Actividades y recursos

approximately sixty years after the Society of the Helpers of the Holy Souls changed its name to the Society of Helpers, Catholics Mike Humphrey and Brian Bagley started an Internet apostolate devoted to spreading information about purgatory, which, they state on their website, has been “overlooked for way too long.”1 _{They chose to name their aposto-}

late after the Society of Helpers, but they reinstated the old name and refer- ence to the holy souls, so they are officially called The Helpers of the Holy Souls. On their website they feature a picture and short history of the founder of the religious order, Eugenie Smet, Sister Mary of Providence (1825–1871). (See fig. 5-1.) The average visitor count to their website in 2012 was 14,300 visitors per month, which has increased at an astonishing rate. Between January 2013 and March 2013, visitors to their site grew by 20,000.2 _{Mike and Brian’s effort to bring attention to purgatory and to}

devotions to the holy souls is typical of a small group of Catholics who are not affiliated with religious orders. The purgatory apostolates, most of which contain the approbation of bishops, take the form of publications and websites. A lay apostolate is a ministry organized by the laity in con- formity with the magisterium of the Church, intended to facilitate a spe- cific goal, such as alleviating hunger, ministering to the poor, or educating about a doctrine or devotion. Purgatory apostolates are created with the goals of educating Catholics about the doctrine of purgatory and creating prayer groups to alleviate the suffering of souls in purgatory. The websites feature old books about purgatory and devotions to the holy souls, pub- lished between 1400 and 1920. With an occasional rare exception, they do not publish new revelations about purgatory. The publications about pur- gatory, some of which are best sellers, contain copious anecdotes from medieval, early modern, and nineteenth-century purgatory narratives. They

focus on visits from souls who are tortured by fire and other forms of ma- terial punishments. By and large, they do not feature the abstract, Faberian version of purgatory as a condition or state of loss.

The apostolate movement spans the political spectrum from progres- sive to conservative; the leaders of the apostolates, as well as those who visit the websites and buy books and pamphlets about purgatory, are young, middle-age, and old. Through interviews, online surveys, and discussions, a picture emerges that illustrates that this small-scale movement is part of a larger context that includes reactions to the changes consequent to the Second Vatican Council. Although many of the leaders of the movement emphatically align themselves with the magisterium of the Church and the decisions of its hierarchy, they voice an implicit, and often explicit, criticism of Vatican II. As one purgatory apostolate editor said, “They didn’t mean to, but when the changes [of Vatican II] happened they changed people’s understanding of what happens after you die. Now people just think that you either go to heaven or hell. Well, it doesn’t happen that way. Plus, now all the souls in purgatory have been completely forgotten. I know they didn’t mean that to happen, but it happened.”3 _{This man was seven}

years old during the Second Vatican Council. On the popular website About.com, Catholicism expert Scott P. Richert notes that “indeed, many Catholics believe that Purgatory was tossed out with Vatican II, and since no one wants to believe that someone he knows has gone to Hell, we naturally

figure 5-1 Helpers of the Holy Souls Website Mission, accessed January 24,

tend to think that everyone who dies goes straight to Heaven.”4 _Regarding

the association of Vatican II with a loss of knowledge about purgatory, historians of Catholic history appear to agree with the assessments of the laity. Charles R. Morris notes that “after Vatican II, notions of Hell, damna- tion, and mortal sin, almost overnight, virtually disappeared from the American Church—another example of ‘spirit of the council’ prevailing over the texts.”5

Scratching the surface of the criticisms reveals dissatisfaction not only with the Church’s silence about purgatory but also the ways in which the contem porary Church, in its rare instances where leaders do speak of the doctrine, utilize what one practitioner called “watered down language.”6

Citing the dearth of contemporary works about purgatory, editors and apos- tolate leaders say that referencing old works and making them available on their websites is necessary in order to educate Catholics about purgatory and to keep the prayers alive for the souls languishing there. As one editor said, “There are no more classics of purgatory. That’s why we put the old books up on our site. In order for people to know about purgatory, they need to read these books. How else will they know about it?”7 _{The choice}

of old books placed on the websites and available as “classics of purgatory” is revealing. The physicality of purgatory is thematic in all of the publica- tions of the apostolates. One cleric, writing about contemporary views about purgatory, suggested that the lack of discussion among Church lead- ers about purgatory as a physical place is a form of denial that it exists.8

The leadership of the Church is not the only institutional body that is silent regarding purgatory. Within the last twenty years there have been important sociological studies of American Catholics.9 _{None of these stud-}

ies references purgatory or its associated devotions. Guillaume Cuchet’s important historical work The Twilight of Purgatory provides evidence that the devotion declined in France demonstrably after the First World War. A review of Catholic popular periodicals suggests that this is the also the case in the United States, as narratives about purgatory are sparse or non- existent in most of the fiction in Catholic periodicals between 1930 and 1950.10 _{After the Second Vatican Council, the decline in devotions associ-}

ated with purgatory is noticeable in several ways. The material support for devotions to the holy souls was removed from worship services. Statues of saints were removed from churches and elements of the former Roman Rite, including many within the Requiem Mass (the Mass for the Dead), were changed completely and forbidden in most instances. In the old Requiem Mass the catafalque, which is the structure that supports a coffin

and serves as the visible sign of the invisible presence of the deceased, was removed from the liturgy. Traditional hymns were removed also, such as the “Dies Irae” (Day of Wrath), which was a medieval Latin hymn about the Day of Judgment. Finally, as is the case with Sister Mary mentioned in the introduction, interviews with Catholics, lay and religious, reveals that most Catholics today have little knowledge about purgatory.

This chapter explores the efforts of editors and publishers of purgatory apostolates to recover and spread knowledge about purgatory and to create “prayer” groups, online and within churches, to alleviate the suffering of souls in purgatory. Through interviews with the leaders of the apostolates and the authors of contemporary books about purgatory, as well as through an exploration of the published content of the authors and web-aposto- lates, I will explore the motivations that inspire this work. At issue are feelings of loss and nostalgia, and most significantly the desire to establish a church-approved connection to the supernatural that apostolate minis- ters feel was lost during the years after the Second Vatican Council.

Contemporary spokespersons of purgatory reveal shared motives and hopes, the most significant of which is their desire to embrace the empir- ical aspects of purgatory, which is forcefully asserted in the discussions and stories they choose to pass on. Why focus on purgatory as a physical place, especially as, historically, the “real fire” of purgatory and its status as a location has become associated with superstition and has become rele- gated to the periphery of official discourse? Purgatory narratives of mate- riality are important in that they provide practitioners with what they perceive to be the means to access the supernatural and knowledge of the otherworld. The physical status of purgatory, for these Catholics and their audience, lends credence to its reality, but more important, the stories and anecdotes about souls visiting from purgatory and about the visits of saints to the otherworld provide a geography, spiritual map, and a lexicon of the otherworld. Time and again the stories are accompanied by refer- ences to imprimaturs (albeit from pre-Vatican II eras) and other forms of authority, thus assuring contemporary Catholics that their curiosity and desire to know about the otherworld is sanctioned, if not by contemporary society or the Church, at least by Church tradition.