Indulgences

[MargaretTeresa]

Someone, please explain to me clearly indulgences. I am still confused from the way it was explained to me... gah!

Thanks!

[cappie]

To understand the Church's teaching on our cleansing in purgatory, it is first necessary to understand sin and its effects. Those who die with no stain of sin on their souls, such as baptized babies, go straight to heaven when they die. Those who have reached the degree of perfect love of God, such as martyrs who give their lives for Him, also avoid purgatory. But many, perhaps the vast majority of those who are saved, because of the effects of sin still present in their souls, must endure the purifying fire of purgatory.


Each sin committed entail several negative consequences: an offense against God who is Love itself, frequently an offense against our neighbor, a lessening of the beauty of the Mystical Body, and a wounding of the soul, or, when mortal sin is committed, death to the life of the soul. When these weighty outcomes are considered, it is not surprising that forgiveness of a sin in confession does not automatically return things to where they were before the sin was committed. Thus, there may remain the temporal punishment due to sin, the debt to God that must be repaid either in this life or in purgatory.

Traditional Church teaching has focused on this concept of the satisfaction (i.e., payment) of a debt to explain the need for temporal punishment on earth or in purgatory. [i]The Catechism of the Council of Trent[/i] (also called the [i]Roman Catechism[/i]), while stressing the super-abundant satisfaction for our sins made by Christ, explains that sacramental forgiveness removes the stain and guilt of sin, through the atonement of Christ, but does not always remit the debt of temporal punishment.

The [i]Roman Catechism[/i] quotes St. John Chrysostom: " . . . it is not enough that sin has been pardoned; the wound which it has left must also be healed by penance."

So then what is an indulgence? The Church explains, "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain defined conditions through the Church’s help when, as a minister of redemption, she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions won by Christ and the saints" ([i]Indulgentarium Doctrina[/i] 1).

The [i]Catechism of the Catholic Church[/i], states, "An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishment due for their sins." The Church does this not just to aid Christians, "but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity" (CCC 1478).

Indulgences are part of the Church’s infallible teaching. This means that no Catholic is at liberty to disbelieve in them. The Council of Trent stated that it "condemns with anathema those who say that indulgences are useless or that the Church does not have the power to grant them"(Trent, session 25, [i]Decree on Indulgences[/i]). Trent’s anathema places indulgences in the realm of infallibly defined teaching.