Do you believe?
Catholics like Marla Fisher can be excused for their confusion over what the church itself believes and teaches about ghosts.
“There is no settled doctrinal or moral practice with respect to ghosts or apparitions,” says Lawrence Cunningham, professor emeritus of theology at the University of Notre Dame. “You can’t point to a canon in ecumenical councils or canon law that addresses this.”
When it comes to the paranormal, the church walks a fine line. On the one hand, Catholicism is defined by a belief in the supernatural—one person of the Trinity was in the not-too-distant past commonly called “the Holy Ghost.” But church leaders also must battle against errant belief in the occult.
The word “ghost” comes from geist, the German word for spirit. A poltergeist, or noisy ghost, is a spirit that makes its presence known with acts of mischief—throwing toasters or dining room chairs around. Martin Luther was one of the earliest to use the term “Polter-Geister.” The Modern Catholic Dictionary (Eternal Life) defines “ghost” as “a disembodied spirit.”
“Christianity believes that God may, and sometimes does, permit a departed soul to appear in some visible form to people on earth,” the definition continues. “… Their purpose may be to teach, or warn, or request some favor for the living.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “all forms of divination are to be rejected.” This includes “recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead, or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future.”
Consulting palm readers, interpreting omens, an interest in clairvoyance—“all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings,” according to the catechism. And all “contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.”
And yet clearly Catholics must believe in the unbelievable. The communion of saints, for instance, necessitates a belief in miracles. Polls over the last decade suggest that somewhere between a third to one half of Americans believe in ghosts.