Purgatory
Purgatory is a belief in Catholic theology. It is a passing intermediate state after physical death for purifying or purging a soul before entering Heaven. A common analogy is dross being removed from gold in a furnace.
In Catholic doctrine, purgatory refers to the final cleansing of those who died in the State of Grace, and leaves in them only "the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven"; it is entirely different from the punishment of the damned and is not related to the forgiveness of sins for salvation. A forgiven person can be freed from their "unhealthy attachment to creatures" by fervent charity in this world, and otherwise by the non-vindictive "temporal punishment" of purgatory.
In late medieval era, metaphors of time, place and fire were frequently adopted. Catherine of Genoa re-framed the idea as ultimately joyful. It has been portrayed in art as an unpleasant "punishment" for unregretted minor sins and imperfect contrition or as a joyful or marvelous final relinquishment of worldly attachments.
The Eastern Orthodox churches have somewhat different formulations of an intermediate state. Most Protestant denominations do not endorse the Catholic formulation. Several other religions have concepts resembling Purgatory: Gehenna in Judaism, or the upper most layer of hell in Islam, in Hinduism.
The word purgatory has come to refer to a wide range of historical and modern conceptions of postmortem suffering short of everlasting damnation. English-speakers also use the word analogously to mean any place or condition of suffering or torment, especially one that is temporary.
History of the belief
The noun purgatory appeared perhaps only between 1160 and 1180, which encouraged speaking of Purgatory as a place.Purgatory pre-dates the specific Catholic tradition of purgatory as a transitional state or condition; it has a history that dates back before Christ, to related beliefs also in Judaism, that prayer for the dead contributes to their afterlife purification. The same practice appears in other traditions, such as the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice of making offerings on behalf of the dead, who are said to suffer numerous trials.
The Catholic Church found specific Old Testament support in after-life purification in 2 Maccabees, which is part of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Church of the East biblical canons, but regarded as apocryphal by Protestants and major branches of Judaism. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, praying for the dead was adopted by Christians from the beginning, a practice that presupposes that the dead are thereby assisted between death and their entry into their final abode. The New American Bible Revised Edition, authorized by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, says in a note to the 2 Maccabees passage:
Sacred Tradition, by reference to certain texts of scripture, speaks of the process as involving a cleansing fire. According to Jacques Le Goff, in Western Europe toward the end of the twelfth century Purgatory started to be represented as a physical place, Le Goff states that the concept involves the idea of a purgatorial fire, which he suggests "is expiatory and purifying not punitive like hell fire".
At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, when the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory, the Eastern Orthodox Church did not adopt the doctrine. The council made no mention of purgatory as a third place or as containing fire, which are absent also in the declarations by the Councils of Florence and of Trent. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have written that the term does not indicate a place, but a condition of existence.
The Church of England, mother church of the Anglican Communion, officially denounces what it calls "the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory", but the Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Churches, and elements of the Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist traditions hold that for some there is cleansing after death and pray for the dead, knowing it to be efficacious. The Reformed Churches teach that the departed are delivered from their sins through the process of glorification.
Rabbinical Judaism also believes in the possibility of after-death purification and may even use the word "purgatory" to describe the similar rabbinical concept of Gehenna, though Gehenna is also sometimes described as more similar to hell or Hades.
Christianity
Some Christians, typically Roman Catholics, recognize the doctrine of Purgatory. The Eastern Orthodox are less likely to use the term, although they acknowledge an intermediate state after death and before final judgment, and consequentially offer prayers for the dead.Protestants usually do not recognize Purgatory as such; following their doctrine of sola scriptura, they claim Jesus is not recorded mentioning or otherwise endorsing it, and the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees is not accepted by Protestants as scripture.
Catholicism
The Catholic Church holds that "all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified" undergo a process of purification after death, which the church calls Purgatory, "so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven".Though in popular imagination Purgatory is pictured as a place rather than a process of purification, the idea of Purgatory as a physical place is not part of the church's doctrine. However, the church's understanding has typically been that Purgatory has a temporal component with only God being outside of time. Fire, another important element of the Purgatory of popular imagination, is also absent in the Catholic Church's doctrine.
Purgatory and indulgences are defined doctrines, unlike limbo. Catholicism bases its teaching also on the practice of praying for the dead, in use within the church ever since the church began, and mentioned in the deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees 12:46.
The Purgatory of Catholic doctrine
At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on Purgatory, in summary two points:- some saved souls need to be purified after death;
- such souls benefit from the prayers and pious duties that the living do for them.
A century and a half later, the Council of Florence repeated the same two points in practically the same words, again excluding certain elements of the purgatory of popular imagination, in particular fire and place, against which representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church spoke at the council.
The Council of Trent repeated the same two points and moreover in its 4 December 1563 Decree Concerning Purgatory recommended avoidance of speculations and non-essential questions:
Catholic doctrine on purgatory is presented as composed of the same two points in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, first published in 2005, which is a summary in dialogue form of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It deals with purgatory in the following exchange:
These two questions and answers summarize information in sections 1030–1032 and 1054 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1992, which also speaks of purgatory in sections 1472−1473.
Role in relation to the church
The prayers of the saints in Heaven and the good deeds, works of mercy, prayers, and indulgences of the living have a twofold effect: they help the souls in Purgatory atone for their sins and they make the souls' own prayers for the living effective, since the merits of the saints in Heaven, on Earth, and in Purgatory are part of the treasury of merit. Whenever the Eucharist is celebrated, souls in Purgatory are purified – i.e., they receive a full remission of sin and punishment – and go to Heaven.Role in relation to sin
According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, those who die in God's grace and friendship imperfectly purified, although they are assured of their eternal salvation, undergo a purification after death, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of God.Unless "redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness", mortal sin, whose object is grave matter and is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent, "causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell, for our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back." Such sin "makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the 'eternal punishment' of sin".
Venial sin, while not depriving the sinner of friendship with God or the eternal happiness of heaven, "weakens charity, manifests a disordered affection for created goods, and impedes the soul's progress in the exercise of the virtues and the practice of the moral good; it merits temporal punishment", for "every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the 'temporal punishment' of sin".
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, paraphrased this as: "Purgatory is not, as Tertullian thought, some kind of supra-worldly concentration camp where man is forced to undergo punishment in a more or less arbitrary fashion. Rather it is the inwardly necessary process of transformation in which a person becomes capable of Christ, capable of God, and thus capable of unity with the whole communion of saints".
This purification from mankind's sinful tendencies has been compared to rehabilitation of someone who needs to be cleansed of any addiction, a gradual and probably painful process. It can be advanced during life by voluntary self-mortification and penance and by deeds of generosity that show love of God rather than of creatures. If not completed before death, it can still be needed for entering the divine presence.
A person seeking purification from sinful tendencies is also considered not to be alone in Catholic teaching, due to be the communion of saints: "the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin". The Catholic Church states that, through the granting of indulgences for manifestations of devotion, penance and charity by the living, it opens for individuals "the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins".