Ghosts
When people think of ghosts, they imagine cartoonish bedsheets or vaporous green blobs of slime or apparitions of rotting corpses. At least one of these is somewhat historically accurate, in that the image of floating sheets comes from the image of a corpse wrapped in a burial shroud. Collectively, we've forgotten this explanation because pop culture and several genres, such as Casper the Friendly Ghost, Ghostbusters, and the Poltergeist films, among many other horror franchises, shape our collective consciousness of what a ghost looks like or actually is.
The word "ghost" means "spirit," so "ghost" can refer to the Holy Spirit, known in older translations of the Bible and older prayer books as the Holy Ghost, the Third Divine Person of the Holy Trinity. "Ghost" can mean angels, demons, or human spirits, such as saints, Poor Souls, or damned souls.
The Poor Souls, as they are known in Catholicism, are the souls in Purgatory—in essence, purgatorial ghosts. They are called "poor" not because of any monetary poverty, but because they lack treasure in Heaven; they are blemished and weighed down by their sins or the temporal punishment of sins and disordered attachment to passions, be they vices or sinful concupiscence. Since they have not completely atoned for sin through penance, and they cannot pray for themselves, they rely on the prayers, alms, and holy fruits of labor of the Church Militant, who sojourn in this life toward holiness and sanctification.
The Catholic dogma of Purgatory only infallibly defines that there is an intermediary state of purification for some, but not all, souls, since nothing unclean can enter Heaven. While the Latin Church held Purgatory to be a place of redeeming flames, and the Greek Churches held that it was a place of the shade full of darkness and waiting, at the Council of Brest in the 1500s, the Church agreed not to go into specifics: "We shall not debate about purgatory, but we entrust ourselves to the teaching of the Holy Church." So, while it is a doctrine in Catholicism in both the Western Latin Church and the Eastern sui juris Churches, the many interpretations of Purgatory are not dogmatically defined, only that there is a state or place of purification for some after death, and that this purification is helped through the prayers of the living.
There are many interpretations, through theological speculations based on scripture and tradition, as well as various mystical experiences and visions of saints, all of which deserve many different articles in and of themselves. The gist is that there is the popular Western medieval interpretation of Purgatory being a fiery dungeon of flames, or the Eastern Orthodox interpretation of it being a place of darkness and waiting, or Hades, as they call it in the East. Another interpretation involves the souls in Purgatory undergoing purification through dwelling in the prominent places of their lives, accounting for ghostly hauntings.
Sometimes, hauntings are not the spirits of Purgatory reaching out for prayers to help them cross over, but, in fact, evil spirits—and I don't mean demons. Yes, demons are evil spirits, but there can be the ghosts of evil people who haunt a place and are themselves minions of demons and agents of Satan. It may be that part of their damnation must take place in specific places, or that they are bound to the demons whom they unwittingly served throughout their sinful lives. This is not based on Scripture, but tradition with a little "t," or pious tradition, specifically among exorcists, but also mystics and saints. This belief, however, is not a doctrine or dogma of the Church. It is believed among some Catholics that some damned souls may inhabit a place or a person through demonic possession.
The other kind of "ghosts" are our friends in Heaven, the saints, some of whom were, at one time, purgatorial souls. Everyone in Purgatory will eventually be in Heaven, and Purgatory will be emptied at the end of the world at the final judgment. When we help those in Purgatory, they will help us through their prayers—either amidst the darkness and flames of their purification, or from Heaven, beholding God. While the souls in Purgatory cannot pray for themselves, they can pray for others, like the saints they will soon become. Then, of course, there are the angels and demons, who encourage or tempt us, and harass or help us.
This brief explanation of Catholic doctrine explains that, yes, Catholics believe in ghosts, but what does the Bible say, and what do we base our doctrines on?
Let's start with the the New Testament, when Jesus is walking on water in the sea during a storm, and the Apostles mistake Him for a ghost in Matthew 14:26. Jesus does not rebuke the Apostles, telling them that ghosts do not exist, but instead reassures them that it is Him. This happens again after the resurrection in Luke 24:36-49, where Jesus again reasures them that He is not a ghost, but in fact a flesh-and blood person, and goes on to eat baked fish. No where does Jesus correct their thinking or say that ghost do not exist, or rebuke His followers for believing in ghosts.
In the Old Testament, Saul summons the spirit of the Prohet Samuel through the sorcery and necromancy of the Witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28:3-25, which is unrelated to the Star Wars Ewoks. This passage is interrupted differently: firstly, that the witch was a con artist and created an illusion; or that the ghost was actually a demon; and lastly that it really was the spirit of Samuel, and that this shocked the witch. The Bible never tells us which interpretation is correct. The Bible mentions ghosts being summoned and Christ being mistaken for a ghost, but never that ghost do not exist. In Ezekiel 37:1-14 God resurrected an army of the undead from the Valley of the Dry Bones. Scripture does not tell us if these people were zombies or revenants, and it may be that they were fully restored to life, but one interpretation is that they are a ghostly army. This Scripture was the inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien and the ghostly army of Gondor, or the Dead Men of Dunharrow. Another example with the dead appears to be a form of saintly intercession or another case of God using intermediaries to work His grace. In 2 Kings 13:20-21, a dead man is thrown into the tomb of the Prophet Elisha, who was the successor of Elijah, and the dead man was restored to life by touching the bones of the dead prophet.
To understand Purgatory and even the intercession of the saints, we have to establish that the dead do have an awareness of the living. This is found when the righteous martyrs call on God for justice against their persecutors in Revelation 6:9-11. These souls are actively aware that the forces of the Antichrist have not yet received their punishment. Other passages mention a great cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 12:1, also pointing to the dead having an awareness of earthly matters and the Communion of Saints. And again, when Jesus says that when we die we become like the angels in Heaven in Matthew 22:29-30, we can clearly see throughout the Bible the attributes of angels, but most importantly, that the angels offer up the prayers of the living, or the saints on earth, or those undergoing sanctification or theosis in Revelation 8:3-4.
The Bible says that our works will be tested, and that despite our imperfections, some will be saved as though by fire, in 1 Corinthians 3:13-15. Other interpretations, which seem more allegorical but are attributed to the idea of Purgatory and temporal punishment for sin, are found in Matthew 5:21-26, concerning anger, where it says that those who do not forgive their brothers will not be released from their prison until they have paid the last penny; and in Luke 12:41-48, in the Parable of the Unfaithful Servant, which states that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating. But he who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, shall receive a light beating. Finally, we have the biblical tradition of praying for the dead to loosen them from their sins and to pray for their salvation, found in 2 Maccabees 12:43-46.
Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition
43 He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. 44 For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. 45 But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.
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