Purgatory

==== The purgatory of Catholic doctrine ====
At the [[Second_Council_of_Lyon#Purgatory|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.

The council declared:
{{Quote| [I]f 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 purgatorical or purifying punishments, … 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.<ref>[http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dw0.htm [Denzinger] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190411220700/http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dw0.htm |date=2019-04-11 }} 856; original text in Latin: [http://catho.org/9.php?d=bxx#bqn "Quod si vere paenitentes ..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224111826/http://catho.org/9.php?d=bxx#bqn |date=2021-02-24 }}</ref>|author=|title=|source=}}

A century and a half later, the Council of Florence repeated the same two points in practically the same words,<ref>[http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dw2.htm Denzinger] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190108175510/http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dw2.htm |date=2019-01-08 }} 1304]; original text in Latin: [http://catho.org/9.php?d=bx0#b1o "Item, si vere paenitentes ..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018055446/http://catho.org/9.php?d=bx0#b1o |date=2007-10-18 }}</ref> 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.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/patrologiaorient15pariuoft/page/40 "First speech by Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, on the purifying fire" in ''Patrologia Orientalis'', vol. 15, pp. 40–41]</ref>

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:
{{Quote|Let the more difficult and subtle "questions", however, and those which do not make for "edification" (cf. 1Tm 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.<ref>[http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dxd.htm Denzinger] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181203155452/http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/dxd.htm |date=2018-12-03 }} 1820; original text in Latin: [http://catho.org/9.php?d=bx5#chf "Cum catholica Ecclesia, Spiritu Sancto edocta, ..."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315081325/http://www.catho.org/9.php?d=bx5#chf |date=2016-03-15 }}</ref>}}

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:<ref>''Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church'', [https://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html#I%20Believe%20in%20the%20Holy%20Spirit 210–211] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304060600/http://www.vatican.va/archive/compendium_ccc/documents/archive_2005_compendium-ccc_en.html#I%20Believe%20in%20the%20Holy%20Spirit |date=2020-03-04 }}</ref>
{{quotation|'''210. What is purgatory?'''
: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.

'''211. How can we help the souls being purified in purgatory?'''
: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.
}}

These two questions and answers summarize information in sections 1030–1032<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2N.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030–1032 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2020-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301083621/http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2N.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref> and 1054<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2R.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Churchm 1054 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2020-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301083641/http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2R.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref> of the ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'', published in 1992, which also speaks of purgatory in sections 1472−1473.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1472−1473 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2013-03-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130306113329/https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref>

===== 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,<ref>[http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a9p5.htm#958 Catechism of the Catholic Church 958]</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a12.htm#1032 Catechism of the Catholic Church 1032]</ref>

===== 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 [[beatific vision|joy of God]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2R.HTM |title=CCC 1054 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2020-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301083641/http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2R.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref>

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."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1855−1861 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2020-03-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301084835/http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref> Such sin "makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the 'eternal punishment' of sin".<ref name=CCC1472>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1472 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2013-03-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130306113329/https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Venial sin]], while not depriving the sinner of friendship with God or the eternal happiness of heaven,<ref name="CCC 1863">{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM|title=CCC 1863|access-date=2020-03-15|archive-date=2020-03-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301084835/http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6C.HTM|url-status=live}}</ref> "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",<ref name="CCC 1863"/> 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".<ref name=CCC1472/>

{{quote| "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. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain."<ref name="CCC1472"/>}}

[[Joseph Ratzinger]] has 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".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AfomsX5KtYkC&q=supra-worldly+concentration&pg=PA230 |author=Joseph Ratzinger |title=Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life |publisher=CUA Press |year=2007 |page=230|isbn=9780813215167 }}</ref>

This purification from our 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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=5bOBVYHxXrEC&dq=Mulder+unhealthy+attachment&pg=PA182 Jack Mulder, ''Kierkegaard and the Catholic Tradition: Conflict and Dialogue'' (Indiana University Press 2010] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150514165837/https://books.google.com/books?id=5bOBVYHxXrEC&pg=PA182&dq=Mulder+unhealthy+attachment&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LM6KVLbWBsS17ga1n4DwAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Mulder%20unhealthy%20attachment&f=false |date=2015-05-14 }} {{ISBN|978-0-25335536-2}}), pp. 182–183</ref> 

A person seeking purification from sinful tendencies is not alone. Because of 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".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1475 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2013-03-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130306113329/https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref> 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".<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |title=Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1478 |access-date=2020-03-15 |archive-date=2013-03-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130306113329/https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM |url-status=live }}</ref>

=====St Catherine of Genoa=====
On the cusp of the Reformation, St [[Catherine of Genoa]] (1447–1510) re-framed the theology of purgatory as voluntary, loving and even joyful: {{quote| "As for paradise, God has placed no doors there. Whoever wishes to enter, does so. An all-merciful God stands there with His arms open, waiting to receive us into His glory. I also see, however, that the divine presence is so pure and light-filled – much more than we can imagine – that the soul that has but the slightest imperfection would rather throw itself into a thousand hells than appear thus before the divine presence."<ref>Quoted in [https://books.google.com/books?id=oPuESCWr9RcC&dq=Groeschel+purgatory&pg=PT36 Benedict J. Groeschel, ''A Still, Small Voice'' (Ignatius Press 1993] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150514165213/https://books.google.com/books?id=oPuESCWr9RcC&pg=PT36&dq=Groeschel+purgatory&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ptOKVJSQFMar7AabgoHQAw&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Groeschel%20purgatory&f=false |date=2015-05-14 }} {{ISBN|978-0-89870436-5}}</ref>}}

So purgatory is a state of both joy and voluntary pain:

{{Blockquote|text=Again the soul perceives the grievousness of being held back from seeing the divine light; the soul’s instinct too, being drawn by that uniting look, craves to be unhindered”|source=''Treatise on Purgatory'', Chapter 9}}

[[Pope Benedict XVI]] recommended to theologians the presentation of purgatory by Catherine of Genoa, for whom purgatory is not an external but an inner fire: 
{{quote|"In her day it was depicted mainly using images linked to space: a certain space was conceived of in which Purgatory was supposed to be located. Catherine, however, did not see purgatory as a scene in the bowels of the earth: for her it is not an exterior but rather an interior fire. This is purgatory: an inner fire."<ref name="benedictxvi">[https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110112.html Saint Catherine of Genoa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309191119/http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110112.html |date=2021-03-09 }}. Benedict XVI General Audience, January 12, 2011, accessed May 15, 2018</ref>}}

He further said that:
{{quote|"'The soul', Catherine says, 'presents itself to God still bound to the desires and suffering that derive from sin and this makes it impossible for it to enjoy the beatific vision of God'.…The soul is aware of the immense love and perfect justice of God and consequently suffers for having failed to respond in a correct and perfect way to this love; and love for God itself becomes a flame, love itself cleanses it from the residue of sin."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110112.html |title=Pope Benedict XVI, General Audience of 12 January 2011 |access-date=15 January 2021 |archive-date=9 March 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210309191119/http://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2011/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20110112.html |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

In his 2007 encyclical ''Spe salvi'', Pope Benedict XVI, referring to the words of [[Paul the Apostle]] in {{bibleverse|1|Corinthians|3:12–15|ESV}} about a fire that both burns and saves, spoke of the opinion that "the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away.<ref name= ESs/>

{{quote|This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation 'as through fire'. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God.<ref name= ESs/><br /> 
The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy.<ref name= ESs/>}}

=====Duration=====
In his 2007 encyclical ''Spe salvi'', Pope Benedict XVI teaches:<ref name= ESs/>

{{quote| It is clear that we cannot calculate the 'duration' of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming 'moment' of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning – it is the heart's time, it is the time of 'passage' to communion with God in the Body of Christ."<ref name= ESs>[https://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html Encyclical ''Spe salvi''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150129201409/http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html |date=2015-01-29 }}, 46–47].</ref>}}

=====Eastern Catholics=====
The popular conceptions of Purgatory that, especially in late medieval times, were common among Catholics of the [[Latin Church]] have not necessarily found acceptance in the [[Eastern Catholic Churches]], of which there are 23 in [[full communion]] with the Pope. Some have explicitly rejected the notions of punishment by fire in a particular place that are prominent in the popular picture of Purgatory.{{cn|date=August 2023}} 

The representatives of the Eastern Orthodox Church at the [[Council of Florence]] (1431-1449) argued against these notions, while declaring that they do hold that there is a cleansing after death of the souls of the saved and that these are assisted by the prayers of the living: 

{{quote|"If souls depart from this life in faith and charity but marked with some defilements, whether unrepented minor ones or major ones repented of but without having yet borne the fruits of repentance, we believe that within reason they are purified of those faults, but not by some purifying fire and particular punishments in some place."<ref>[https://archive.org/details/patrologiaorient15pariuoft/page/40 "First Speech by Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus, on Purifying Fire" in ''Patrologia Orientalis'', vol. 15, pp. 40–41]</ref> }}

The definition of purgatory adopted by that council excluded the two notions with which the Orthodox disagreed and mentioned only the two points that, they said, were part of their faith also. Accordingly, the agreement, known as the [[Union of Brest]], that formalized the admission of the [[Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church]] into the full [[communion (Christian)|communion]] of the Roman Catholic Church stated: "We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1595brest.html|title=Treaty of Brest, Article 5|access-date=2007-12-26|archive-date=2007-08-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070830222705/http://www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/MOD/1595brest.html|url-status=live}}</ref>