“The dead in general, according to our teaching, pass immediately to purgatory, which is, as the name indicates, a place of purgation from sin, a place of penances, sorrows, woes, anguish indeed, but not hopeless. The period of confinement here may be centuries or thousands of years, according to the deserts of the individual and the alleviations granted. If you would know more particularly the Catholic teaching on this subject, we refer you to the writings of one of our great Catholics, the noted poet Dante, a loyal Catholic, at one time an abbot, who died in a monastery with the full rites of the church. Dante’s poem, “Inferno,” graphically describes the tortures of purgatory, as we understand the matter. You can procure at almost any library an illustrated copy of this great Catholic poem. Dore, the artist, was also a prominent Catholic and he portrayed Dante’s poem vividly and truthfully. The illustrations show the torments of purgatory vividly — how the demons chase some until they leap over precipices into boiling water. They ply others with fiery darts. Others are burned with heads downward; others with feet downward in pits. Some are bitten by serpents. Still others are frozen.

We advise that you see Dante’s work, “Inferno,” because it gives our Catholic view of the proper answer to your question, Where are the dead? The vast majority are in purgatory. The billions of the heathen are there; because ignorance does not save, does not qualify for the heavenly condition. All who enter heaven must previously have been fitted and prepared in a manner impossible to the heathen. Millions of Protestants are there. They could not enter heaven, except through the portals of the Catholic church; neither would God deem them worthy of eternal hell, because their rejection of Catholicism was due to the confession of faith under which they were born and environed. Nearly all Catholics go to purgatory also, because, notwithstanding the good offices of our church, our holy water, confessions, masses, holy candles, and consecrated burying ground, nevertheless, not having attained to saintship of character, they would be excluded from heaven until the distressing experiences of purgatory would prepare their hearts for heaven. We hold, however, that for the reason stated, Catholics will not need to remain as long in purgatory as will the Protestants and the heathen.”

We can thank our Catholic friends for so kind a statement of their case. We will not ask them where their purgatory is, nor how they obtain the details of information respecting it, because such questions might offend them, and we have no desire to offend. We merely wish for their ripest, clearest, maturest thought respecting our question. We regret to say that the answer is not all that we might have hoped for in clearness and reasonableness and scripturalness. Our hearts are heavy with the thought that our poor race, by reason of original sin, is already, as the apostle says, a “groaning creation,” and the present life of a few years is full of trouble. It is saddening, discouraging to all of us, to think that when present trials and difficulties are past, of being obliged, even for centuries (not to mention eternity), to have such awful experiences as Dante portrays, even though those centuries of anguish would purge us and fit us for the Divine presence of heavenly glory. It may seem strange to some theologians, but it is nevertheless true, that the answer of Catholicism to our question is not much better than the answer of heathendom. Neither our heads nor our hearts are yet satisfied. It cannot be wrong to look further for something more satisfactory.