Examining the Church’s Concept of Purgatory

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:

All who die in God’s grace, but are still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death, they [must] undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

In the Bible, several verses are frequently used to support the existence of Purgatory.

In the Old Testament, specifically 2 Maccabees, Judas Maccabeus prays for his fallen comrades who had died in battle while wearing amulets dedicated to pagan idols (at the time, a very grave sin), and the prayers specifically mention that the comrades are to be “released” from their sin (12:39–46). However, he does not explicitly mention any concept of “Purgatory.”

Several verses from the New Testament are quoted in support of the idea that Purgatory exists as a physical place of penance for entering Heaven.

And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Mt. 12:32)

According to Jesus, there are certain types of sins that can be forgiven in the present life, while others may be forgiven in the afterlife, thereby implying that forgiveness after death is possible for certain sins that we commit. Such a concept fits with the belief that there exists a place, Purgatory, where sins are “purified” before a person can enter Heaven.

Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny. (Mt. 5:25–26)

Here, Jesus warns that if individuals do not seek forgiveness or reconciliation, they risk judgment and being placed in what is called a “prison.” For many Christians, this “prison” is likened to what is considered Purgatory—a place where the debts of sin must be “paid in full” before gaining “freedom.” Hence, this passage demonstrates that even if a person is forgiven, certain misgivings must still be ironed out before one is allowed to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Additionally, St. John points out in John 20:31 that the entire Scripture is written such “that believing, you may have [eternal] life in his name.” The Scripture must always be viewed in the context of our full realization of the divine life that awaits us in the world to come. Given this belief, our present life is presented “as a vapor which appears for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away” (Jas. 1:17).

Another passage that is used to support the existence of Purgatory is 1 Corinthians 3:11–5, which reads:

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has 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.

In this passage, Paul explains that every person’s life will certainly be tested by fire at the end. Indeed, some works may endure and bring rewards, while others may be “burned away,” thereby implying that being saved entails suffering by going “through fire.” Such a description matches our notion of Purgatory in which a person is purified of sin through suffering, thus entering Heaven in a purified state.

There is no mention of “the cleansing of sin” anywhere in the text; instead, only the testing of works is mentioned. However, as Aquinas points out, “works” or “merits” include rewards for our good deeds as well as punishment for our bad deeds. In connection to the idea of penance, undergoing the testing fire is not only a form of judgment but also a form of correction or penance—a process that removes impurities before our souls can fully enter God’s presence. In this regard, having to go through a cleansing or testing fire is consistent with a belief that we are ultimately saved by grace/faith. Specifically, our bad deeds that are “burned away” are our human faults or failures that must be removed. Thereafter, our good deeds that survive the fire bring us an everlasting reward. Hence, similar to the idea espoused in 1 Corinthians 3:11–5, being saved requires a process of purification (going through fire) after death, which takes placed in Purgatory.

The fact that the Bible does not prescribe exactly how or where Purgatory takes place, or even use the term, does not affect the validity of this belief. Purgatory is but one of many words in theology, such as the “Trinity,” the “Incarnation,” the “Pope” and the “holy mass,” that are used to describe concepts that are seen in/evident from the Bible. As we will see in our next article, the history of doctrine and dogma in the Catholic Church can teach us critical lessons about how the beliefs we hold today came to be.

The Path to the Establishment of the Current Notion of Purgatory

As shown earlier, several passages from the Bible allude to the  existence of “Purgatory.”  In this latest article, I will explain how such a doctrine came about in the context of the Catholic Church and its history. This essay will present highlights of the theological evolution of Purgatory—from its conceptualization in the early years, up to its formalization as a Catholic doctrine, thereby illustrating how the Church’s teachings on purification and the communion of saints have influenced our understanding of Purgatory as a “physical place.”

For Catholics, Purgatory is a “place of purification” for souls that are already destined for Heaven but require further processing, if you may, so that they can enter Heaven in an exalted state. This concept has significantly evolved over the centuries, beginning with early Christian theologians and culminating in formal Church doctrines. From St. Augustine of Hippo to Pope Gregory the Great to Peter the Lombard and to Jacques Le Goff—these historical figures have presented their notions of what Purgatory is. When the Catholic Church officially recognized the idea that Purgatory was a necessary step for some souls before reaching Heaven at the Second Council of Lyon in 1274, this cemented the doctrine that we know and understand to this very day.

St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430 AD) distinguished between the purifying fire that saves and the eternally consuming fire that punishes the unrepentant (Augustine, Book IV). Many years later, Pope Gregory the Great (540–604 AD) established a connection between earthly penance and purification in the afterlife (Moreira, 2023). Similarly, All Souls’ Day, established in the 10th century, drew widespread attention to the condition of departed souls. The idea of Purgatory as a physical place (like Heaven and Hell) became a theological opinion among some Roman Catholic theologians teaching in the late 11th century (Moreira, 2023).

Medievalist Jacques Le Goff defined the “birth of purgatory” (i.e., the conception of purgatory as a physical place, rather than merely as a state) as occurring between 1170 and 1200 AD (Moreira, 2023). Expounding on the teachings of St. Augustine, Goff also considered Peter the Lombard (1160 AD) and Pope Gregory the Great as significant contributors to the development of the concept of “purgatory” in the sense of a physical place.

What has been called the classic formulation of the doctrine of purgatory, namely, the means by which any unforgiven guilt of venial sins is expiated and punishment for any sins is endured, can be attributed mainly to St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1250 AD). According to St. Thomas Aquinas, and as supported by other scholastics later on, the souls of the dead in purgatory are at peace because they are assured of receiving the ultimate salvation (O’Brien, 2007).

At the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 AD, the Catholic Church defined, for the first time, its teaching on purgatory in two points:

First, some souls are purified after death.

Second, souls benefit from the prayers and pious duties that the living do for them.

As the Council had declared:

[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 purgatorial or purifying punishments, as Brother John has explained to us. 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. (Moreira, 2023)

As demonstrated above, several verses in the Bible make the point that the dead—especially those with uncleansed sins—do benefit from the prayers and good works of the living (e.g., 2 Macc. 12:39–46; 2 Tim. 1:18) and the Church has been given the authority by Jesus to bind and loose, forgive and retain sins in heaven and on earth (Mt. 16:19, Mt. 18:18). This is a natural consequence of the “communion of saints”, by which all members of the universal body of believers help each other through their prayers and good works, and the communion of saints includes people on earth, in heaven and on the way to heaven.

Early distinguished Church writers, such as Peter the Lombard (1096–1160 AD, Italian scholastic theologian, Bishop of Paris, and author of Four Books of Sentences which became the standard textbook of theology, for which he earned the accolade Magister Sententiarumalso), suggest a distinction between those who have died and are beyond any salvation, on the one hand, and those who benefited from the prayers of the living as part of their penance for entering Heaven, as well as their own acts of penance in Purgatory on the other (Lombard, 2007).

In summary, the notion of Purgatory being a physical place was first proposed in 1160 AD and later confirmed as part of the Catholic Church Doctrine in 1274 AD. Since the official recognition of this belief, the notion of Purgatory as a place where sins are expunged before admission into heaven has become part of the Catholic Church’s teachings and traditions. In all of these, we can ascertain that the development of the doctrine of Purgatory reflects not only a sort of theological evolution but also the changing needs of the faithful throughout the Church’s history. At present, Purgatory remains an essential element of Catholic teaching—one that symbolizes a transformative journey and purification of the soul towards ultimate salvation.

 *This article also appeared in The Catholic Exchange.