The story is told of a little Protestant girl who was asked to define Purgatory. "It is the place," she innocently said, "to which Roman Catholics go when they die." Yet there are many good Protestants who now believe that they themselves are likely to enter there, and piously hope that nothing worse may finally befall them. Indeed there has been a remarkable approach on the part of the Protestant world towards the Catholic doctrine on this subject. The greatest impulse in that direction, in the history of Protestantism, was given by the World War. Not without cause the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Michigan, the Rt. Rev. Charles D. Williams, wrote at that time:
Thousands of young lives, in the very dawn of their promise, are passing daily, suddenly, unprepared, to the unseen. The world that looks on at that spectacle must renew its faith in immortality or go mad. People are following their dead into the unknown with their hearts. Even in extreme Protestant churches and families prayers for the dead are being offered.
Yet such prayers are a complete rejection of the original position taken by the Reformers. According to their doctrine, the dead either had "faith" at the last moment, and so were saved: or they had none, and so were lost. Neither good nor bad works were to be taken into account in that view of God's judgment.
Such prayers, too, are a practical rejection of the new position which more recent Protestant theologians assume. Admitting an "intermediate state," they feel compelled by their principles to deny the idea of any expiation to be made there, and hence describe it as "a realm of progressive development," where the soul is supposed to perfect itself after death, and lay aside its imperfections. But prayers for the dead, in the minds of those who offer them, naturally imply at least a confused notion of a true pugatorial state, of an expiation still to be rendered to the justice of God by souls who are not counted among the eternally lost, and of a belief in His infinite mercy which permits these prayers of the living to be applied to the welfare of their dear departed.
Many admit, in word as well as in practice, the full Catholic doctrine of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. They acknowledge that for the souls of the just there may yet be need of a temporary purification until all the punishment due to sin has been completely paid. Neither do they hesitate bravely to affirm their clear conviction, like the "Poet-Preacher" of Scotland, when in the hour of his own great mourning he exclaimed:
Shall God be wroth because we love them still,
And call upon His love to shield from ill
Our dearest, best;
And bring them home, and recompense their pain,
And cleanse their sin, if any sin remain,
And give them rest?
As regards the forgiveness of these venial sins of the just, such as the Protestant poet evidently had in mind here, it is the opinion of Saint Thomas and of Suarez that their guilt is forgiven at once after death. The soul, they argue, then so clearly knows God to be its supreme and only good, that it completely turns away from all sin - an act which suffices to efface all the guilt of sin. But the penalty to be paid still remains. Since, however, the soul can no longer merit now, it is not able to lessen its purgatorial punishment and hasten its release by any efforts of its own. Hence the need of our prayers and offerings that God may accept them for its relief, a need which the Church has always recognized, and which the Protestant world so widely acknowledged when shell and bayonet drove home so many a vital truth, in spite of all the ruin wrought by them and the havoc done to body and soul.
Thus men realized that the Catholic doctrine concerning Pugatory was after all not "a fond thing, vainly invented," as the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Anglican Church had declared it to be. So staunch a Protestant divine as the Rev. J. D. Jones, in his book, "The Great Hereafter," readily admitted that "there was a real truth in this doctrine which had been held by the Church for centuries." That this truth was, furthermore, never mingled with error in the Church's teaching we shall readily be able to show.
We referred to the new impulse given to prayers for the dead by the Word War. Yet its effects, we must state at once, were clearly twofold, so far as belief in a future life was concerned.
Some in the great distraction of their grief so far, indeed, lost control of discretion and their right reason as blindly to cast themselves into the arms of a delusive Spiritism. Spurning the Divine admonitions, and willfully exposing themselves to deception, they returned to the superstitious practices of pagan nations and the supposed intercourse with the dead. This in the past had simply been known as necromancy, and had already been severely condemned in the Old Testament: "Neither let there be found among you any," Almighty God had commanded His chosen people, "that seeketh the truth from the dead."
They were repeating the sin of Saul in consulting the witch of Endor, and what wonder if many have been stricken like him with the punishment of God. Sane reflection should at once have made clear to them that God would not permit the souls of the departed to be brought back from the realms of His eternal justice in answer to such unhallowed summoning. If, therefore, beyond all the notorious trickery, the fraud and self-deception of modern seances, any spirits really respond through the intervention of a venal medium, it is clear that we may regard them as spirits of evil assuming the forms of departed friends, or replying in their stead to the blinded questioner. There has never been an instance where the identity of the spirit that spoke could be proved. Knowledge that had been possessed by the deceased could readily have also been attained by the spirits that seek the destruction of souls.
When the soul of Samuel really appeared to Saul, as many of the holy Fathers hold, it was not in answer to the summons of the witch, or medium, as now we should call her, but as sent by the offended majesty of God for the punishment of the rash inquirer and to predict the evils that should come upon him. "And forthwith Saul fell all along on the ground, for he was frightened with the words of Samuel." Seances where supposed converse is sought with the dead, are rightly, therefore, forbidden, under censure, by the Church.
Others there were to whom the war opened up a surer, clearer vision. They again perceived in all its beauty the sweet reasonableness of the Catholic teaching regarding the Faithful departed, which the Church had held from the beginning. In common with their Catholic brethren they now realized the need of a term of purgation, of spiritual purification wrought by the justice of God in the souls not deserving to be rejected eternally, and yet not pure enough to be admitted instantly to the vision of the All-Holy. There might still, at least, be temporal punishment remaining for forgiven sins, as the Scripture teaches, and as we shall later sufficiently explain. Hence there was clearly to be a full expiation now and a perfect cleansing of all stains before the soul could enter the celestial Jerusalem of which the Bible tells us: "There shall not enter into it any thing defiled." (Apocalypse 20:27)
Who can fail to see, moreover, how sweetly the profoundest yearnings of our human hearts are answered in this Divine dispensation? What holier consolation for husband or wife, for parent or child, than to know that their prayers can span the gulf between life and death, and reach out with gentlest aid and pity to the beloved dead? They have passed indeed beyond the sphere of our poor material ministrations, but we can now comfort them more mightily by our intercession at the throne of God.
What wonder then that men have realized anew the truth and consolation contained in that Catholic doctrine, so Divinely satisfying to human mind and heart, because the expression itself of Divine love! What wonder that they should have disregarded the false fears injected into their souls by baseless traditions, coming down to them from days of religious darkness, and have lifted their voices in humble prayer for their beloved dead!
A fuller light is breaking. "It may be permitted to a sturdy Protestant to say," writes the Rev. J. D. Jones, "that when our fathers in their revolt against the abuses of Purgatory swept away the very idea of a probationary life, they went too far."
The abuses to which he refers are presumably those said to have been connected with the granting of indulgences. This matter has been greatly misunderstood, and such abuses as at times occurred on the part of individuals have been grossly exaggerated and are in no way connected with the doctrine of the Church, which has always remained inviolate. Indulgences never, of course, implied any pardon for sins to be committed, while they left equally untouched the necessity of confession, as of true sorrow for past sins and a sincere purpose of amendment, together with the determination to right, as far as possible, whatever harm was done.
The value and efficacy of indulgences consist in the fact that they are an application of the superabundant merits and satisfactions of Christ and His Saints, officially made by the Church, in virtue of the administrative capacity conferred upon her by her Divine Founder. The entire doctrine harmonizes with that of the Communion of the Saints, which links the living upon earth with the Blessed in Heaven and with the Souls in Purgatory. Thus the abundance of Christ and His Saints can be applied to our own wants and that of the souls in suffering, since all are members of one mystic body, whose Head is Christ. Yet the application of these merits and satisfactions to remove certain temporal punishments from us or from such souls as are now in Purgatory, supposes the performance of some pious action prescribed by the Church, such as the giving of alms or the recitation of prayers. In gaining the special indulgences granted by the Church the Faithful moreover prepare themselves by confession and the greatest sorrow for their sins. Hence indulgences can, of their nature, only aid to promote a profoundly Christian life in those who seek to gain them.
Yet it may be well to give at least a glance at the "abuses" said to have existed in the matter of indulgences just before the Reformation. Abuses, we know, may occur in regard to the administration of even the holiest offices and in the most sacred things. Some such abuses doubtlessly did occur at the time mentioned, but they were greatly exaggerated in the heat of the religious controversy, which, unfortunately still blinds the eyes of many. The accusations against Tetzel in particular, as Father Hull says, have been mainly accounted for either by the unscrupulous controversial methods of the first Reformers, who were quite ready to take up scandalous stories that had been freely invented, or else by the unfair interpretation laid upon rhetorical statements such as might be made by over-zealous preachers. Careful historians find no difficulty in this matter.
The meaning of indulgences was quite as clear in theology then as it is now. The official program for the preaching of indulgence reflected this theology quite accurately. The Faithful were strictly required to make a contrite confession of all their past sins, and obtain valid absolution for them, and thus to be in a state of forgiveness, before the indulgence could be of any value to them. All this is clearly proved from contemporary - documents, and may be considered a settled fact in history. If ignorant people, in spite of the prescribed instructions, did draw from indulgences any bad effect, this could only take the form of diminishing in their minds the fear of Purgatory, seeing that its punishments could be avoided by the use of indulgences. It never could take the form of believing that indulgences gave a license to sin - an idea which is altogether foreign to the whole Catholic teaching on the subject.
If diminishing the fear of Purgatory is the only possible harm that even the most ignorant can possibly draw from indulgences, as in fact is the case, then Protestantism has sinned most signally in completely abolishing the fear of Purgatory in whose existence all the ages of Christianity had believed, as the Church believes in it today and Protestants themselves have fast begun to believe anew. The question of alms-giving, perplexingly connected in the Protestant mind with the indulgences granted at the time of the Reformation, is thus luminously explained by the same writer:
Protestants must recognize that alms-giving, not only to the poor but also to pious objects, is a virtuous act pleasing to God. Now the building of Saint Peter's was in those days considered to be a very pious act for the glory of religion; and it was for this purpose that the Popes bethought themselves of a universal collection from the Faithful. Knowing that the self-sacrifice and charity and piety of contributing to such a devout work was pleasing to God, and productive of favors and rewards from God, they embodied the idea of spiritual reward in the form of a remission of the purgatorial punishment "to all who having confessed their sins contritely and received absolution followed by Holy Communion," would make a certain contribution.
This remission of purgatorial punishment did not, of course, extend to any punishment that would be due to future sins, as some Protestants still seem to imagine, and least of all was it a "condonation of sin" obtainable by money. Such condonation was obtainable only, then as now. "by confession with contrition and purpose of amendment, followed by absolution from the sins thus confessed and repented of."
Perhaps the use of the word "probationary," by the Rev. Mr. Jones, in connection with the mention of Purgatory has been noticed by the reader in the quotation made at the very beginning of our short treatment of the question of indulgences. This use is characteristically Protestant, yet very inaccurate, since our time of trial is strictly limited to the present life. It is doubtless meant to avoid the doctrine of a real expiation that is still exacted by Divine Justice, a doctrine such as, we shall see, the Church has insisted upon from the beginning. For with the moment of death has come "the night in which no man can labor." Yet we realize how completely the old Protestant position has been relinquished when even this recognized Protestant writer could say without any fear of challenge: "And now that the fierceness of controversy has died down, Protestant theologians are returning to a belief in a probationary life after this one."
Indeed it is now common among modern Protestant theologians to admit the existence of what has already been referred to here as an "intermediate state"; but in defining its nature they differ widely from one another. Each theologian may in fact be said to offer his own distinct view of it. "Watson's 'Theology' among the Methodists, describes one kind of 'middle world'; Hodge's 'System of Theology,' among the Presbyterians, has another." Says a writer in the Missionary. "Pendleton, who teaches Southern Baptists, gives still another; while Robinson and Strong, who inculcate doctrine to Northern Baptists, express a still different view. The Seventh Day Adventists believe that the dead repose in a sound slumber until the day of judgment; then we have the Unitarian, the Mormon, the Christian Science view, and many others." Such confusion is characteristic of Protestant Christianity, and shows that it cannot hold the key to the problems of life. Truth is one, and one only.
Yet the impulse by which Protestants pray for their dead is based upon none of these doctrines; but it is logically derived from a concept approaching far more closely to the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory and often is almost perfectly identified with it. Among non-Catholic authors few, if any, have better stated the transition toward the Catholic point of view now taking place in the Protestant heart, and more slowly in the Protestant mind, than W. Mallock. In the eleventh chapter of his book, "Is Life Worth Living?" the following striking passage occurs:
As to this doctrine of Purgatory - which has so long been a stumbling block to the whole Protestant world - time goes on, and the view men take of it is changing. It is becoming fast recognized on all sides that it is the only doctrine that can bring a belief in future rewards and punishments into anything like accordance with our notions of what is just and reasonable. So far from its being a superfluous superstition, it is seen to be just what is demanded at once by reason and morality, and a belief in it to be not only an intellectual assent, but a partial harmonizing of the whole moral ideal.
Thus in legislating against the doctrine of Purgatory, and therefore against prayers for the dead, as "a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture," the Reformers were not merely far from the truth; and equally far from what Mallock rightly says is just and reasonable, and demanded for "a partial harmonizing of the whole moral ideal;" but they made themselves responsible for what another non-Catholic writer describes as one of the greatest cruelties inflicted on mankind. Indeed it is important to seek to understand in its fullness all that is implied in this accusation. The reason on whch it is based was thus eloquently stated by an editorial writer in the Protestant Episcopal organ, the Living Church:
When Protestantism shut down on praying for the dead, it was guilty of a cruelty to bereaved mourners that is simply monstrous. And we see the result of centuries of that teaching in the blank despair that so often characterizes the Protestant funeral. To lay the widow on the funeral pyre of that husband who has been all the world to her for a long term of years, is hardly more cruel than to tell her that now, when he is torn from her immediate, visible presence, she must cease those prayers that day by day she has offered for him during all those years; that she may some day join him in an unknown life above, but that in the meantime she can have no relationship with him, must not even pray for him. What wonder that spiritualism made good inroads among people who were taught that doctrine of despair?
We shall be pardoned for quoting here, in contrast with this picture, those well-known lines of Tennyson which repetition can never stale. They are written out of the very heart of Catholicism in its loving consideration for both the living and the dead:
I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within Himself make pure; but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,
Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round world is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
- taken from the book The Souls in Purgatory, by Father Joseph Husslein, S.J.