[Question:]{.underline} Can the suffering souls in Purgatory help people on earth by their prayers?
[Answer:]{.underline} There are two opinions on this question. The first is founded on St. Thomas Aquinas, who explains why it is that we do not generally pray to the souls in Purgatory, as we do to the saints in heaven. “Those who are in Purgatory though they are above us on account of their impeccability, yet they are below us as to the pains that they suffer: and in this respect they are not in a condition to pray, but rather in a condition that requires us to pray for them” (IIa IIae, Q. 83, 11 Ad 3). The real problem presented by St. Thomas Aquinas is that the poor souls in Purgatory have no way of knowing of our prayers, that they might be able to answer them. They cannot know them as the blessed in Heaven, who see all our needs and prayers in the vision of God, nor can we personally ask for their prayers, as we can of the living on earth: “Those who are in this world or in Purgatory do not yet enjoy the vision of the Word, so as to be able to know what we think or way. Wherefore we do not seek their assistance by praying to them, but ask it of the living by speaking to them.” (IIa IIae Q.83,4 Ad 3).
This being said, there is no doubt that the Poor Souls in Purgatory are a part of the Communion of the Saints, given that they are members of the Church, united to Christ, the Head, by supernatural charity. Consequently, there is no reason to affirm that they cannot pray for us, provided that one understands that they cannot merit either for themselves or for us. It is for this reason that many theologians, such as Suarez and St. Robert Bellarmine, maintain that it is possible and permissible to appeal for the poor souls for their intercession. After all, there is no difficulty about God revealing to them in some way the fact of the prayers that are directed towards them, so that they can pray for people on earth.
It is, then, a pious belief, that we can pray for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, so that certain synods in the 19^th^ century taught that the poor souls can help us by their intercession. “Leo XIII, in 1889, ratified an indulgenced prayer in which the poor souls are appealed to in dangers to body and soul. (The prayer is not included in the authentic collections of 1937 and 1950).” (Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p. 323). It is only in appearance that this pious belief is in contradiction with the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas given above, based as it is on the fact that the poor souls cannot merit, and cannot hear our prayers in God. Although it is not a dogma, Catholics are consequently free to believe that they can pray to poor souls, nor is this belief in any way reprobated by the Church, but to the contrary recommended by some theologians.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.