Purgatory: illustrated by the lives and legends of the saints/Preface
THE ENGLISH PREFACE
CANON XXX. SESSION VI. OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT
"If any one saith that after the grace of Justification has been received, to every penitent sinner the guilt is remitted, and the debt of eternal punishment is blotted out in such wise that there remains not any debt of temporal punishment to be discharged, either in this world, or in the next in Purgatory, before the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven can be opened to him — let him be anathema."
DECREE CONCERNING PURGATORY: COUNCIL OF TRENT: SESSION XXV.
"Whereas the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, from the Sacred Writings, and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, taught in Sacred Councils and very recently in this Ecumenical Synod, that there is a Purgatory and that the souls there detained are helped by the suffrages of the Faithful, but particularly by the acceptable Sacrifice of the Altar — the Holy Synod enjoins on Bishops that they diligently endeavour that the sound doctrine concerning Purgatory, transmitted by the Holy Fathers and Sacred Councils, be believed, maintained, taught, and everywhere proclaimed by the Faithful of Christ.
" But let the more difficult and subtle questions, which tend not to edification and from which for the most part there is no increase of piety, be excluded from popular discourses before the uneducated multitude. In like manner such things as are uncertain, or labour under an appearance of error, let them not allow to be made public and treated of. While those things which tend to a certain kind of curiosity or superstition, or which savour of filthy lucre, let them prohibit as scandals and stumbling-blocks of the Faithful.
" But let the Bishops take care that the suffrages of the Faithful, who are living, to wit, the Sacrifices of Masses, prayers, alms, and other works of piety, which have been wont to be performed by them for the Faithful Departed, be piously and devoutly performed in accordance with the institutes of the Church; and that whatsoever is due on their behalf, from the endowments of testators or in other way, be discharged, not in a perfunctory manner, but diligently and accurately, by the priests and ministers of the Church, and others who are bound to render this service."
Such is the definition of the Doctrine of Purgatory by the Holy Council of Trent. It is brief to a point that is eloquent in its brevity. A single page of Father Waterworth's translation of the Canons and Decrees suffices for it — less space than is devoted to such temporalities as, for instance, " What is lawful to Patrons," or the rule that " Cardinals and all Prelates shall be content with modest furniture and a frugal table." There is t a time to speak; but also a time to be silent; and what is not said, only less than what is said, goes to a right understanding of the definition. At the beginning of a Pontificate signalised by Pius X.'s appeal to teachers and preachers to bring their words into closer and closer conformity with the Decrees of the Council of Trent, we have no choice but to indite on the forefront of a treatise on Purgatory the very words of Definition the Church herself considered adequate, right, and reasonable.
Yet the existence of such a book as this must seem to some readers, and especially to readers of the literal races, a loud contravention of the Council's reticence — almost the reticence of Scripture itself. Indeed, the reverend author himself, in all his long pages on Purgatory, does not, one observes, find room for the words of the Council in their entirety; and we accept as deliberate his conspicuous omission of such words as those condemnatory of the canvassing of such things " as are uncertain or labour under an appearance of error." Strange, in truth, might seem the injunction to avoid what is " curious," if found embedded in a scrap-book of legends, of folklore, of hearsay episodes in relation to that state of expiation, about which the Council is so discreet, and which the great Cardinal Manning was content to refer to as " a waiting among the lilies." The devout author has a zeal that lacks the Council's discretion. He has a nimble mind for conclusions; and a menace even for those who doubt what is at best option, which is not always even a " pious " opinion.
So much — perhaps it is too much — by way of caution seems due. to the reader in issuing this twentieth century edition of Father Schouppe's volume. Moreover, some separate " Notes " have been added at the end of the volume in actual correction or modification of the facts and sentiments appearing in the French edition and in the literal translation into English which it has been thought most candid to make. Readers of approved theological handbooks will not be unaccustomed to the Note which dissents from the Text — a form of disagreement that goes to make the history of that development in the expression of unchanging Christian Truth which is the mark and glory of the living Catholic Church.
The reverend author passed to his rest in the November of 1904.