Heaven Can Wait: Purgatory in Catholic Devotional and Popular Culture

218 Pages·2014·2.3 MB·English

by  Diana Walsh Pasulka

Heaven Can Wait

HEAVEN CAN
WAIT
Purgatory in Catholic Devotional
and Popular Culture
z
DIANA WALSH PASULKA
1
1
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© Oxford University Press 2015
Chapter 3 has been adapted from the article “The Eagle and the Dove:
Constructing Catholic Identity through Word and Image in Early American
Catholic Popular Literature,” in Material Religion: The Journal of Arts, Objects and Belief.
Berg Publishing, November 2008. Used with permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pasulka, Diana Walsh.
Heaven can wait : Purgatory in Catholic devotional and popular culture /
Diana Walsh Pasulka.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-538202-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-19-970042-4 (ebook)
1. Purgatory—History of doctrines. 2. Sacred space.
3. Catholic Church—Doctrines. 4. Purgatory.
5. Popular culture—Religious aspects—Catholic Church. I. Title.
BT843.P37 2014
236'.509—dc23 2014011175
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my husband, Daniel; my mother, Heather Walsh;
and my brothers, Daniel and Dennis. Thank you for the
conversations and inspiration.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Problem with Purgatory 3
1. When Purgatory Was a Place on Earth: The Purgatory
Cave on the Red Lake in Ireland 30
2. Lough Derg: “Heretical Around the Edges…” Moving
Purgatory Off the Earth 59
3. Exile from Ireland: Bishop John England’s Republican
Apologetics of Purgatory 92
4. That Sensible Neighborhood to Hell: Fiery Apologetics:
Providence and Materiality within the Periodical (1830–1920) 115
5. The Ghosts of Vatican II: Purgatory Apostolates and
the Lexicon of the Supernatural 144
Conclusion: Purgatory Redux 172
Notes 177
Index 203

Acknowledgments
during the time period that I wrote this book, I experienced several
life events, including having children and earning tenure at my university.
I would like to acknowledge the support provided by my family, colleagues,
and students, and the people whom I met while doing research. I would
first like to thank Cynthia Read, who has been a very positive, patient, and
helpful editor and guide during the process of writing the book. I am very
grateful to the anonymous reviewers of the early manuscript for their in-
sightful comments. I traveled far out of my historical area of research in
the first two chapters of the book, and I owe a debt of gratitude to Isabel
Moreira, whose own work on purgatory proved my invaluable guide
through the complex theological worlds of late antiquity and the early me-
dieval eras. I would also like to thank Dr. Moreira for her generosity and
for providing helpful comments on these sections of the manuscript that
resulted in several crucial adjustments. As I finished writing my manu-
script I read Jeffrey J. Kripal’s book Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal
and the Sacred (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). It influenced
the way I thought about my research on the Catholic supernatural and
motivated me to edit parts of my manuscript to reflect my deepened under-
standing. My students have made my journey fun and interesting. Jamie
Brummitt, Everett Fulmer, Kerry Sullivan, Eugene O’Dea, Garrison Libby,
and Bryan Hendershot helped me collect archival material. My former stu-
dent Hope Bordeaux read parts of the manuscript and provided valuable
feedback, and Christopher Moreland offered helpful comments and sug-
gestions on the introduction to the book.
My colleagues at the University of North Carolina Wilmington were
instrumental in providing me with the time and resources I needed to fin-
ish the manuscript. I am grateful to David Webster and George Zervos,
and the University of North Carolina Wilmington for assisting me in