The Problem of Purgatory

      The Catechism of the Catholic Church has included in it a very handy glossary of terms.  Under “Purgatory” is the following:  “A state of final purification after death and before entrance into heaven for those who died in God’s friendship, but were only imperfectly purified; a final cleansing of human imperfection before one is able to enter the joy of heaven.” 

      This past Thursday was the Commemoration of All Souls, a day especially dedicated to praying for the faithful dead.  What should be a solemn occasion of the renewal of hope has become in many a Catholic’s mind a day of dubious doctrine – that of Purgatory.  I have discovered among Catholics – often due to regnant Protestant influence – a persistent misunderstanding of what the Church actually teaches on this subject:  a kind of caricature of traditional Christian belief is presented to the uninformed Catholic, followed with something like, “How can you believe such nonsense?”  And one is left dumbfounded.  Perhaps the first thing to keep in mind is that those who make it their business to attack what the Church teaches – and there are many of them out there – are rarely, very rarely, well-informed about that upon which they so readily pronounce. 

      The first misconception to clear up is the related idea of indulgences, defined in the CCC glossary as “The remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sin whose guilt has already been forgiven.”  In like fashion, Purgatory is not a state in which the faithful dead receive forgiveness, but rather a state of facing the consequences of their sins and being purified from them.  We see this principle frequently in everyday life:  the criminal may be truly sorry for his transgression and receive heartfelt forgiveness from his victim, but the law of punishment still has to be enacted:  the stolen goods should be returned, reparation made, things set right as much as can be.  The same is true for parents in the raising of children, who must be taught to do what is necessary to right any wrong they have committed.  This principle is classically illustrated in the Old Testament in the case of King David, who had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered (2 Samuel 11 & 12).  When confronted by Nathan the prophet with his sin, David repented and received God’s forgiveness, but he still had to face the consequences, grimly described by Nathan. 

      The frequent argument against the doctrine of Purgatory is that it is not “biblical.”  Well, granted the word itself is not in the Bible, but the concept and its description is.  We read in 2 Maccabees 12:44, 45 that the Jewish leader, Judas Maccabees, insisted on prayers and offerings to be made for his fallen comrades (who had compromised themselves by wearing in battle tokens of foreign idols):  “For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead....  Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.”  (The fact that Luther expunged from the canon of Holy Scripture this book of Maccabees, because it taught the “Catholic” doctrine of Purgatory, adds no weight to arguments against the same.) 

      But the New Testament too bears witness to this ancient teaching of the Catholic Church.  Our Lord Himself warns His followers, “And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?  As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison.  I tell you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny” (Luke 12:57, 58).  Or, as St. Paul admonishes us, “Now if any one builds on the foundation [of Christ] with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble – each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.  If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.  If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).  And John the Apostle writes, "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure" (1 John 3:2-3). 

      St. John also reminds us, in his description of the coming of God’s Holy City, that “nothing unclean shall enter it...” (Revelation 21:27).  Who of us is truly and perfectly clean?  And if one argues that he or she is “clean in Christ,” then why all the admonitions and warnings in Scripture for us to purify ourselves, even after we have become followers of Christ?  This is simply because we must be pure before we will be able to see God face to face in the beatific vision, heaven.  Most are not prepared for that as they leave this earth; and thus Purgatory.  And thus too our duty to pray for the faithful dead – the means we have as members of the Body of Christ to help those who have gone before us, and, in the process, be transformed ourselves by God’s grace as we, according to His will, love our neighbor even though he or she has died.

      Purgatory is not a place or state of receiving forgiveness.  Nor is it a place of a “second chance.”  The souls in Purgatory are saved, forgiven, and being readied for their reward of everlasting life.  There is in this doctrine no diminishing of the work of Christ, which is perfect and complete; rather, it is a reminder that His perfect work of redemption must be perfected, truly perfected, in each one of us.  That’s why we pray for those who have gone before us, like Maccabees did, so that we might, as joint members of one family of the Church, speed them on their way, and learn too more exactly the marvelous goal to which we have all been called.