Purgatory and Praying for
the Dead
Objection: “I don’t believe in purgatory, because it is not mentioned
in the Bible. There exist only heaven and hell.”
For Catholics, the strongest arguments for the existence of purgatory
include the constant and universal writings of the early Church Fathers, the
ancient liturgies of the East and West, the numerous inscriptions on the
walls of the Catacombs, and the dogmatic pronouncements of the Councils
of Florence (1438-45) and Trent (1545-63).
The Catholic Church teaches that purgatory is a temporary process of
purification, where those who have died undergo expiation to remove all
temporal punishment due to mortal sin duly forgiven, or all stain of
unrepentant venial sin. It is not a “second chance” opportunity or a place
where souls that are not-good-enough-for-heaven-but-too-good-for-hell go.
All the selfishness, inordinate attachment to creatures, dross and impurities
in our souls are burned away by the fiery love and holiness of Christ. Souls
undergo purgatory, as “nothing unclean can enter heaven” and behold the
glorious and overwhelming light of the Beatific Vision (Rev. 21:27).
Purgatorial cleansing is a passive process. We do nothing ourselves to
purify our souls. The purification is done solely by God. Following
immediately after death, the soul appears before the judgment seat of
Christ: “It is appointed unto a man once to die, and then the judgment”
(Heb. 9:27). This judgment involves the burning away of all “wood, hay,
and straw” and the refining of all “gold, silver and precious stones” (1 Cor.
3:13ff.). All this takes place before the soul enters heaven. All souls that
undergo purgatory are destined ultimately for heaven.
The Church does not formally teach that purgatory is a particular region in
the afterlife. We are unsure as to how space operates in the next world, in
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