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Vatican City, Nov 4, 2016 / 03:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Nestled in Rome just outside the Vatican, a small unassuming museum dedicated to the souls in Purgatory displays simple items such as prayer books and clothing.

Nothing too unusual, until you realize that each allegedly show the marks of the deceased – such as inexplicably burned fingerprints – when they appeared to loved ones asking for prayers from Purgatory.

The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory is located inside of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prati, near Castel Sant’Angelo, and contains around 15 of these testimonies and artifacts, collected from around Europe by a French priest Victor Jouët.

In many of the cases, it is held that the marks were left as proof that the deceased had really appeared, asking for prayers or for Masses to be said for their souls.

One artifact in the museum is the fingerprint of Sr. Mary of St. Luigi Gonzaga, left on a pillowcase when she appeared to Sr. Margherita of the Sacred Heart on the night after she died in 1894.

The appearance was recorded in the archives of the monastery of St. Clare of the Child Jesus in Bastia, Italy. According to the records, Sr. Mary told Sr. Margherita that she was in Purgatory as expiation of her lack of patience in accepting God’s will.

Another is the prayer book of Maria Zaganti which shows three fingerprints left by her deceased friend Palmira Rastelli on March 5, 1871. The sister of the parish priest, she asked appeared to her friend to ask for Masses to be said by her brother Fr. Sante Rastelli.

A mark of fiery fingerprints were also left on the German prayer book of George Schitz by his brother Joseph on Dec. 21, 1838. He asked for prayer in expiation of his lack of piety during his life.

The Museum of the Souls in Purgatory was created by Fr. Victor Jouët in 1897. A Missionary of the Sacred Heart, Fr. Jouët founded in Rome the Association of the Sacred Heart of the Suffrage of the Souls of Purgatory. The chapel the Association used from 1896-1914 was located at the place where the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus is now.

In 1897 the chapel caught on fire. When Fr. Jouët rushed into the chapel, he saw the image of a human face, looking sad and melancholy, impressed upon the wall behind the altar. He believed it to be from the soul of a deceased man trying to contact those on earth.

After this occurrence, the priest decided to create a museum dedicated to the artifacts of other appearances of souls in Purgatory. He travelled around Europe and Italy collecting the items and testimonies.

Each piece in the museum was collected by Fr. Jouët from the same person who experienced the vision. The image of the man from the chapel can also be found there.

While he travelled around, Fr. Jouët also asked for money to build a church on the site of the chapel, which he had received a message to build in a dream.

Other artifacts in the museum include the print of a hand and a cross left on a the wooden table of Venerable Clara Isabel Fornari, abbess of the Poor Clares of the Monastery of St. Francis in Todi, Italy, by the deceased Fr. Panzini, on Nov. 1, 1731.

There is also a copy of an Italian 10 lira banknote, one of 30 notes left at the Monastery of St. Leonardo in Montefalco by a deceased priest between Aug. 18 and Nov. 9, 1919.

Catholic teaching on the afterlife is that there are three places for a soul to go after death: Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, those who go to Heaven are “(t)hose who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ.”

Those souls that go to Hell are those who have freely chosen through mortal sin “exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.”

Purgatory is a place where the souls go who die in friendship with God but are still imperfectly purified. Purgatory is where “after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.” These souls are ensured eventual entrance into Heaven, once they are purified.

The Church teaches that souls in Purgatory rely on the prayers of souls still on Earth to relieve some of their temporal suffering and speed their journey to Heaven. In return, the souls in Purgatory can also pray for those on earth.

On Nov. 2, the Feast of All Souls, Pope Francis offered Mass for all the departed in Flaminio Cemetery in Rome. Speaking about the sadness of losing a loved one, the Pope said that “in this sadness we bring flowers as a sign of hope, and also, I dare to say, of celebration – not now, but in the future.”

“All of us will make this journey,” he said. “Sooner or later, but everyone. With pain, some more some less, but all. But with the flower of hope, with that strong thread of hope that is anchored in the hereafter.” 

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Washington D.C., Nov 4, 2016 / 12:33 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Serious problems loom for the future of health care in the U.S. – and Catholics must help resolve them, experts say.

“We believe that the Catholic Church has the opportunity to provide the guidance necessary to enact meaningful health care policies that could uphold the sanctity of life from conception until natural death, as well as the common good, and to do it in financially-sustainable fashion,” Dr. Lester Ruppersberger, president of the Catholic Medical Association, said at a press conference on health care Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

“Caring individuals are called to reflect upon the opportunity and the responsibility that we have to bring the message of healing and mercy given to us by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the public square and to build a culture of life in health care,” he added.

The panel event, “The Changing Face of Health Care and the 2016 Election,” was held at the Catholic Information Center and featured Christian health care experts in policy, primary care, and health sharing ministries.

It explored current developments in health policy, the challenges they pose for both the consciences and the pocketbooks of average American families, and what Catholics could do to address these challenges.  

A primary problem with today’s health care has been a “loss of the common understanding, both within and without the medical profession, of the sanctity and inviolability of each human life and the dignity of the person,” Ruppersberger said.

This is seen through a health care system that treats people like numbers and statistics rather than as persons, he said, and through government mandates that trample the religious freedom of health care providers.

The average premium on the state health exchanges will reportedly increase 23 percent in 2017, Dr. Ruppersberger said. And prices are going up in part due to coercive government mandates that drugs and procedures that many Christians find morally objectionable have to be included in employee health plans.

The Affordable Care Act mandated preventive coverage in all health plans. After the law was passed, the Obama administration clarified that such preventive care would include coverage for birth control, sterilizations, and drugs that can cause abortions – the very “birth control mandate” that was challenged in court by hundreds of employers, states and individuals nationwide.

The result of purported “cost-free” coverage like this without copays or deductibles is that the cost is still passed on to the health care system as a whole, Ruppersberger insisted.

“Someone must pay for this service, which is why premiums are expected to increase in some states, like in Pennsylvania where I live, over 50 percent in 2017,” he said, “with an average of 23 percent increase” nationwide. Providers like Aetna are already leaving the health exchanges, he noted.

Religious freedom concerns are also spurring many to look for a health care alternative to large insurers or the exchanges, as Christians don’t want to subsidize abortions, contraceptives, and sterilizations in their health plans.

The Government Accountability Office found in 2014 that in several states there were no plan options on the health exchanges that excluded abortion coverage, and that in some cases federal subsidies were paying for abortion coverage.

Families must have the option of purchasing health care plans that respect their freedom of conscience, Ruppersberger insisted.

“This will serve the principle of subsidiarity, confirming right and the ability of the worker to dispose of his or her wages to serve his or her own basic needs and that of their families while mitigating barriers that interfere with the physician-patient relationship,” he added.

The next presidential administration and the next Congress will probably make interpretations of religious freedom law that could affect the health care system in decisive fashion, Louis Brown of the Christ Medicus Foundation said.

“We are losing our religious freedom, particularly within our culture of health care, within the industry of health care, at amazing speed,” Brown said.

In addition to the next president nominating at least one Supreme Court justice – and the effect that could have on religious freedom jurisprudence – Congress could re-define the Weldon Amendment, which historically protected the religious freedom of health care institutions.

Regarding the amendment, the current head of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services has already said that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers in California are not protected under the amendment from having to tell patients about their abortion options.

Congress might also vote on the Conscience Protection Act “which would codify much of the need to protect religious freedom in health care, the right of conscience,” Brown added.

However, the next presidential administration will make some crucial decisions, he said, since the precedent has already been set that “a lot of these things can be done or undone without Congressional action.” An example of this would be the transgender mandate from the Obama administration, mandating that doctors perform gender-transition services when requested, even if they believe such procedures would be harmful to patients.

Thus, health care alternatives must exist to allow families the freedom to obtain health care on their own terms, the panel insisted.

Such care would consist of smaller providers like health sharing ministries, direct primary care practices, and even experiments in insurance through dioceses and a national Catholic health plan.

Such “smaller” providers are actually what many people are looking for, Brown insisted, noting that there are over an estimated 10,000 direct primary care practices around the country.

Brown, who represents the Christian health-sharing ministry CMF CURO, explained that “health sharing is very similar” to and can be “particularly effective” for low-income households, as the average premiums for healthy families in the ministry can be much lower than in employer-provided or exchange plans.

“This trend towards localism” and “towards community” is actually what young people want, he noted, pointing to a revival in urban neighborhoods where younger residents want the ability to walk to stores, bars, and churches. Local primary care practices and health-sharing ministries could provide this, he added.

“The message is that there’s another way, and it’s a better way,” he said. “We have a little bit of a holy revolution in health care going on here.”

 

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