Purgatory and Catechesis
by James Akin

We´ve all heard about
Purgatory. But what is
it exactly? Is it in the
Bible? And why do
Catholics believe in it?



January 16, 2002 / What is purgatory? This question
comes up in virtually every sort of catechesis—whether
offered to those already in the Church or those in the
process of joining. In class, a wag could earn easy
points with fellow-students (though probably not
teachers) by answering that catechesis itself is
purgatory. I certainly felt that way about the RCIA
course I took on my way into the Church, and a lot of
others did too.

A Metaphor

There is even a certain sense in which the catechesis
metaphor can be made to work. Catechesis often
involves preparing you for a new state in life—the state
of a communicant, the state of a confirmand, the state
of membership in the Church. The purpose of purgatory
is to prepare you for heaven.

In both cases, a process is meant to help you overcome
things that would impede you in the new state.
Catechesis is focused directly on teaching the faith
(ignorance of or disbelief in the faith being inconsistent
with one’s new state). By doing so, it also encourages
one to abandon sinful patterns of behavior (these being
inconsistent with the faith).

Purgatory is focused directly on removing the remaining
consequences of the sins one committed in life (these
being inconsistent with the state of heaven). For all we
know, it may also play a role in putting right erroneous
ideas about the Faith that one innocently held in life
(these also being inconsistent with the state of
heaven).

In both cases, the process of preparation for one’s new
state is not a uniformly pleasant one. While both
catechesis and purgatory can involve joy (respectively,
the joy of discovering the faith and the joy of knowing
with certitude that one will be in heaven), the letting go
of bad beliefs and habits is not fun. For this reason, it is
appropriate for others to pray for those undergoing
preparation for their new state—whether in the
classroom or in purgatory.

Limits of the Metaphor

But no metaphor must be pressed beyond its limits, and
there are definite limits to this one. Two in particular
spring to mind: First, because God is directly in control
of purgatory, it always works. Everyone who goes to
purgatory ends up going to heaven and ends up being
thoroughly prepared for it. With catechesis, that
guarantee isn’t in place. Those undergoing catechesis
may not enter the state for which they are being
prepared (they may quit the program) and they may not
be properly prepared for the state even if they do
(through poor catechesis).

Second, again because God is directly in control of
purgatory, any discomfort felt by those undergoing it is
the result of their own bad choices. With catechesis,
that guarantee isn’t in place. Catechists can increase
the discomfort of their students in a variety of ways—by
failing to explain accurately the Catholic Faith, by
explaining it accurately but in a confusing manner, or by
failing to tailor their presentation of the Faith to the
needs and concerns of their students.

(A particularly inexcusable example of the latter is the
practice in many parishes of “mainlining” all students
through a full RCIA program, regardless of their
background; a person who has lived for years as an
active, devout, and fully-catechized member of a
different Christian community has very different
catechetical needs than a person who has never lived as
a Christian.)

In approaching their task, catechists are well-advised to
bear in mind the warning of James that those who are
teachers will be held to a higher standard (Jas. 3:1).
Catechists must convey the Catholic Faith accurately,
clearly, and in a way suited to the needs of their
individual students.

Purgatory and Protestantism

To this end, there is one particular group of students
that American catechists will often encounter for whom
purgatory is an especially sensitive subject: those
converting to the Catholic faith from Protestantism.

Though the section on purgatory in the Catechism of
the Catholic Church is only three paragraphs long (CCC
1030-1032), the doctrine looms much larger than that in
the minds of many Protestants. This is because the
subject of purgatory was one of the doctrines to which
the Protestant Reformers most objected. It even found a
place in Martin Luther’s 95 Theses when other concepts,
such as justification, did not. As the Protestant state
churches were set up and commenced the forcible
re-education of the Catholic populace to the new
Protestant beliefs, attacks on purgatory assumed a
prominent place in popular preaching.

This remains the case today. Whenever the Catholic
Church is criticized in Protestant circles—especially in
conservative ones—the doctrine of purgatory is almost
invariably among the top ten “unbiblical doctrines” for
which the Catholic Church is faulted. This means that for
many American candidates for reception into the
Catholic Church, the subject of purgatory will be an
especially sensitive one—one about which the
candidates may have heard a great deal of criticism.

Thus, catechists must take special care when presnting
the doctrine of purgatory. For it is very easy, by not
understanding the special concerns former Protestants
have about purgatory, to confirm some of a candidate’s
worst fears about the Catholic Church through a
careless presentation of the Church’s teaching. On
purgatory, a catechist needs to proceed with care.

Some False Starts

Of course, one temptation that catechists must
resist—knowing that former Protestants may be resistant
to the doctrine—is to downplay it. Desiring for the
doctrine not to be a stumbling block for their students,
catechists can easily say, “Out of the 2,865 paragraphs
in the Catechism, only three are devoted to purgatory.
This is a very unimportant doctrine.” Some catechists
might be tempted to portray it as an optional belief
or—worst yet—as “something we don’t believe
anymore.” Both approaches are mistaken because both
of them rest on a false premise: that purgatory isn’t part
of what Catholics must believe.

The section in the Catechism on purgatory is sufficient
to show false the “we don’t believe it anymore” claim.
And, while it is true that the doctrine of purgatory isn’t
near the top of the “hierarchy of truths,” it is
nevertheless a truth—and one that the Magisterium has
infallibly proposed for the belief of the faithful. The
Councils of Florence and Trent infallibly defined the
existence of purgatory as an article of the Faith, so this
is not an optional belief. And it is one with practical
consequences, for those who are aware of the reality of
purgatory are likely to take steps to avoid it or to
minimize it, both for themselves and for others.

Teaching vs. Speculation

Another mistake in discussing the doctrine of purgatory
is confusing what the Church teaches regarding it with
how that teaching has commonly been elaborated. There
are many elements in common explanations of purgatory
that are, in fact, theological speculation or metaphor,
not Church teaching.

What the Church teaches is that there is a purification
that occurs after death for all who die in God’s friendship
but who have not been sufficiently purified for the glory
of heaven. This purification can involve some kind of
pain or discomfort. And the faithful on earth can assist
those being purified—for example, by their prayers and
by the saying of Mass.

Most of the additional things one hears about purgatory
are theological speculation or metaphor. For example,
the idea that purgatory occurs in a special “place” in the
afterlife is a matter of speculation. We don’t know that.
And, for that matter, we don’t know how the concepts
of “place” or “space” work in the afterlife.

Similarly, discussion of individuals spending time in
purgatory also must be understood with nuance. Just as
we don’t know how space works in the intermediate
state between death and resurrection, neither do we
know how time works. The common teaching among
medieval theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas is that
the departed exist in a state sharing some of the
properties of time and some of the properties of eternity
but properly identical with neither. From our time-bound
perspective in this world, purgatory might be
instantaneous, having existential rather than temporal
“duration.”

The image of purgatory as a cleansing fire also is one
that the Church will not say is literally true. The
Catechism notes only that “The tradition of the Church,
by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a
cleansing fire” (CCC 1031, emphasis added) and stresses
that the purification “is entirely different from the
punishment of the damned” (ibid.). This suggests
considerable reserve with respect to the image of fire in
purgatory.

“Where Is That in the Bible?”

One of the most pressing questions a convert from
Protestantism is likely to have about purgatory is where
it can be documented in the Bible. There are a number
of passages that bear mentioning.

One of the most famous is 2 Maccabees 12:32-45, in
which we read that Judah Maccabee prayed for and had
a sacrifice offered for certain of his men who had been
killed fighting for the Lord. This was the ancient
equivalent of praying for the dead and having a Mass
said for them.

The text is explicit in saying that Judas Maccabee
prayed and offered sacrifice so that “the sin which had
been committed might be wholly blotted out” (v. 42) and
“that they [the fallen soldiers] might be delivered from
their sin” (v. 45). The sin in question was wearing pagan
good-luck charms even though they were fighting for
the cause of the Lord, rather like a Catholic soldier
superstitiously wearing into battle an Egyptian Ahnk or a
Taoist Yin-Yang or another non-Christian symbol as a
good-luck charm. The text notes that Judah’s fallen men
had “fall[en] asleep in godliness” (v. 45), for they were
fighting for the Lord; they simply did so with an
admixture of superstition. They had a venial sin even
though fundamentally they were on the side of right.

The text thus envisions that someone can die in a state
of grace but still carry the temporal (temporary,
non-eternal) consequences of sins. It also envisions that
the actions of the living (prayer and sacrifice) can assist
those in this condition. For this reason, the passage has
been a particularly useful demonstration of the principles
involved in the Church’s teachings and practice
regarding purgatory.

It has been so useful, in fact, that the Protestant
Reformers felt it necessary to delete this book from the
Bible as a way of undercutting the Church’s teaching
and practice. This means that some converts from
Protestantism will feel hesitancy about appealing to this
passage, for it is not in the Bibles they are accustomed
to using. To this there are three responses.

The first is pointing out that this book had been included
in Scripture from the dawn of Christian history. 2
Maccabees is part of the Septuagint (Greek Old
Testament), which is the version of Scripture that the
apostles and other authors of the New Testament
quoted over eighty percent of the time. Also, some
passages in the New Testament specifically allude to 2
Maccabees (for example, Hebrew 11:35b refers to 2
Maccabees 7). When the early councils that determined
the canon of Scripture met (such as the council of Rome
in A.D. 382, the first to address the issue), 2 Maccabees
was included in the list of books along with all the
others. It was to avoid this doctrine that the Protestant
Reformers felt it necessary to remove from Scripture a
book that previously had been almost universally
honored.

The second point is that 2 Maccabees is a pre-Christian
book. It is a Jewish book. And so it is no surprise to find
that Jews today pray for their departed loved ones. For
almost a year after a loved one dies, devout Jews pray a
prayer known as the Mourners’ Qaddish (the “Mourner’s
Blessing”) for the purification of their loved ones. The
belief in purgatory—a posthumous purification—has been
part of the true religion since before the time of Christ!
Jews accept it, Catholics accept it, Eastern Orthodox
accept it, the other Eastern churches accept it. Only
the Protestant churches that have arisen in the last 500
years challenge it.

The third response is to point out that there are multiple
New Testament passages besides 2 Maccabees that
support the doctrine of purgatory. These texts reflect
the fact that, even though sin is forgiven, painful
consequences may remain to be dealt with after death
and before an individual enters the full glory of heaven.
Included are the passages in which Jesus alludes to the
sin that will be forgiven neither in this life nor the next
(Matt 12:32; suggesting that some may be forgiven in
the next life), and he warns that after one faces
judgment before God, one may be punished “till you have
paid the last penny” (Matt 5:26; suggesting that after
one has paid the last penny one will no longer be
punished).

One of the clearest texts pertaining to purgatory is 1
Corinthians 3:12-15, in which Paul warns that “fire will
test what sort of work each one has done” (v. 13).
When this testing by fire is 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 as
through fire” (vv. 14-15). Escaping through flames is not
a “fun” thing. Thus Paul indicates that one can make it
into heaven even though the testing one will experience
after death is not a fun thing.

One may also point out that we will be totally sinless
when we are with God in heaven. Indeed, Scripture says
that God is “of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst
not look on wrong” (Hab 1:13) and that “nothing unclean
shall enter” the heavenly city (Rev 21:27). Since many
(most!) of us are still quite unclean at the time of death,
this means that between death and glory must come a
purification.

Sanctification

This recognition opens an important way of making the
concept of purgatory intelligible to the Protestant mind.
Though Catholic theology often uses the terms
justification and sanctification in a largely overlapping
manner, Evangelical theology customarily draws a sharp
line between the two. When this is done, it is often
claimed that justification refers to the forgiveness of
sins while sanctification refers to the purification of our
behavior so that we no longer commit sins. (This does
not fully accord with the usage of these terms in the
Bible, but that is another matter.)
Given this usage, it is possible to explain purgatory in
categories familiar to Protestants. Even after we have
been forgiven, there are still sinful tendencies and
consequences that remain to be dealt with. Even after
justification there is sanctification.

Since we will be totally sanctified (holy) in heaven, if we
die imperfectly sanctified we must have our
sanctification brought up to snuff before we are in the
glory of heaven. Whether that change has some form of
duration or whether it is instantaneous (as it will be for
those Christians alive on the last day; 1 Cor 15:51-53, 1
John 3:2), the Church does not say. It only says that
the transformation occurs, that we will be completely
sanctified.

Purgatory, then, may be seen as the last stage of
sanctification, whether it happens over “time” or all in a
rush. And this answers another common Protestant
difficulty with purgatory: the question of whether it
“detracts” from the work of Christ. Protestants
themselves acknowledge that, whereas forgiveness is an
instantaneous thing, sanctification is a process. Yet it
does not detract from the work of Christ and, indeed, is
empowered and enabled by that work. Jesus’ death on
the cross is the cause of our sanctification as much as it
is the cause of our justification, though Protestants
generally see the former as a process and the latter as
instantaneous.

The bottom line is: It’s all God’s grace. It all comes to us
because of Christ’s death. Without Him, we would be
doomed, but because of His love for us we may be both
forgiven and sanctified, whether all at once or not.

One thing remains true: When we are united to God in
heaven, we will be both totally forgiven and totally
sanctified. If we die with the first but without the
second, God will make sure we receive the gift of
complete holiness before we are with Him in glory.

James Akin is senior apologist for Catholic Answers
of San Diego, California. He is the author of The
Salvation Controversy and Mass Confusion: The Do’s
and Don’ts of Catholic Worship, as well as a
contributor to the forthcoming Catholic Encyclopedia
of Apologetics.