Indulgence

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In Latin Catholic theology, an indulgence is the remission granted by the Church of the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven by God.<ref>Code of Canon Law, (Cann. 992-997) Indulgences</ref>

1 Theology
2 Controversy
3 Other traditions
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Theology

[edit] Sin

Personal sins, as opposed to original sin, are either mortal or venial.

Mortal sins are sins of grave (serious) matter, where the sinner is aware that the act (or omission) is both a sin and a grave matter, and performs the act (or omission) with deliberate consent. The act of committing a mortal sin cuts off the sinner from God’s grace; it is in itself a rejection of God as well as His Church.

Venial sins are sins which do not meet the conditions for mortal sins. The sin may be one that is not a grave matter, or if a grave matter, the individual does not realize that the act is a sin or grave matter, or does not deliberately consent to the sin. The act of committing a venial sin does not cut off the sinner from God’s grace, as the sinner has not rejected God. However, venial sins do injure the relationship between the sinner and God, and as such, may be reconciled either through the sacrament of reconciliation or by some other means (e.g. receiving the Eucharist).

Both mortal and venial sins have a dual nature of punishment. They incur both guilt for the sin (culpability), yielding eternal punishment, and temporal punishment for the sin. The Sacrament of Penance is an act of God’s mercy, and addresses the guilt and eternal punishment for sin. Purgatory and indulgences address the temporal punishment for sin, and exercise of God’s justice.

[edit] Penance

Indulgences may only be granted by the Church after the individual earning the indulgence receives the sacrament of Penance or experiences perfect contrition -- he essentially must be in the state of grace. Because the sacrament of reconciliation removes the culpable element of sin, the penitent is restored by reconciliation to the state of grace. However, while the individual’s culpability is removed by reconciliation, the sin is not completely erased; the individual still must be punished for the sin. God has mercy upon sinners who repent of their sins, but like some parents, His justice still requires that the sinner be punished for the wrongdoing. This punishment is called temporal punishment, both because it is a punishment of time, as opposed to eternal punishment, and because it relates to the temporary world (Earth or Purgatory), rather than to the “final destination” (Heaven or Hell).

[edit] Temporal Punishment in Purgatory

Some individuals experience trials and tribulations in this world which serve as their temporal punishment for forgiven sins (Catechism 1473); other individuals die without having served the temporal punishment for their sins. These individuals do not have guilt for sin, because it has been forgiven either through reconciliation or perfect contrition before death, and therefore they will attain Heaven. However, they are not yet ready to enter Heaven, as their punishment has yet to be served. Therefore, these individuals “enter” Purgatory, and the punishment they owe is "purged." The Church teaches that the souls in Purgatory desire to be there, because they have realized that they are not yet ready to attain Heaven. Purgatory may be illustrated as a place of preparation for the deceased; they know they will enter Heaven, and Purgatory is a place in which to be cleansed for God.

[edit] Merit

In general, certain acts result in gaining favor with God, called merit. (Catechism, 2008) These acts do not gain the individual forgiveness for their sin; forgiveness results from God’s grace, freely given through Jesus, which cannot be earned. After the sins are forgiven, the individual's meritorious acts remove the penalty due for sin.

The nature of an “act of merit” is difficult to nail down. While the merits of the faithful are important in remitting the temporal punishment owed to God for that individual’s sins, they also play a role in remitting temporal punishment for other’s sins (Catechism 1477). Merit is “stored” as it were, in the “treasury of the Church” (Catechism 1476).

However, the Church’s treasury is not a storehouse of "extra" merit, in which the good deeds of the faithful are collected and accounted by individual; while the “extra” merit of the faithful is in the treasury, it is first and foremost the infinite value of Christ’s merits before God (Catechism 1476).

The Church recognizes three forms of merit:

The infinite merit of Jesus;
The merit of the Blessed Virgin Mary; and
The treasury of merit in the Communion of Saints.

He is the source of infinite merit which can never be exhausted. Jesus's merit in and of itself is sufficient to remit all temporal punishment due for sin for every individual. In addition, the merit of the Virgin Mary and other saints exists in the treasury of the Church.

Under the Latin Catholic concept of merit, the infinite merit of Jesus, and the merits of the various saints above and beyond what was needed to satisfy God and get them into Heaven has been granted by the Church, which can apply this surplus merit — sometimes called works of supererogation — against the deficits in merit suffered by penitent but believing sinners.

[edit] The Indulgence

In Latin Catholic theology, the salvation made possible by Jesus allows the faithful sinner eventual admittance to Heaven. Baptism forgives all of the baptized person's existing sins; any sin committed after baptism incurs both guilt and a penalty that must be addressed. These are the sins addressed in reconciliation. After reconciliation, the temporal punishment for sin remains. This punishment may be remitted in Purgatory, or by indulgence. The granting of an indulgence is the spiritual reassignment, as it were, of existing merit to an individual requiring that merit.

Indulgences occur when the Church, acting by virtue of its authority, applies existing merit from the Church’s treasury to an individual. The individual gains the indulgence by participating in certain activities, most often the recitation of prayers. By decree of Pope Pius V in 1567, following the Council of Trent, it is forbidden to attach the receipt of an indulgence to any financial act, including the giving of alms. In addition, the only punishment remitted by an indulgence is existing punishment, that is, for sins already committed. Indulgences do not remit punishment for future sins, as those sins have yet to be committed. Thus, indulgences are not a “license to sin” or a “get-out-of-Hell-free” card; they are a means for the sinner to “pay” the “wages” of sin.

Indulgences are "plenary" or "partial”:

"plenary" indulgences remit all of the existing temporal punishment due for the individual’s sins. An individual can only earn one plenary indulgence per day.
"partial" indulgences remit only a part of the existing punishment.

Before the Second Vatican Council, partial indulgences were stated as a term of days, weeks, months, or years. This has resulted in Catholics and non-Catholics alike believing that indulgences remit a specific period of time equal to the length of the soul's stay in Purgatory. This was not true, rather the stated length of time actually indicated that the indulgence was equal to the amount of remission the individual would have earned by performing a canonical penance for that period of time. For example, the amount of punishment remitted by a “forty day” indulgence would be equal to the amount of punishment remitted by the individual performing forty days of penance.

The original reasoning for the "days" notation was, in the early days of the Church, a person's only means of returning to the sate of grace was performing penances equal to the actions he had committed. Because a person may not receive Eucharist while not in a state of grace, he must perform these penances if he wished to be Catholic. However, because some people had been professional thieves, prostitutes, or some other sinful individual, he would have to undergo hundreds of years of penance to get remission for his sins. To alleviate this, the Church instituted certain actions or prayers which would cleanse him for the amount of time noted.

In addition to remitting punishment for the individual's own existing sins, an individual may perform the actions necessary to gain an indulgence with the intention of gaining the indulgence for a specific individual in Purgatory. In doing so, the individual both gains the indulgence for the soul in Purgatory, and performs a spiritual act of mercy.

To gain an indulgence the individual must be “in communion” with the Church, and have the intention of performing the work for which the indulgence is granted. To be “in communion,” the individual must be a baptized Catholic without any un-reconciled mortal sins (if there are any un-reconciled mortal sins, the individual has cut himself/herself off from God and cannot receive the indulgence) and must not be dissenting from the Church’s teaching. The individual must also intend to receive the indulgence.

Generally, a plenary indulgence requires the following conditions in order to be valid (in addition to the acts performed to earn the indulgence).

reconciliation, which is required for all indulgences
receiving the Eucharist
complete renunciation of all attachment to sin, including venial sin.
pray for the intentions of the Holy Father. An Our Father and a Hail Mary said for the intentions of the Pontiff is sufficient, although you are free to substitute other prayers of your own choice.

It is recommended that the Communion be received at Mass on the same day that the indulgence is earned. Reconciliation may be within a prudent period before or after the act (typically, one week, though during the Great Jubilee, the Vatican specifically allowed confession within three weeks of the act). Several indulgences may be earned under the same confession (reconciliation). If any of these additional conditions is missing, the plenary indulgence will instead be partial.

[edit] Indulgenced Acts

The following acts are examples of those which result in the award of an indulgence:

An act of spiritual communion, expressed in any devout formula whatsoever, is endowed with a partial indulgence.

A partial indulgence is granted the Christian faithful who devoutly spend time in mental prayer.

A plenary indulgence is granted when the rosary is recited in a church or oratory or when it is recited in a family, a religious community, or a pious association. A partial indulgence is granted for its recitation in all other circumstances.

A partial indulgence is granted the Christian faithful who read sacred Scripture with the veneration due God’s word and as a form of spiritual reading. The indulgence will be a plenary one when such reading is done for at least one-half hour [provided the other conditions are met].

A partial indulgence is granted to the Christian faithful who devoutly sign themselves with the cross while saying the customary formula: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."

A partial indulgence is granted for the recitation of the Angelus.

A partial indulgence is granted to Christian faithful who on day of the liturgical feast of any saint recite in that Saint's honor and prayer taken from the Missal or other prayer approved by legimate authority.

[edit] Controversy

The doctrine of indulgences has historically been a controversial teaching in Western Christianity soteriology. This abuse of this doctrine, in part led to the start of the Protestant Reformation.

The ability to grant full or partial pardons from the punishment of sins has been used by members of the Western Church's hierarchy throughout history. These indulgences were related to the removal of granting pardon to penitents. The first indulgences that involved absolving all sin were introduced in the 11th centuary, perhaps initially by Pope Urban II in 1095, and by several of his successors, to anyone who went on the Crusades to re-claim the Holy Land from the Saracens, or who died along the way. This led to increased abuses of Indulgences.

In 1517, Pope Leo X offered indulgences for those who gave alms to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, a postition that critics took on the appearance of "selling indulgences." The aggressive marketing practices of Johann Tetzel in promoting this cause provoked Martin Luther to write his 95 theses, protesting what he saw as the purchase and sale of salvation.

Luther had already preached against indulgences, but he wrote the 95 Theses partly in reaction to the promotion of indulgences by Johann Tetzel, papal commissioner for indulgences in Germany, to raise funds for the renovation of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. In thesis 28 Luther objected to a saying attributed to Tetzel: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs".<ref>Bainton, 60; Brecht, 1:182; Kittelson, 104.</ref> The 95 Theses not only denounced such transactions as worldly but denied the pope's right to grant pardons on God's behalf in the first place: the only thing indulgences guaranteed, Luther said, was an increase in profit and greed, because the pardon of the Church was in God's power alone.<ref>Certum est, nummo in cistam tinniente augeri questum et avariciam posse: suffragium autem ecclesie est in arbitrio dei solius. (Thesis 28)</ref>

While Luther did not deny the pope’s right to grant pardons for penance imposed by the Church, he made it clear that preachers who claimed indulgences absolved buyers from all punishments and granted them salvation were in error.<ref>Errant itaque indulgentiarum predicatores ii, qui dicunt per pape indulgentias hominem ab omni pena solvi et salvari. (Thesis 21)</ref> From this controversy the Protestant Reformation was launched.

In 1294, Pope Celestine V issued a bull of pardon in L'Aquila, Italy, offering plenary indulgence to everybody sincerely contrite and confessed entering the basilica of Santa Maria di Collemaggio. The only other Saint Door outside Vatican is opened annually by a Cardinal between the evening of August 28th and the day after.

Image:Indulgence.png The indulgence, shown to the right, granted by authority of the Pope by Johann Tetzel in 1517 reads: "By the authority of all the saints, and in mercy towards you, I absolve you from all sins and misdeeds and remit all punishments for ten days." This description is confusing, particularly in the wording ("I absolve you from all sins and misdeeds;") as authentic indulgences do not offer forgiveness or absolution, rather, they remit the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven. Further, under the current practice, lengths of time are not specified on indulgences.

[edit] Other traditions

Image:Orthodox Indulgence.jpg Because the underlying doctrine of salvation differs from the Latin Catholic model, indulgences do not exist in Eastern Orthodoxy (although Eastern Orthodoxy had a similar practice of Absolution Certificates until the twentieth century, known as aphesis or συγχωροχαρτια - sygchorochartia; at the beginning of the 18th century Dositheos Notaras (1641-1707), Patriarch of Jerusalem, writes about Indulgences as something known to everyone in the ancient tradition: "This practice was confirmed by ancient Tradition that was known to all, that the Most Holy Patriarchs would grant certificates (συγχωροχαρτιόν - sygchorochartion) for the remission of sins to the faithful people."), in Eastern Catholicism or in Protestantism.

Those traditions which reject a Latin Catholic concept of Purgatory (or alternatively, a “condition of waiting”) also reject indulgences, as there is no need for remission of temporal punishment where no temporal punishment exists.

The practice of the clergy accepting money for the expiation of the sins of the dead appears in 2 Maccabees (ca. 100 BCE). This practice is seen nowhere else in the Bible. The author praises the practice of donating money to the temple as a way of improving the standing of dead sinners on Judgment Day. These "indulgences" are associated with the Pharisees. The Sadducees did not believe in Judgment Day and the Essenes were not part of the Temple power structure.