Paradise in Purgatory

The claim of this book is that it is a precondition for heaven that victims experience an eschatological healing of their other-inflicted wounds. Nathan W. O’Halloran, SJ, argues that the best theological space in which to locate this eschatological healing is in what he terms paradise-in-purgatory. The doctrine of purgatory developed as a postmortem theological category for addressing sins committed after baptism and for which adequate penance has not been completed before death. In its full doctrinal articulations at Lyons II, Florence, and Trent, purgatory is a doctrine concerned with personal, self-inflicted sin. Victims, on the other hand, require healing from other-inflicted sin rather than self-inflicted sin. For this reason, a certain expansion of this Catholic doctrine is required to make theological space for victims.

O’Halloran argues that he has found that theological space within the Church’s ample tradition. The wellspring from which the doctrine of purgatory emerged contains a richer content than has been represented thus far by conciliar definitions. Paradise in Purgatory maintains that the soteriological logic out of which purgatory developed can be extended also to the postmortem healing of victims, and the soteriological logic of the New Testament supports this conclusion. Using as fundamental touchstones the wiping away of victims’ tears in the Book of Revelation, and the healing of Dinocrates through the prayers of his sister Perpetua in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicity, O’Halloran argues that victims must have an opportunity to experience full postmortem salvation from other-inflicted sin. The volume concludes that purgatory can be theologically expanded to include a paradise-in-purgatory, i.e., a process that heals the other-inflicted wounds of sin which victims carry with them through death. The wounds of victims cannot be eschatologically discarded but must be subjected to the healing salvation which Christ came to offer.