Trick or Treating

The Doctrine of Purgatory  

A doctrine (say it: DOCK-trin) is a formally stated belief of a church or religion that all followers must or should believe.

The Roman Catholic Church’s doctrine of Purgatory (a place or state where souls are cleaned before going to Heaven) was defined at three big meetings called councils: the Council of Lyon (1274 CE/AD), Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–45 CE/AD), and Council of Trent (1545–63 CE/AD).

In these meetings, they used scripture from a book called 2 Maccabees 12:42–45. This book is part of the Catholic Bible's apocrypha (say it: uh-POCK-ruh-fuh; special books that Protestants and Jews do not recognize or include in their Bibles). It suggested that prayers and alms (money or food given to the poor) for people who had already died could help redeem (save) them, even if they had not been fully forgiven before they died.

Protestants (Christians who broke away from the Catholic Church) thought this idea was completely wrong. They believed that only an individual’s faith in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and God’s grace (God’s free gift of love and forgiveness) could save anyone—that one could be saved through faith alone in God's grace, and no amount of prayer or good works could earn one heaven.

This single difference of opinion was so serious that it eventually led to about 70 million Christians killing other Christians in the Spanish and Roman Inquisitions, European Wars on Religion, and European and American Witch Crazes. 

Doctrinal Differences that Created the Modern World  

Of course, these doctrinal differences (different church beliefs) led to many major events in Christian history. These include:

• The Protestant Reformation (when Christians broke away from the Catholic Church),

• The Catholic Counter-Reformation (when the Catholic Church tried to stop or respond to those changes),

• The Spanish, French, and Roman/Italian Inquisitions (church courts used to question or punish people accused of breaking church rules),

• The publication of the Malleus Maleficarum (say it: MAL-ee-us MAL-uh-FICK-uh-rum), also known as The Witch Hammer, a witch-hunting guidebook printed in 1487 CE/AD led to centuries of witch hunts, false accusations against church or neighborhood enemies, witch trials, and burnings at the stake across Europe.

All these conflicts helped spark the European Wars of Religion, where an estimated 70 million Christians (that's 10 times as many people perished in the genocide of the Hebrew people called the Holocaust during World War II!) perished at the hands of other Christians between the late 1400s (15th century CE/AD) and early 1700s (18th century).

Ironically, these violent events helped lead to ideas like freedom of conscience (freedom to believe what your heart says is right), freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. America’s founding fathers insisted on these freedoms in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

The people who wrote the U.S. Constitution (called the framers) wrote a lot about how these freedoms were necessary antecedents (say it: AN-teh-SEE-dents — things that must come first) for republican government (government where people choose leaders, and the people themselves govern indirectly by so doing), the rule of law, and even for freedom itself to exist. This happened during the Age of Political Revolutions, beginning with the American Revolution in the late 1700s through the 1800s and every new republican democracy copied these ideas as countries gained their independence and became ruled by democracy.

Back in the Catholic Church, the earlier church councils (official meetings of church leaders) said that Purgatory was also hinted at in the New Testament:

• In Matthew 12:31–32, Jesus talks about “forgiveness in this age and the age to come,”

• In 1 Peter 1:6–7, Peter speaks of a “trial of faith,”

• In 1 Corinthians 3:13–15, Paul describes a “cleansing fire.”

The Catholic Church used these scriptures to build the doctrine of the seven sacraments — special church rituals believed to help people reach Heaven. These are:

• Baptism

• Confirmation

• Communion

• Confession

• Anointing of the Sick (also called Last Rites)

• Marriage

• Holy Orders (service to the church)

According to the Church, receiving these sacraments puts a person in a state of grace (clean from sin), allowing the soul to go straight to Heaven without needing purification in Purgatory.

Martin Luther, the Catholic monk who began the Protestant Reformation, kept only three of these sacraments: confession, communion, and baptism. He rejected the idea of Purgatory.

This is also why Luther strongly objected to the sale of indulgences (paying money to reduce or remove the punishment for sins, either on Earth or in Purgatory). He felt this was wrong. He wrote his 95 Theses (say it: THEE-sees — 95 complaints or claims), including this problem, and posted them publicly.

That moment started the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation (and the aforementioned violent religious conflicts) — and led to later events like the Age of Reason (also called the Enlightenment) and the Scientific Revolution.

Ludovico Carracci  (1555–1619): An Angel Frees the Souls of Purgatory (1610) Credit: Wikimedia: Pinacoteca Vaticana Web Gallery

St. Odilo of Cluny Credit: Wikimedia:  Holy Abbot Odilo of Cluny covers dead bodies of two children

Soulers would sing songs as they went door to door 'guising to collect alms.  Here's one souling song's chorus (Credit: Roud 304 ; Ballad Index BGMG408 ; trad.):

“Soul! soul! for a soul-cake;

Pray, good mistress, for a soul-cake.

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Them who made us all.

Soul! soul! for an apple or two;

If you’ve got no apples, pears will do.

Up with your kettle, and down with your pan;

Give me a good big one, and I’ll be gone.

An apple or pear, a plum or a cherry,

Is a very good thing to make us merry."

Another chorus that was sung sings (Credit: John Brand in his “Popular Antiquities” (1777) taken directly from the lips of “the merry pack, who sing from door to door, on the eve of All – Soul’s Day, in Cheshire ”):

“Soul day, soul day, Saul

One for Peter, two for Paul,

Three for Him who made us all.

Put your hand in your pocket and pull out your keys,

Go down into the cellar, bring up what you please;

A glass of your wine, or a cup of your beer,

And we’ll never come souling till this time next year.

We are a pack of merry boys, all in a mind,

We are come a souling for what we can find,

Soul, soul, sole of my shoe,

If you have no apples, money will do;

Up with your kettle and down with your pan,

Give us an answer and let us be gone

An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing that will make us all merry.

Thus, Celtic Pagan (Samhain), Roman Pagan (Pomonalia), and Roman (Irish) Catholic traditions blended in the British Isles in All Hallowed Evening's souling and guising on Snap Apple or Nutcrack Night, which their immigrants to the New World would bring with them in the 1830s-1860s during the Irish potato famine (1845-1852) in which roughly 4-6 million Irish emigrated to the United States.