INDULGENCES IN THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH PART 2
The Church is holy to such a degree that the penitential works of the just, the saints, the martyrs–their tribulations, their merits–often go beyond the strict debt they owe due to their sins. Even more, the merits of Christ, and especially His Passion, have exceeded the punishment that sinners have justly incurred; in fact they have infinitely exceeded them. All this constitutes a treasury.[1] So we can say that the Church's treasury consists of the merits of Our Lord and the Virgin Mary, together with those merits of the works of satisfaction–performed by the just–that have exceeded their debt.
Now, Our Lord and the faithful form one single mystical Body: Christ "is the head of His body, the Church."2 "For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another."3 The consequence of this profound union between the Church's head and members is that the merits of works of satisfaction can be pooled. Our Lord, the Virgin Mary, and the just have performed satisfaction for the whole Church: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, that is, the Church."4 The merits of these works of satisfaction, which constitute a treasury, can be distributed. And by whom? By him who holds the keys of the Church, i.e., the Sovereign Pontiff. In this connection let us turn to what Pope Clement VI wrote in his Jubilee Bull Unigenitus Dei Filius of January 27, 1343; it sums up all we have just said:
The only-begotten Son of God... "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and justice, and satisfaction, and redemption" (I Cor. 1:30) "neither by the blood of goats, or of calves, but by his own blood, entered into the holy of holies...obtained eternal redemption" (Heb. 9: 12), redeemed us "not with corruptible things as gold or silver...but with (His own) precious blood, as of a lamb unspotted and undefiled" (I Peter l:18ff.). On the altar of the Cross, He the innocent Victim, shed not just one drop of His blood–which on account of the union with the Word would have sufficed for the redemption of the entire human race–but poured it out in abundance so that "from the sole of the foot to the top of the head there was no soundness" (Is. 1:6) found in Him. Now if this so merciful shedding of blood were not to be useless, pointless, and superfluous, how great a treasure it won for the Church militant. The good Father wanted to make his son rich, so that thus there should be "an infinite treasure to men, which they that use, become the friends of God" (Wis. 7:14).
Which treasure...He put at the disposal of blessed Peter, the Keybearer,5 and his successors, His own vicars on earth, to be salutarily distributed among the faithful, for pious and reasonable causes, for the remission, sometimes total, sometimes partial, of the temporal punishment due to sins, to be mercifully applied generally or specially, as it seems good before God, to those who truly repent and confess.
To this mass of treasure, we know, are added the merits of the blessed Mother of God and of all the elect from the first to the last. There is no need to fear that it may be consumed or diminished, not only because of the infinite merits of Christ of which we have spoken, but also because the more men attain righteousness by its application the more does their stock of merit increase.6
An important question.–If indulgences7 have the power to satisfy for our sins, do they dispense us from doing penance? St. Thomas replies that
those who gain indulgences should be advised, not, on this account, to omit the penitential works imposed on them, so that they may derive a remedy from these also, even though they may be quit of the debt of punishment; and all the more, seeing that they are often more in debt than they think.8...Although indulgences avail much for the remission of punishment, yet works of satisfaction are more meritorious in respect of the essential reward, which infinitely transcends the remission of temporal punishment.9
In fact, "indulgences are as effective as they claim to be [i.e., in the act that grants them],"10 as St. Thomas says.11 This means that the value of the indulgence does not depend on the devotion of the person gaining it, nor on the work performed in itself; it depends on the Pope having recourse to the Church's treasury in order to distribute it to us.
Thus the benefit of indulgences does not replace the remission of punishment we can obtain by the fervent reception of the sacraments and works of satisfaction–things which, in themselves, cause moral and spiritual progress and increase charity and our eternal reward. This cannot be achieved by the remission obtained by indulgences in themselves.
The indulgence, therefore, is valuable as a complement: it completes the personal work of satisfaction. Through it, the Church perfects this reparation in order to free the individual faithful from the last traces of sin. And this is not without value, because what we have not expiated voluntarily on earth, we shall have to expiate in purgatory in a far more rigorous manner.12
Some History
The Church came to an understanding of the doctrine of indulgences and the way they are distributed to the faithful in three stages. In the first centuries, its equivalent seems to have been the anticipated reconciliation13 of public penitents; in medieval times, it was the practice of redemption. Finally, in the 13th century, the indulgences properly so-called appeared, such as we know them today.
The Letters of Peace
The first we know of this history concerns Christians who had fallen into apostasy during the persecution, the so-called lapsi. They were able to obtain their anticipated reconciliation thanks to the intervention of members of the faithful who were in prison awaiting martyrdom or who had suffered for their faith (the "confessors"). Apostates came to visit these confessors and those close to martyrdom, and the latter gave them letters that accorded them peace, the libelli pacis. By doing this they were not interceding on their behalf, nor promising prayers for sinners: rather, they were distributing the merits of their sufferings.
The bishops did not admit that martyrs had the direct power to grant peace to the lapsi. The bishops alone had jurisdiction to reduce or suppress the period of penance. But they took the sufferings offered by the martyrs into account when reconciling penitents. What was the value of this remission? Did it merely effect a reintegration into the Christian community, or was it also a remission of punishment in the eyes of God? St. Cyprian says:
We believe that the merits of the martyrs and the works of the just have great power with the sovereign Judge....The Lord, in His clemency, can pardon the man who is penitent and proves it by his actions as well as his supplications. He can ratify what the martyrs have requested and what the bishops have done.14
At the beginning of the fourth century the Councils of Ancyra (314) and Nicea (325) clearly affirm the bishop's power to mitigate penance and hasten final reconciliation.15 In the fifth century Popes St. Innocent I and St. Leo the Great also acknowledge that the bishop has the responsibility to apportion the duration of penitential exercises to the zeal of those who have sinned.16 Here we see that the remission of punishment was a current practice in the Patristic period. This was not yet indulgence, however, because it was supposed that the punishment had already been remitted in the sight of God when the bishop intervened,17 and that the episcopal intervention preceded reconciliation or was part and parcel of it.18
The development of penitential practice from the fifth to the eighth century, together with the practice of redemptions, led to something much closer to the discipline familiar to us today.
The Redemptions
From the fifth century onwards, the public character of penance disappeared. It became largely private. At this same period, as an aid to confessors, there appeared the penitential books which enabled them to allot punishments to sins depending on their gravity. These punishments became less and less severe. Whereas the ancient discipline obliged notorious sinners to adopt a rigorous ascetical practice (fasting) and public humiliations,19 confessors were now given the power to commute these severe penalties into good works (prayers, almsgiving) which were easier to carry out but were regarded as equivalent in the eyes of God. These were called redemption20 ("buying back"); by these works the penitent paid for his faults.
The "redemption" is closer to our indulgences because it is posterior to pardon, and it is also not a "letting off" purely and simply, but calls for some work to be done. On the other hand it differs from the indulgence because the work to be performed is determined by the priest in each case.
The First Indulgences
At the middle of the eleventh century we find general remissions being granted to all the faithful without the confessor having to intervene in each case, e.g., on the occasion of the consecration of a church. These first indulgences were partial, that is, they remitted only part of the punishment, from a quarter to a half; and then people began to reckon punishment in terms of days. It was not a question of remitting a number of days of purgatory, as many think,21 but of remitting the equivalent of so many days of severe penance. For example, to gain an indulgence of one hundred days is to obtain a remission of punishment corresponding to a severe fast which we would have undertaken for a hundred days, together with other penances, in order to expiate our sins.
The plenary indulgence made its appearance at the time of the Crusades as a way of encouraging the faithful to take up the cross and fight the Saracens in Spain or to go to liberate the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem. It is attested that Pope Urban II granted this plenary indulgence at the Council of Clermont (1095) to Crusaders in the Holy Land. From now on indulgences, exhibiting all their constitutive elements, kept multiplying, while the conditions for obtaining them became progressively easier. Moreover, they were no longer reserved to great sinners: fervent members of the faithful were eager to obtain them.
What is meant by a jubilee indulgence? The first Jubilee, or Holy Year, was proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII on February 22, 1300. The Jubilee thus proclaimed is a plenary indulgence that, conditional on a certain number of actions being performed, grants to the faithful who are in a state of grace the complete remission of the punishment due to sin. The faithful responded enthusiastically to the Pope's offer and flocked to Rome from all parts of Europe. In 1343, Clement VI ordered that the Jubilee should take place every 50 years; in 1389, Urban VI set it at 30 years. It was Pope Paul II, in 1470, who decided that the Jubilee should occur every 25 years.
As for indulgences applying to the dead, we have to wait until the 15th century for them to be granted. Thus in 1457, Calixtus III, in a letter to Henry IV of Castile, encourages participation in the crusade against the Moors by granting a plenary indulgence that can be gained for the souls in purgatory. In fact, theologians such as St. Bonaventure22 and St. Thomas23 had long since mentioned this possibility: if prayers and works of satisfaction performed by the living can be applied to the souls in purgatory, why should not the same be true of the prayer and satisfaction that constitute the Church's treasury?24
To conclude this brief historical survey, let us say a word about Luther's attacks on indulgences in the 16th century; they are regularly brought up by the Church's enemies and–something new nowadays–even by the official hierarchy of the conciliar Church25since Vatican II. The best reply to such attacks is the following:
Particular abuses there may have been...; but it has not been proved that these abuses were as many and as disgusting as people have been bold to affirm. Whatever abuses there may have been in reality, it is quite certain that Luther did not attack the abuses but the Church's very doctrine on indulgences, and he did this because it clearly contradicted his ideas on the non-existence of free will and on good works. In fact, what Luther set out to do was to establish a heterodox system in the most treacherous, outrageous manner, wreaking disaster in the Church and launching the Christian people into error.26
Some Definitions
First let us quote the magnificent Canon 911 of the Code of Canon Law (1917) of Benedict XV. For the moment we are considering only this Code and all references in the rest of this article refer to it. We shall mention the new Code of Canon Law (1983) in Part 3 of this series.
Let everyone attach great importance to indulgences, which are the remission, before God, of the temporal punishment due to sins already pardoned, which remission is granted by ecclesiastical authority by drawing upon the Church's treasury and applied by her27 to the living by means of absolution28 and to the dead by means of suffrage.29
This text should be completed by Canon 930:
No one can gain indulgences for other living persons;30 but, provided there is no contrary indication, all indulgences accorded by the pope31 can be applied to the souls in purgatory.
Indulgences for the living can only be applied to the person who performs the work demanded. This is the discipline currently in force.
Any indulgence can be applied to the departed if one so wishes, unless it is otherwise specified in the granting of the indulgence. It can be applied to the departed in general or to a particular deceased person.
Conditions for Obtaining Indulgences General Conditions (Can. 925)
§1.) In order to be able to obtain indulgences, one must be baptized, not excommunicated, in a state of grace at least at the end of the prescribed work, and subject to the one who has granted these indulgences.32
§2.) However, for the subject really to gain indulgences, he must have at least the general intention of gaining them, and he must perform the required works in the time and manner prescribed by the one who holds the grant.
While it is preferable to have the precise intention of gaining this or that indulgence at the particular time that one performs the required action, nonetheless a general intention to gain all the indulgences attached to the works one can do suffices to obtain them, even without knowing by which particular action or prayer the indulgences are gained.
Confession
When confession is required for gaining an indulgence, it can be made in the week (8 days) which precedes the day to which the indulgence is attached; it can also be made during the full octave that follows it (Can. 931 §1).
This confession is required even if one does not recall having committed any mortal sins since the last absolution received. On the other hand, the faithful who are in the habit of approaching the sacrament of penance at least twice a month, or who receive holy Communion every day in a state of grace,33 are dispensed from the confession that is mandatory for obtaining the indulgence, unless it is otherwise ordered (Can. 931 §3).
Communion
When Communion is prescribed, it can be made on the eve of the day appointed for the indulgence (Can. 931 §1).
- Prayer for the Pope's intentions:
If, in order to gain the indulgence, it has been ordered to pray in general for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff, mere mental prayer is insufficient; but the vocal prayer is left to the choice of the faithful34 except where otherwise specified (Can. 934 §1).
Praying for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff does not meant praying for the intentions of Vatican II popes (e.g., religious liberty, ecumenism, etc.), but praying for the intentions that every pope should have, under normal conditions, i.e., the exaltation of Holy Mother Church, the propagation of the Faith, the extirpation of heresy, the conversion of sinners, concord between Christian princes and other things that benefit the Catholic people.35 However, it is not necessary to mention, or even be aware of, these intentions. It suffices to pray with the intention of doing what is required to obtain the indulgence.
- Indulgences and obligatory works:
A work that is already obligatory in virtue of a law or precept cannot serve in order to gain an indulgence, unless the contrary is expressly stipulated in the act granting the indulgence (Can. 932).
This means that the work prescribed for obtaining the indulgence must be "of supererogation."
Thus, one cannot at the same time fulfill the precept of assisting at Sunday Mass and visit the same church in order to gain the indulgence. The visit to the church must be made at some other moment.
- Group prayer:
In order to gain indulgences it is possible to recite the prescribed prayers alternately with someone else, and even follow them mentally while someone else recites them (Can. 934 §3).
- Commutation of the prescribed works:
Confessors may commute the prescribed works for obtaining indulgences for those who, through some legitimate hindrance, cannot perform them (Can. 935).
- Free choice of language:
If a particular prayer has been assigned, the indulgence can be gained by reciting the prayer in any language, provided the translation is guaranteed by the Sacred Penitentiary or by the ordinary of the place (Can. 934 §2).
Different Categories of Indulgences
Plenary Indulgences
A plenary indulgence remits all the temporal punishment due to our sins. However, if a person keeps some venial sin that has not been remitted, or is attached to this sin, such a person will obtain only a partial indulgence, depending on the state of his soul (Can. 926).
In fact, it happens only rarely that people are in the state necessary for obtaining a plenary indulgence. Thus, at the opening of the Holy Year in 1575, Pope Gregory XIII, flanked by St. Charles Borromeo and St. Philip Neri, was watching the crowds of faithful going through the holy door, and expressed his joy at the number of plenary indulgences being received. St. Philip immediately told him that, out of all the penitents, only an old woman of Rome had gained the indulgence; the others had only obtained partial indulgences.
"Unless express mention is made to the contrary, the plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day, even if the prescribed work is repeated several times" (Can. 928 §1). There are exceptions to this [at least in the old discipline–Ed.]: for instance there is the indulgence toties quoties, so called because it is obtained every time the required action is performed; a case of this is the visit to a church or public or semi-public oratory on the day commemorating all the faithful departed, together with prayer for the intentions of the Sovereign Pontiff.
A particular case is that of the privileged altar: the favor attached to the privileged altar is that the Mass celebrated at this altar is accompanied by a plenary indulgence applicable to the dead (and exceptionally to the living).
Partial Indulgences
A partial indulgence remits only a part of the temporal punishment. Hence we have indulgences of a hundred days, of three years, etc. This does not mean that the punishment in purgatory is diminished by that period of time,36 but that one obtains a remission equivalent to one hundred days, or three years, etc., of penance according to the ancient rules (fasting, abstinence, long prayers, etc.).
A partial indulgence, unless an exception is expressly stipulated, can be gained as many times on the same day as the prescribed work is performed (Can. 928 §2).
Personal, Real, and Local Indulgences
Indulgences are called personal if they are granted to persons,37 real if they are attached to the use of an object,38 and local if they are attached to the visit of a place.39
1. It is sometimes said that the doctrine of the treasury was invented in the 13th century. It may be true that the word "treasury" was introduced at this period, but the doctrine was there in substance from the very beginnings of the Church. On this issue see Nouvelle Revue Theologique, 1922, p. 306. It should also be pointed out that the Church's magisterium defended the notion of the treasury in its condemnation of Luther (DS 1448) and the Jansenists (DS 1026).
5. The power to bind, given to Peter and the Apostles (Mt. 16:18 and 18:18), concerns everything that prevents men from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. If the Church has the power to remit eternal punishment, she also has the power to remit temporal debt, according to the adage: the one who can do the greater, can also do the lesser. In granting an indulgence the Church is using the power of the keys to free the sinner from the obligation of undergoing a temporal punishment; she does this by paying from her treasury a satisfaction of an equivalent value. In such a case the Church is using her discretionary power of jurisdiction: the use of the key of jurisdiction is left to the Church's discretion.
6. DS 1025-1027; Neuner-Roos, The Teaching..., Nos. 595-597.
7. From the Latin indulgere, which means to pardon, remit or waive.
8. Supplement to the Summa Theologica, Q. 25, Art. l, ad 4.
9. Supplement, Q. 25, Art. 2, ad 2.
10. Indulgentiae valent tantum quantum pronuntiantur.
11. Supplement, Q. 25, Art. 2.
12. As regards our earthly life, we use the word satisfaction. As regards purgatory, the word is satispassion, signifying that the former is meritorious and the latter is not, since after death charity cannot increase, because it has been fixed at a definite level the instant the soul and body are separated. In purgatory suffering is undergone and the soul can only accept it, even if it undergoes such suffering willingly, in order to submit to the divine will. Submitting to punishment, however, is less perfect than imposing reparation upon oneself voluntarily. Furthermore, the expiation demanded is strict, much more rigorous than that which is necessary on earth (DTC, s.v. "Purgatoire," col. 1240,1295).
13. [Here and in the following paragraph Fr. Marie-Dominique uses the expression reconciliation anticipée. He has kindly explained that this means that "sinners obtained their reconciliation sooner than they would have done had the martyrs not intervened on their behalf–Tr.]
15. Héfélé, Histoire des conciles, I, 303-311 and 591-593.
16. PL, LVI, col. 517; and LIV, col. 635, 1138.
17. In indulgences, as we shall see, it is the pope or bishop who initiates this remission by distributing to the sinner the merits of Christ and the saints.
18. Whereas, in order to acquire an indulgence, one must first have returned to the state of grace through sacramental confession and penance. Without remission of the fault, there can be no remission of the punishment due. Indulgence follows reconciliation and completes it, but it does not cause it. We shall return to this point.
19. "The penitent was dressed in sackcloth or a hair-shirt in the presence of the whole assembly,...he had to have his hair shorn and wear garments of mourning,.. .he could not bear arms, nor engage in trade, nor could he marry or exercise the use of marriage": J. Tixeront, Histoire des dogmes dans I'antiquité chrétienne (1912) III, 391-392.
20. From the Latin redimere, to buy back or pay back.
21. Time is the measurement of movement in material things. After this life time does not exist. We speak of aevum.
22. IV Sent. D. 20/2, Art. Un., Q. 5.
23. IV Sent. D. 45, Q. 2, Art. 3, sol. 2.
24. For more details on the history of indulgences, see Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, s.v. "Indulgences," col. 1594-1621.
25. Cf. Pope Paul VI in the Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina of January 1, 1967, promulgating the new Enchiridion of indulgences: "As a result of the abuse and superfluity of indulgences the Church's keys have been made a laughing-stock and people have lost sight of penitential satisfaction" (Documentation Catholique, 1487, February 5, 1967, col. 210-211). There may have been abuses, but they should not be exaggerated to the point of discrediting the Church. We shall speak of this Constitution again in our next article.
26. Charles-Joseph Hefele, Histoire des conciles (Paris: Letouzay et Ane, 1921), Vol. 8, Part 2, p. 631-632.
27. The Church, on her own authority, intervenes as minister of Christ's redemption, to dispense and apply to the faithful the satisfactions made by Christ and the saints. In the sacraments, on the contrary, it is Our Lord who acts through the minister. In the practice of indulgences the Church exercises her own power that she has received from her divine Founder.
28. Absolution is an acquittal in virtue of a payment (solutio) made by someone else.
29. Where the dead are concerned, the Church can only turn to God in prayer, for the dead are no longer her subjects, properly speaking: she has no jurisdiction over them. All she can do, therefore, is offer to God the satisfactions made by the saints, asking Him to apply them to the souls in purgatory. Here is the Latin text of this canon: Omnes magni fiant indulgentias seu remissionem coram Deo poenae temporalis debitae pro peccatis, ad culpam quod attinet jam deletes, quam ecclesiastica auctoritas ex thesauro Ecclesiae concedit pro vivis per modum absolutionis, pro defunctis per modum suffragii.
30. In itself, because of the communion of saints, it would be possible to gain an indulgence for some other living person (we have already mentioned the "letters of peace"). However, the current discipline does not permit this.
31. The pope can grant them himself directly, or through the Sacred Penitentiary.
32. The exercise of the right to confer indulgences is an act of jurisdiction. But the one who receives them must have a number of moral dispositions.
33. Even if they do not go to confession as often as this.
34. For instance, a Pater, Ave, and Gloria Patri, or equivalent prayer.
35. These intentions are mentioned by Pope St. Pius X, for example, at the end of his Encyclical Ad Diem Illum (see note 18 above), where he proclaims a certain number of indulgences for the fiftieth anniversary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception.
36. This would be impossible, since time does not exist in purgatory, as we have seen above (note 103).
37. For example, indulgences granted to members of a pious union, a third order, etc.
38. For example, a blessed rosary or an indulgenced cross. The indulgence attached to a rosary ceases if the latter is destroyed. "Destroyed" here means if it is broken and half the beads are lost. If the beads are gradually replaced, the indulgence is not lost.
39. Such as visits to the Roman Basilicas during a Holy Year.
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