Souls In Purgatory Send Signals
By Claire Soares
Friday August 16
Posted to Fort Zion August 26, 2006.

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 burnt 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 burnt 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.

SPOOKY BUT TRUE?

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 travelled 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 realised 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."