Indulgencies

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East_Anglican

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I don’t know which forum to post this on so I hope this is the right one.

My question is: What is the current Roman Catholic position on the doctrine of indulgencies?

I do not want a debate, I juust want to know what the current position is
 
The teaching on indulgences remains unchanged:
1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
What is an indulgence?

“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 prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”

“An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.” The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.
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See this for more: catholic.com/library/Primer_on_Indulgences.asp
 
East_Anglican said:
I don’t know which forum to post this on so I hope this is the right one.

My question is: What is the current Roman Catholic position on the doctrine of indulgencies?

I do not want a debate, I juust want to know what the current position is
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Still there. Luther was not successful in eliminating them.
 
LilyM said:
Although the Church DID crack down on those who were selling them :yup:
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Yes they did. But if that was what old Luther was really after, then logically there should exist no separation now ,correct? No the indulgences were his excuse for a full out frontal assault on the Church, the Papacy and anything else he didn’t particularly agree with… It was wrong on the part of those selling the indulgences. Definitely. No doubt about it.

But infinitely more wrong of Luther to lead millions into heresy and schism…
 
palmas85 said:
Yes they did. But if that was what old Luther was really after, then logically there should exist no separation now ,correct? No the indulgences were his excuse for a full out frontal assault on the Church, the Papacy and anything else he didn’t particularly agree with… It was wrong on the part of those selling the indulgences. Definitely. No doubt about it.

But infinitely more wrong of Luther to lead millions into heresy and schism…
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The problem is that we are not aware of our real motives, which are usually dictated by our economic position.

The middle class which rose to dominance in the sixteenth century could not afford to spend large amounts of money on churches. Unlike the medieval nobles, who derived their social position from land rather than money, and didn’t mind feasting the peasants on every excuse.

Ultimately the reformers got what they were after. Catholics now give less to their church than typical Protestants. But by that time the Reformation had taken on a dynamic of its own. Many Protestants now sincerely believe that one’s status depends entirely on the state of mind at the moment of death, and hence prayers for the dead are futile. They don’t realise that Luther really meant that society could no longer afford to tie up big sums in chantries.
 
Thanks everyone.

My understanding is that Luther was against the misuse of the doctrine of indulgencies, not the actual doctrine.

I now need the following to be further explained.

1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.
What is an indulgence?

“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 prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.”

“An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.” The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.
 
It’s really very simple and similar to what is actually practiced in the secular penal system.

For example: You have stolen something, but have been caught. You regret it and give back the stolen goods to the owner and the owner forgives you (contrition and reconciliation=cf. the sacrament of confession).

Still, with your deed you have done harm to another, yourself and society, so this “rupture” has to be remedied by a penance. So you are sentenced to, say, three months’ prison. (I’m not a lawyer, it’s just an example.)

This “prison” or other sentence is what we call in the language of the Church “temporal punishment of sins”. In fact, it is stated that if you died immediately after confession, you would suffer a time of punishment in Purgatory (place of cleansing), because your soul is not yet pure enough to go before God. This would be temporal punishment in supernatural terms.

Now, because the Catholic Church has been given the power to bind and to loose, so she may remit this punishment partially or fully - analogously to you being let free after a month from prison (instead of serving the full sentence of three months) because of good conduct.

This remittance is called indulgence. It can be partial (partial indulgence) or full (plenary indulgence). Today, it can be acquired by certain prayers, deeds, listening to the the blessing “urbi et orbi” at Christmas and Easter etc., always in connection with Confession and Communion. Around All Souls’ Day, you can even gain indulgences for departed people (which helps them with the remittance of their temporal punishments in Purgatory).

Also see here:
newadvent.org/cathen/07783a.htm
catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9411fea1sb2.asp
catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Faith/0910-96/article9.html
 
OK. But what I don’t understand, is this for ourselves or for others only. If we pray for others how much *time off *
are they getting. Same for ourselves. Those would be temporal
right? And then a plenary indulgence, following the analogy,
is not going to prison? I get the idea of punishment being
reduced or eliminated but I can’t quantify it–how much?
And plenary which means full, does that fully remove all
purification? e.g. I partake in a plenary indulgence and
a milisecond after it’s complete. I die. Do I bypass (punish-
ment, purging, purification) and go straight to heaven?
I’m not being disrespectful. I truly want a better grasp of this.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
.
 
Seek, great questions! I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong but you can earn indulgences and ‘give’ to those who have died. I don’t believe you can ‘pass’ them on to someone who is still living.

I think plenary indulgences are very difficult to obtain but you should always try to obtain one. In other words, keep your eyes focused on heaven…

:gopray2:
 
seek said:
OK. But what I don’t understand, is this for ourselves or for others only. If we pray for others how much *time off *
are they getting. Same for ourselves. Those would be temporal
right? And then a plenary indulgence, following the analogy,
is not going to prison? I get the idea of punishment being
reduced or eliminated but I can’t quantify it–how much?
And plenary which means full, does that fully remove all
purification? e.g. I partake in a plenary indulgence and
a milisecond after it’s complete. I die. Do I bypass (punish-
ment, purging, purification) and go straight to heaven?
I’m not being disrespectful. I truly want a better grasp of this.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
.
Click to expand...
No problems - we like genuine questions round here (not baiting though).

The fact is we don’t really know a lot of the details of how indulgences work. We do know, however, that part of the efficacy of them depends on the devotion of the person who’s praying. And of course part depends on how much temporal punishment a particular soul may have accumulated for themselves.

That’s why the church is hesitant to do more than say that some indulgences are partial (will only ever partially rather than completely remove the punishment) and others are powerful enough to be plenary in the right conditions (may remove ALL of a person’s temporal punishment).

And the effect is indeed that if a person earns (or other people earn on their behalf) more indulgences than they have merited temporal punishment, then they will bypass purgatory and go straight to heaven.
 
seek said:
OK. But what I don’t understand, is this for ourselves or for others only. If we pray for others how much *time off *
are they getting. Same for ourselves. Those would be temporal
right? And then a plenary indulgence, following the analogy,
is not going to prison? I get the idea of punishment being
reduced or eliminated but I can’t quantify it–how much?
And plenary which means full, does that fully remove all
purification? e.g. I partake in a plenary indulgence and
a milisecond after it’s complete. I die. Do I bypass (punish-
ment, purging, purification) and go straight to heaven?
I’m not being disrespectful. I truly want a better grasp of this.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
.
Click to expand...
Dear seek,

I think what is also important is to know that Purgatory is part of Eternity, so there is not really “time” there, it’s outside of time so to speak. So it’s not really about the holy souls spending *less time * in Purgatory but about somehow “helping along with the scrubbing” (if we use the image of purification in the literal sense).

If you have read C. S. Lewis’ “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” (from the Narnia series), then the image of Aslan stripping Eustace of the dragon skin is a helpful image to picture purification in Purgatory (though Lewis is talking about conversion and baptism here). Gaining indulgences for others is like helping along with the stripping of the “dragon skin”, so to speak, making it easier, less painful etc.

So yes, if we use the prison analogy, a plenary indulgence gained (this includes Confession of course) means that you go straight to Heaven if you die immediately afterwards. Though as a p. i. presupposes turning away from all sins (including sins that are not grave, i. e. are venial sins), you don’t know of course when you have really gained a plenary indulgence - but you can at least reasonably hope so.

In the early Church, there were no indulgences, but people had to engage in times of penance which sometimes took years (!), were public (sitting in ashes in front of the church etc.) and of course often very troublesome. The remittance of penances or part of them was called indulgence. (The pre-Vatican-II custom of assigning numbers of days or years of indulgences to the performance of certain prayers and devotions comes from this time - it’s an equivalence of days, weeks, months or weeks remitted from such an early-Church penance.)

With Christianity becoming a popular religion, such penances ceased to be practised, but indulgences were still rarely granted. Today’s idea and practice of indulgences only emerges in the high Middle Ages, around the 13th century, increasingly stressing the fact that sinners are not cleansed of the “filth” of their sins by their own works (i. e. performing dangerous and troublesome tasks like going on pilgrimages or participating in the Crusades), but by the grace of God. (Protestants should like that one.)

That’s why from this time on, the stress was placed on simple deeds like fasting, prayer and (somewhat unfortunately, as it later turned out - see selling of indulgences) almsgiving as means of gaining indulgences for oneself or others. Fortunately, the Council of Trent did away with such abuses (though Rome would not look the way it does without them…), but confirmed indulgences as a necessary means of divine grace - and they have remained so to this day.
 
East_Anglican said:
Thanks everyone.

My understanding is that Luther was against the misuse of the doctrine of indulgencies, not the actual doctrine.
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Originally. But that changed very quickly.

Luther’s main issue wasn’t really indulgences, it was the nature of penance as a whole, and soteriological questions more broadly.

Edwin
 
Here’s my question/problem. Usually part of gaining a full plenary indulgence requires being free from the pull of sin. I just can’t see how anyone could ever be granted a full plenary indulgence.
 
mom2boyz said:
Here’s my question/problem. Usually part of gaining a full plenary indulgence requires being free from the pull of sin. I just can’t see how anyone could ever be granted a full plenary indulgence.
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I may be wrong, and often am, but my understanding was the requirement was to be free from the attraction of a sin. It was explained to me that it referred to what I call and habitual sin. If you have two or three things that you seem to confess over and over, they would be habitual sin. As you worked to conquer them, and as you did, eventually you would not have an attraction to a particular sin. That is not to say you would be sinless, rather that you were not in the habit of sinning a particular sin. At that point in your spiritual life, you would be fulfilling the requirement.
 
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