Indulgences get a bad rap, and - considering how they have been abused in the past- perhaps rightly so.
But they are different now- these are not your Grandma's indulgences!
If you are old enough... say- over 50- you may remember rattling off things like:
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" - 3 years!
"Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, have mercy on us." 20 days!
...or even making the Sign of the Cross. A week!
These- and other prayers- are indulgenced, as we discussed in Part ONE. Many a Catholic school student used prayers like these to "take time off purgatory" between classes... and that is the problem.
You see- in the past, indulgenced prayers would have times listed after them. Is was often misunderstood what those times meant.
Three years, 20 days, two weeks- those were not "time off of purgatory," because there is no time in purgatory. Or Heaven, Or Hell for that matter. They all exist outside of time!
So what did the times mean?
They were the equivalent of the old-fashioned sackcloth-and-ashes penances! Say a certain prayer, and it was the same as doing two weeks in sackcloth and ashes on the steps of the church begging alms for the poor!
So, why the change? My guess is one of two things happened:
1. The church steps got too full of sackcloth-clad penitents.
2. Confessions dropped off because people didn't want to do public penance.
Pope Urban II offered a plenary indulgence to the Crusaders who had made a sacramental confession. Makes sense- these guys were risking their lives in defense of the Holy Land.
Pope Leo X offered indulgences to raise money to rebuild St Peter's Basilica. One man working for him took this and ran with it, making outlandish promises to donors in order bring in more money. Throughout the centuries, many unscrupulous men bought and sold indulgences. I won't deny any of that. It is history. The Church is holy, the people with in her? No always.
No wonder Martin Luther was upset. He was right. It was wrong. But the Church was not wrong, the actions by people within the Church and acting in the name of the Church (with or without permission) were wrong. 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. (Thesis 21) Yep. He was right.
Have indulgences been abused? Yes.
Have indulgences been sold? Yes.
Has the Church's teaching on indulgences changed? NO.
By the mid 1500's, the Pope had forbidden any connection between money and indulgences. This was after some years of phasing it out. Over the next 400 years, the means for obtaining indulgences evolved, but never again has included money. The buying or selling of holy objects is called SIMONY, and it is a sin. And -the really important point here- the definition of an indulgence has remained the same: the full or partial remission of the temporal punishment due for sins which have already been sacramentally forgiven. The Church has the authority to set the conditions for indulgences by virtue of the authority given to her by the Lord, and by virtue of the infinite merits of Jesus Christ.
Paul VI removed the whole idea of 'time' attachments to indulgences in the late 1960's. He favored focus on the spiritual goods (faith and penitential acts) of the practice of indulgences and wanted to stop people from being so hung up on the concept of time. At that point, indulgences became either plenary (full) or partial. Faith and penance are necessary for both the remission of the eternal punishment due for sin and for the temporal punishment due for sin. In Indulgentiarum doctrina Pope Paul VI wrote: "Indulgences cannot be gained without a sincere conversion of outlook and unity with God".(article 11)
One incredibly important plenary indulgence is the one given by a priest to an actively dying person. It is called the Apostolic Blessing and it is the reason it is so important to call a priest for a dying Catholic. If a priest is not available, the blessing is automatically extended to they dying person who has established a fruitful prayer life. God can do that.
Over the years since Paul VI's changes, the indulgenced acts have evolved. What has not changed is that indulgences are supplements to the Christian life. They do not replace a conversion of heart and a life of prayer and penance and charity. We are human; we fail. Every day. God's righteous justice is tempered by his mercy, for which we must show gratitude. In conjunction with regular, sacramental confession, indulgences aid us is showing contrition before the Lord and a sincere desire to conform our lives to his will.
That can never be a bad thing!
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