Official Def. of an Indulgance

[Montie_Claunch]

I am talking to a Fundamentalist Gentleman who claims that the Church teaches that an Indulgance is a “Free-bee” for future sin without consequence for them. I would like to show him otherwise. He bleives that any thing that we say is simply lying to cover up for what we really beleive so that the “Protestant Majority doesn’t come sweeping down on our heathen bleives”. So I decieded to call upon some Church Documents so that he can’t wiggle out of it without admitting we don’t bleive that. I am going to go straight to the CCC. I was wondering if anyone knows of any other sources I could appeal to? Thanks and God bless.

 

[jim1130]

I am talking to a Fundamentalist Gentleman who claims that the Church teaches that an Indulgance is a “Free-bee” for future sin without consequence for them. I would like to show him otherwise. He bleives that any thing that we say is simply lying to cover up for what we really beleive so that the “Protestant Majority doesn’t come sweeping down on our heathen bleives”. So I decieded to call upon some Church Documents so that he can’t wiggle out of it without admitting we don’t bleive that. I am going to go straight to the CCC. I was wondering if anyone knows of any other sources I could appeal to? Thanks and God bless.

Here is the definition of an indulgence (from the Catechism of the Catholic Church): "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."81

1478 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 punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity.90

1479 Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted.

81 Paul VI, apostolic constitution, Indulgentiarum doctrina, Norm 1.
90 Cf. Indulgentiarum doctrina, 5.

Our sin is forgiven, but we are still accountable. If you toss a baseball through a picture window, you will be forgiven for the act (if you are truly sorry), but you will still have to pay for the replacement of the window. Kind of a simple analogy. I am sure someone can come up with a better one.

You may want to visit Catholic Answers and type in the “Search” for indulgences: catholic.com/search.asp?query=indulgences

 

[Penitant]

He bleives that any thing that we say is simply lying to cover up for what we really beleive so that the “Protestant Majority doesn’t come sweeping down on our heathen bleives”.

Does he know that Catholics make up half the Christians in the world? That is, we vastly outnumber any other Christian group.

 

[LilyM]

Indulgences don’t and never have had any application to future sin. They are not therefore a licence to do anything. And two of the conditions for gaining indulgences are 1) Sacramental confession (ie you must have already acknowledged and confessed the sin) and 2) total lack of attachment to all sins.

Bit difficult to claim that you’re unattached to sin if you’re planning to commit them in the future because you figure you’ve got some kind of ‘get out of jail free’ card.