Indulgence and purgatory

[byhismercy]

If I obtain a plenary indulgence for a dying person, and at the moment it was obtained he died, would he go straight to heaven (since all temporal punishments are removed)? How is his concupiscence removed then without the purification of purgatory?

 

[umamibella]

We cannot seek indulgences for other living people, only for ourselves and the dead.

 

[Vico]

If I obtain a plenary indulgence for a dying person, and at the moment it was obtained he died, would he go straight to heaven (since all temporal punishments are removed)? How is his concupiscence removed then without the purification of purgatory?

If it was applied just after death and it was truly plenary, then all temporal punishment would be resolved.

Concupiscence is a temporal consequence of original sin but is not a temporal punishment. It is the “the tinder for sin” (fomes peccati) an inclination.

 

[Genesis315]

A few points:

As @umamibella noted, we are generally not permitted to obtain them for the living, although it is not theologically impossible (there have been some rare privileged altars in the past where the plenary indulgence could be applied to the dying, not just the dead, and priests belonging to the Pious Union of St. Joseph’s Death had a special grant from Pope Benedict XV so that every Mass they said for the dying was as if it were on such a privileged altar; the union still exists, but not sure about the grant).

As for the dead, since the Church does not exercise jurisdiction over the dead, indulgences offered for them are offered “by way of suffrage” (CIC 994), that is, as a petitionary prayer. We have a firm, pious confidence God accepts and applies them, but not an infallible assurance since He has not revealed a promise to do so (He did make such promises with regard to the Church’s jurisdiction).

Finally, the pains of purgatory are associated with the remission of venial sins and the making of satisfaction for previously remitted sins. Indulgences are the sharing in merits which satisfy for these. From my understanding, concupiscence is proper to the flesh, so it will not accompany our soul when we die, and ultimately our glorified bodies will not retain it.

Rom. 7:21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. 22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. 23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.