does not endorse the idea of a place within physical space for purgatory frequently found in works of literature such as Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia and legends such as that of St. Patrick's Purgatory.

Eastern Catholic Churches

Eastern Catholics are those churches of eastern lineage that, unlike the Eastern Orthodox, are in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They consider Purgatory to be compatible with their Eastern (typically Greek) theological heritage. Eastern Catholics believe that there will be a purgation of all which separates man from God; how this will happen is not defined. A theologian of Eastern Catholic Greek tradition describes the attitude of his Church to the doctrine of Purgatory as follows:

As a general rule, all Eastern Christians do not use the word "Purgatory." This includes both Eastern Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The word "Purgatory" is specific to the Latin tradition, and carries some specific historical baggage that makes Eastern Christians uncomfortable.... In the Catholic understanding, only two points are necessary dogma concerning "purgatory": 1) There is a place of transition/transformation for those en-route to Heaven, and 2) prayer is efficacious for the dead who are in this state. The Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches agree with the Latin Church fully on both of these points.

History

Purgatory developed out of the ancient practice of prayer for the dead, and the notion that not all souls are condemned to Hell or worthy of Heaven at the moment of death. Curiosity in the West concerning the intermediate state of the soul helped give rise to later theology. St. Augustine, Gregory the Great, and others contributed to the understanding of the soul’s purification after death, prior to the General Resurrection. By the twelfth century, Purgatory had emerged as a fully developed concept. At this time, the masters of Paris and elsewhere elaborated on the the theology, especially as regards to penance. They also gave the name purgatory to the place of purification. The Church defined the doctrine of purgatory at two councils in the 13th and 15th centuries. Reformers rejected the doctrine, and the Church affirmed its doctrine at the Council of Trent.

Christian antiquity

A procession in the Catacombs of St. Callistus, Rome. The catacombs contain inscriptions that are often prayers for the dead.

The doctrine of purgatory derives from the 2nd to 1st century BC Jewish beliefs that God will judge the people by their deeds and that the faithful should pray that God show mercy to the dead. A possible example of such prayers in Judaism is to be found in 2 Maccabees 12:39–46.

Attestation for Christians saying prayers for the dead goes back to at least the second century. evidenced in part by the tomb inscription of Abercius, Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia (d. c. 200), which begs the prayers of the living. Likewise, some of the inscriptions in the catacombs are in the form of prayers for those buried there.

St. Augustine affirmed prayer for the dead who die in the Communion of the Church.

Also the second-century document, Acts of Paul and Thecla, presents prayer as one way of allowing for a dead person to "be translated to a state of happiness". In the third-century, a work titled Passion of the Holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity (a hagiography of saints Perpetua and Felicity) gives expression to the belief that sins can be purged by suffering in an afterlife, and that the process can be accelerated by prayer.

Celebration of the Eucharist for the dead was also practiced, and is attested to since at least the third century.

The concept of an intermediate state for those not worthy of heaven developed gradually, partly because early Christians aniticipated an imminent end of the world and considered the dead to be asleep or waiting (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13). Many of the Church Fathers express belief in purification after death and of the communion of the living with the dead through prayer. The patristic authors often understood those undergoing purification to be awaiting the Last Judgment before receiving the final blessedness of the Resurrection of the Dead, and they also often described this purification as a journey which entailed hardships but also powerful glimpses of joy. Irenaeus's (c. 130-202) description of the souls of the dead (awaiting the universal judgment) to be experiencing a process of purification contains the concept of purgatory. Both St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-215) and his pupil, Origen (c. 185-254), developed a view of purification after death; this view drew upon the notion that fire is a divine instrument from the Old Testament, and understood this in the context of New Testament teachings such as baptism by fire, from the Gospels, and a purificatory trial after death, from St. Paul. For both Clement and Origen, the fire was neither a material thing nor a metaphor, but a "spiritual fire". An early Latin author, Tertullian (c. 160-225), also articulated a view of purification after death. In Tertullian's understanding of the afterlife, the souls of martyrs entered directly into eternal blessedness, whereas the rest entered a generic realm of the dead. There the wicked suffered a foretaste of their eternal punishments, whilst the good experienced various stages and places of bliss, an idea that was "universally diffused" in antiquity.

Later examples, which contain further elaborations, abound. Of these the most significant is St. Augustine (354-430), whose remarks concerning a purifying fire after death and the efficacy of prayer for those undergoing this purification were highly influential in later theology. Augustine distinguished between fire that burns off stains and the everlasting fire that consumes those who are damned. In this, he disagreed with Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, who favored the concept (also found in Zoroastrianism) that all humankind will eventually be saved through fiery purification.

Early Middle Ages

A dove alights on Gregory the Great's shoulder as he writes his homilies (an ancient tradition). The pope taught that certain offenses could be pardoned in the afterlife.

Pope Gregory the Great's Dialogues, written in the late sixth century, taught:

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.

For Gregory, God was further illuminating the nature of the afterlife, sending visions and the like, whereby, more fully than before, the outlines of the fate of the soul immediately beyond the grave were becoming visible, like the half-light that precedes the dawn. Like Augustine, Gregory emphasized that one's eternal fate is determined at death and that only the saved are purified.

In the seventh century, the Irish abbot St. Fursa described his foretaste of the afterlife, where, though protected by angels, he was pursued by demons who said, "It is not fitting that he should enjoy the blessed life unscathed..., for every transgression that is not purged on earth must be avenged in heaven," and on his return he was engulfed in a billowing fire that threatened to burn him, "for it stretches out each one according to their merits... For just as the body burns through unlawful desire, so the soul will burn, as the lawful, due penalty for every sin." The event was included by The Venerable Bede in his Ecclesiastical History, a highly popular and influential work. St. Boniface also described a vision of Purgatory.

Theologians of the Carolingian period, especially Alcuin, Rabanus, Haymo, and Walafrid Strabo, contributed to the development of the doctrine. By the end of the tenth century, the widespread observance of All Souls' Day in the West, established in part through the influence of St. Odilo of Cluny (c 962 - c 1048 AD), had "helped to concentrate the imagination on the fate of departed souls and fostered a sense of solidarity between the living and the dead." The great success of Cluniac monasticism helped foster a sense of spiritual fervor throughout Latin Christendom.

High Middle Ages

Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, whose writings contain the classic description of purgatory.

Amid the general elaboration of theology in the twelfth century, the studies by the masters of Paris and elsewhere concerning the theology of penance helped to fashion a notion of purgatory as a place where canonical penances unfinished in this life could be completed. Western theologians had sometimes written of purgatorial places, and the 12th century, the place where souls were purified was first given the name "purgatorium" (purgatory), from Latin "purgare", "to cleanse". In the next century, a writing of Thomas Aquinas contains the classic formulation of the doctrine, stating that the dead in purgatory are at peace because they are sure of salvation, and that they benefit from the prayers of the living because they are still part of the Communion of Saints, from which only hell or limbo can separate one.

In the High Middle Ages, purgatory also began to loom large in lay awareness, providing the rational for the immense elaboration of the cult of the intercession of the dead. Many accounts of visions circulated among the laity and found their way into devotional collections. The best known examples include the Gast of Gy, the revelations of St. Brigit of Sweden (1303 – 1373), and those associated with St. Patrick’s Purgatory – a popular subject of legend, written about by Henry of Sawtrey in his twelfth-century Tractatus de Purgatorio S. Patricii (and others). These accounts were designed to move the Christian to pious action on his own behalf while still in health, to complete his penances, and to be generous in charity. These were the good deeds which would accompany everyman, to plead for him, "For after death amends may no man make, For then mercy and pity doth him forsake."

Building on these pictures of purgatory, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) depicted in his Purgatorio, in which purgatory is a seven-story mountain, the gradual purification of the image and likeness of God in the human soul.

Medievalist Jacques Le Goff argued that purgatory was "born" in this period. Although he recognized the notion of purification after death in antiquity (specifically that Clement of Alexandria and Origen derived their view of purification from various biblical teachings), and even considered vague concepts of purifying and punishing fire to predate Christianity, Le Goff considered a radical conceptual shift to have taken place in the developed perception of purgatory from a prefatory process to a specific place.

In the context of discussion with the Greeks, the two thirteenth-century Councils of Lyon considered purgatory. The official teaching of the Church then and later remained limited to two elements: the existence of a state of purification for souls en route to heaven, and the efficaciousness of prayer for the dead.

Related beliefs continued to grow, such as the Sabbatine Privilege, which appeared in the second half of the fifteenth century, the wondrous powers for releasing souls from purgatory of a prayer of uncertain date attributed to Gertrude the Great. Of the various visions of purgatory, those of Catherine of Genoa are the most credited.

Latin-Greek relations

At the Council of Florence, Bessarion, a member of the Greek contingent, argued against purification by material fire.

In the 15th century, Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus attempted to bring the Eastern Orthodox churches back into commumion with Rome. At the Council of Florence (1431-1445), Eastern and Western clergymen met in an attempt to undo the Great Schism of 1054. Eastern Orthodox participants identified several apparent stumbling blocks to reunification, including Papal primacy, the West's unleavened bread in the Eucharist, one word in the Nicene Creed, and purgatory. The Greeks objected especially to the conception of material fire and to the legalism of the Western approach, for example in the distinction between guilt and punishment.

At the Council, Bessarion, a member of John VIII's Greek contingent, argued against the existence of real purgatorial fire. The text of the Council's decree on purgatory contains no reference to fire and, without using the word "purgatorium" (purgatory), speaks only of "pains of cleansing" ("poenae purgatoriae"),

Though this reunification was generally rejected in the East, certain Eastern Communities were later received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

Protestant objections

A young John Calvin. Calvin opposed both purgatory and prayer for the dead.

Protestant reformers rejected purgatory, usually alluding to weak support in Scripture and rejecting the mercenary aspects of late medieval religion in which purgatory was implicated. Protestant theologians' developing views on salvation (soteriology) excluded purgatory, partly because of doctrinal changes by reformers concerning justification and sanctification.

For Martin Luther, justification meant "the declaring of one to be righteous", where God imputes the merits of Christ to one who remains without inherent merit. In this process, good works done in faith (i.e. through penance) are unessential byproducts that contribute nothing to one's own state of righteousness. "Becoming perfect" came to be understood as an instantaneous act of God, so that each one of the elect (saved) experienced instantaneous glorification upon death. In the absence of any process or journey of purification in the afterlife there was no reason to pray for the dead. Luther wrote "We should pray for ourselves and for all other people, even for our enemies, but not for the souls of the dead." (expanded Small Catechism, Question No. 211) Luther stopped believing in purgatory around 1530, and later affirmed that the dead "sleep" unconsciously (soul sleep).. Subsequent Lutheran confessions do not expressly reject all ideas of purification after death.

Purgatory came to be seen as one of the "unbiblical corruptions" that had entered Church teachings some time after the apostolic age. The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, produced during the English Reformation, stated: "The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory...is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God". (article 22) John Calvin, central theologian of Reformed Protestantism, considered purgatory a superstition, writing in his Institutes (5.10): "The doctrine of purgatory ancient, but refuted by a more ancient Apostle. Not supported by ancient writers, by Scripture, or solid argument. Introduced by custom and a zeal not duly regulated by the word of God… we must hold by the word of God, which rejects this fiction."

Counter-Reformation and thereafter

The Council of Trent affirmed the doctrine of purgatory against challenges by Protestant Reformers.

An early reply to the Reformers was made by St. John Fisher, who based his defence of the doctrine on the writings of the Church Fathers, and the practice of prayer for the dead from the earliest times.

The Council of Trent gave the official response of the Catholic Church to the critics, repeating the teaching already given by the First Council of Lyon. The text of its decree (given above) restates the concepts of purification after death and the efficacy of prayers for the dead, and sternly instructs preachers not to push beyond that and distract, confuse, and mislead the faithful with unnecessary speculations concerning the nature and duration of purgatorial punishments. The legends and speculation that had grown up and still continue to grow around the concept of purgatory were not treated as Church teaching. The Council decreed: "Those matters … which tend to a certain curiosity or superstition, or that savour of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling blocks to the faithful." Recent Catholic discussions of purgatory have respected the reserve of the Council of Trent, interpreting the notion of fire in a metaphorical sense, and the temporal aspect in terms of intensity.

Some Protestants have accepted prayer for the dead, an intermediate state of purification, and even the term "purgatory". William Forbes, the first Scottish Episcopal Bishop of Edinburgh, affirmed prayer for the dead and described an intermediate state where the soul is purified by its fervent longing for God. Anglican apologist C. S. Lewis believed in purgatory, if not in what the Reformers called "the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory", and defended the notion. Other Anglicans, in particular Anglo-Catholics (such as the Guild of All Souls), profess belief in purgatory.

Later ideas about purgatory

Questions already discussed among theologians since the Middle Ages continued to be developed. One is whether the souls in purgatory can pray for the living. When considering whether the saints in heaven pray for us, Saint Thomas Aquinas said that the souls in purgatory cannot. According to the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, Saint Robert Bellarmine (1542 – 1621) advocated petitioning the souls in purgatory to pray for one, According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, on the contrary, Saint Robert Bellarmine (in De Purgatorio, lib. II, xv), while finding unconvincing the reason given by Saint Thomas Aquinas, said that, ordinarily speaking, it is superfluous to invoke the prayers of those in purgatory, "for they are ignorant of our circumstances and condition." The Catholic Encyclopedia attributes instead to the theologian Francisco Suárez (in De poenit., disp. xlvii, s. 2, n. 9) the opinion "that the souls in purgatory are holy, are dear to God, love us with a true love and are mindful of our wants; that they know in a general way our necessities and our dangers, and how great is our need of divine help and divine grace".

Purgatory themes have also been prominent in various works of literature, such as Shakespeare's Hamlet (1603), Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, and the European ghost-story tradition in general.

Recent Catholic theologians Yves Congar (1904-1995), Karl Rahner (1904-1984), and Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) have addressed purgatory in reserved terms. They reinterpreted certain traditional aspects, such as fire and time in purgatory, and left many questions open, such as whether souls in purgatory can pray for the living.

Dogmatic texts and other sources

There are two dogmatic pronouncements of the Roman Catholic Church about purgatory. The first is that of the 1439 Council of Florence (Denzinger 1304-1306 (old numbering, 693)):

[The Council] has likewise defined, that, if those truly penitent have departed in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by the worthy fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission, the souls of these are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments; and so that they may be released from punishments of this kind, the suffrages of the living faithful are of advantage to them, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, and almsgiving, and other works of piety, which are customarily performed by the faithful for other faithful according to the institutions of the Church. And that the souls of those, who after the reception of baptism have incurred no stain of sin at all, and also those, who after the contraction of the stain of sin whether in their bodies, or when released from the same bodies, as we have said before, are purged, are immediately received into heaven, and see clearly the one and triune God Himself just as He is, yet according to the diversity of merits, one more perfectly than another. Moreover, the souls of those who depart in actual mortal sin or in original sin only, descend immediately into hell but to undergo punishments of different kinds.

The other pronouncement is that of the Council of Trent in 1563 (Denzinger 1820 (old numbering, 983)):

Since the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Spirit, in conformity with the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers in sacred councils, and very recently in this ecumenical Synod, has taught that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained there are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful, and especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar, the holy Synod commands the bishops that they insist that the sound doctrine of purgatory, which has been transmitted by the holy Fathers and holy Councils, be believed by the faithful of Christ, be maintained, taught, and everywhere preached. Let the more difficult and subtle "questions", however, and those which do not make for "edification" [cf.1 Tim. 1:4], and from which there is very often no increase in piety, be excluded from popular discourses to uneducated people. Likewise, let them not permit uncertain matters, or those that have the appearance of falsehood, to be brought out and discussed publicly. Those matters on the contrary, which tend to a certain curiosity or superstition, or that savor of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling blocks to the faithful.

References to purgatory are found in texts of two earlier Councils.

In that transitory fire certainly sins, though not criminal or capital, which before have not been remitted through penance but were small and minor sins, are cleansed, and these weigh heavily even after death, if they have been forgiven in this life. - First Council of Lyon, 1245 (Denzinger 838 (old numbering, 456)).

If they die truly repentant in charity before they have made satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance for (sins) committed and omitted, their souls are cleansed after death by purgatorial or purifying punishments, as Brother John [Parastron O. F. M.] has explained to us. And to relieve punishments of this kind, the offerings of the living faithful are of advantage to these, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, alms, and other duties of piety, which have customarily been performed by the faithful for the other faithful according to the regulations of the Church. - Profession of faith of Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, Second Council of Lyon in 1274 (Denzinger 856 (old numbering, 464))

The most recent statements are found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1030 - All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031 - The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:

As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.

1032 - This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin." From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job's sons were purified by their father's sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.

See also

• Afterlife
• Anima Sola
• Brig (Bridge) of Dread
• Catherine of Genoa
• Christian eschatology
• Christina the Astonishing
• The Divine Comedy
• Gehenna
• Gertrude the Great
• Hades
• Heaven
• Hell

• Indulgence
• Limbo
• Lyke-Wake Dirge
• Mortal sin
• Penance
• Prayer for the dead
• Purgatorial society
• Requiem
• Sabbatine Privilege
• Soteriology
• St. Patrick's Purgatory
• Venial sin

External links

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030-1032
• CatholicBridge.com, Purgatory — Ecumenical article by David MacDonald concerning Evangelical and Catholic belief
• Catholic Answers, Purgatory — Catholic apologetic article
• NewAdvent.org, Purgatory — 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article
• bringyou.to/apologetics — Readings from the Church Fathers and other sources on Purgatory, by Phil Porvaznik
• EWTN.com library, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory according to Pope John Paul II — Articles from the newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore Romano, July-August 1999
• JewishEncyclopedia.com, Purgatory — Article by Kaufmann Kohler in the online Jewish Encyclopedia
• New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Purgatory — Article by C. A. Beckwith in the 19th century Protestant encyclopedia (ed. Philip Schaff)
• Purgatory account in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
• Purgatory article in Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
• I Believe in Purgatory... — excerpt from C. S. Lewis's Letters To Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, chapter 20
• Frequently Asked Questions at Holy Souls Online
• Purgatory and praying for the dead on Catholic Apologetic
• "Prisoner of the King: Thoughts on the Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory", H. J. Coleridge, 1889. retrieved 24 May 2007
• Three Purgatory Poems, a scholarly history of Purgatory from Medieval Institute Publications