MOJO-JOJO

Offbeat News
Friday, Aug. 16, 2002
Souls Stuck in Purgatory Send Signals to Rome




ROME (Reuters) - If you end up in purgatory after you die,
never fear. Just remember to send a message to those surviving
you, care of a riverside church in Rome.

The Church of the Sacred Heart houses one of the world's
most unusual and smallest museums -- a collection of signs sent
from beyond the grave by souls stranded in purgatory.

Scorched fingerprints on prayer books, handprints burned on
to wooden tables, and singed pillowcases and shirt sleeves seem
to be the purgatory equivalent of paper and pen.

"Most of our visitors are motivated by curiosity. But faith
is the key to understanding the relics," Roberto Zambolin, the
church's priest-cum-tour-guide, told Reuters on Friday.

Catholics believe spirits, stuck between heaven and hell
until they have atoned for their sins, can hasten their entry
to paradise if family and friends on earth pray for them.

And some purgatory residents obviously felt their loved
ones needed a gentle reminder.

Branding an imprint of his left hand on to a light-brown
wooden table was one 18th-century friar's way of reminding
colleagues to say more masses and speed his soul to heaven,
Zambolin says.

On a single day in 1731, the deceased Friar Panzini not
only marked the table, but burned a handprint on to paper and
twice clutched at the sleeves of a nun's tunic, leaving scorch
marks.

Panzini's spiritual smoke signals are a taster of what's on
display in a bare room, dubbed the Little Purgatory Museum, off
to the side of the church.

While most tourists to Rome flock to the Coliseum or the
Vatican, some stray off the beaten track to the quiet and
unassuming museum to ponder the mysterious relics, gathered
from all over Western Europe.

"I'd say we get about 4,000 visitors a year -- young, old,
Italians, foreigners, believers, non-believers," Zambolin said.

Peering at four fiery fingerprints emblazoned on a prayer
book, Austrian students Michael Weisskof and Karl-Heinz Larcher
debated the validity of the relics.

"I believed in purgatory before, but seeing these relics
reinforces my faith," 25-year-old Larcher said. But his
19-year-old friend was more hesitant.

"I'm not sure what I think. They are certainly spooky but
even if it's not true, it's a good story," Weisskof said.

The museum, about 100 years old, was the brainchild of
Victor Jouet, a French priest who traveled to Belgium, France,
Germany and Italy, scooping up relics to display in his gothic
church on the banks of the Tiber.

Jouet died in the museum's only room in 1912, surrounded by
his treasures, but the collection lives on despite a discussion
in the late 1990s about whether to close it.

"We realized that most visitors were not Christians but
those interested in the paranormal, or in some cases the
devil," Zambolin said.

"The Church didn't want to encourage something that wasn't
to do with faith. But in the end the decision was made to keep
it open. The collection does start discussions about Catholic
ideas," he added.

And although most of the fiery signals date back to the
19th century or earlier, Zambolin doesn't think the lack of
modern-day signs has any significance.

"We don't get any new objects sent to us, but we don't need
new signals to believe in purgatory today."

Perchance

Of course it doesn't want to encourage something that wasn't to do with faith. Of course people shouldn't think for themselves.

(Although I do wonder how many people come there, accept the explanation, and never think about how they know this is the truth).

If this is the best proof of God that Christianity can muster, no wonder it's losing ground.

-Perchance.