Dear Leon:

The word "ransom" is from Old French ransoun, from Latin redemptiō, meaning a buying back or redemption.

The word means, in the Biblical context "the release of captured prisoners on payment of a stipulated price", to "redeem or rescue."

Christ ransomed (paid the price to rescue) men from sin.

He set free the captive men in Abraham's bosom, who were awaiting the coming of the Messiah to set them free from that temporary place and led into heaven.

This event is what the creed is talking about that Jesus descended into hell. Hell (Hades) was divided into two separate placed. One part of Hades contained the damned. The other part was Abraham's Bosom, where the saints (saved) from the Old Testament times resided until the coming of the Christ.

Jesus satisfied justice by paying the price (ransom) of sin for us, and thereby rescue (ransoming) from the penalty of sin.

This ransom is not paid to Satan. It was paid in accord with the virtue of Justice. It is what justice demands. Jesus paid the penalty on our behalf that was demanded by justice. Thus, the ransom is part of God's economy, part of His salvation plan.

Satisfaction: Quoting from Father Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary:

The expiation of wrongdoing, especially the penance imposed by a priest before giving sacramental absolution. Essentially the satisfaction consists in the penitent's willingness to accept the penance imposed and its actual fulfillment. The effect of these two elements is to remove more or less the temporal punishment due to the sins confessed. In the early Church, up to the Middle Ages, the penance imposed was generally severe. Later on the severity was mitigated through what have since come to be known as indulgences. (Etym. Latin satisfacere: satis, sufficient, enough + facere, to do, make.)

Atonement: Again from Father Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary

... it is the reparation of an offense. This occurs through a voluntary performance that outweighs the injustice done. If the performance fully counterbalances the gravity of the guilt, the atonement is adequate. And if the atonement is done by someone other than the actual offender, but in his stead, it is vicarious.

Applied to Christ the Redeemer, through his suffering and death he rendered vicarious atonement to God for the sins of the whole human race. His atonement is fully adequate because it was performed by a divine person. In fact, it is superabundant because the positive value of Christ's expiation is actually greater than the negative value of human sin. (Etym. Middle English at one, to set at one, to reconcile; of one mind, in accord.)

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary