Q. When people talk about ghosts, do they mean souls? How should Catholics view “haunting”?
A. A pastor I had while I was a deacon in Philadelphia told me that he believed that, as faith in God decreases in our culture, belief and fascination in ghosts and other “paranormal activity” would increase.
He said this because he believed everyone wants to believe in something beyond our material existence, but people are afraid to believe in God because if God is real then it means we need to live our lives according to His Will. I am inclined to believe he was right. Faith in God continues to diminish in the U.S., but movies and TV shows about ghosts and spirits and the like continue to be made.
In popular media, ghosts seem to generally be presented as disembodied spirits of deceased human beings. Sometimes they are friendly, sometimes they are not. Often times they are presented as having some sort of unfinished business, or reason for haunting.
This is one of the few times where the popular secular perception of something lines up with the generally accepted position of Catholic theologians and experts. The Catholic Church has no official doctrine regarding “ghosts,” so Catholics are free to have different opinions on the questions, so long as their opinion is in line with Catholic doctrine on the body, soul, and what happens when we die.
It is a matter of doctrine that when we die, our soul separates from our body and arrives in Hell, Heaven, or Purgatory. What is unclear is what God permits for souls, as far as appearing to the living, once a soul is in one of these three places.
We see in Scripture that deceased persons appeared to the living. Moses and Elijah appeared to Peter, James, and John when our Lord was Transfigured. The witch of Endor conjured Samuel’s spirit which appeared to Saul. An argument can be made that since this was prior to the Resurrection, Heaven and Hell were not yet “open” and so the “rules” for the deceased appearing to the living were different.
A counter argument to that line of reasoning is the pious belief relayed through private revelation that the souls of saints have appeared to other saints. Even if you take Mary out the equation, given that the “rules” for her may be different given her unique place in salvation history, there are still many, many stories of saints appearing to the living. While these are private revelations and therefore, Catholics are not obligated to believe the events happened, quantity does have a quality all its own, so it is certainly reasonable to believe that the saints do appear to people.
Generally though, when talking about ghosts, people do not mean saints, they mean an average soul showing up. It is commonly accepted that these souls are souls in Purgatory who God, in His infinite Wisdom and Mercy, allows to appear to the living to prompt the living to pray for them. These souls manifest their presence visibly, by making sounds, by creating an odor associated with the person, or even by causing a feeling of heaviness and sorrow.
A common assertion amongst experts is that, because seeking knowledge from a ghost or spirit is a violation of the First Commandment, souls in Purgatory that manifest will not talk or, if they do, they will only say yes when asked if they need prayers. If they appear visibly they will appear as fully human and unobscured, which is different from demonic spirits who may appear human, but only with some aspect obscured, or incompletely.
Because demons are clever and will always try to draw humans into interacting with them, demons can and do appear as ghosts to try to get people to do things for them. This is why, if we ever are confronted with something we believe to be a ghost, we should only ever offer to pray for them and leave it at that. Do not engage with them any more than that and certainly, do not do anything that they may ask you to do.
According to Catholic experts in this area, the way to distinguish between a soul that desires prayers and a demonic spirit is that souls do not do things that are scary or destructive. While their presence may fill an area with a sense of sadness, they do not illicit fear, although seeing a soul may cause a very natural reaction of fright. Any activity a soul is causing will cease once prayers or Masses are offered for them.
Whatever a person believes about ghosts, we as Catholics are all obliged to pray for the dead, whether they appear to us or not. I would invite everyone to, after they read this, offer a quick prayer for their own beloved deceased family and friends, and for a soul who has no one to pray for them..
This question was answered by Father Caleb La Rue, chancellor of the Diocese of Lincoln. Write to Ask the Register using our online form, or write to 3700 Sheridan Blvd., Suite 10, Lincoln NE 68506-6100. All questions are subject to editing. Editors decide which questions to publish. Personal questions cannot be answered. People with such questions are urged to take them to their nearest Catholic priest.
