Plenary Indulgences?

[AmericanMuslim]

I was talking to my mother today (she’s 70) and she told me about plenary indulgences.

As she described it, you could pray a set of prayers (3 Our Fathers, 3 Hail Marys, and 3 Glory Bes) for a deceased relative and immediately relieve their entire term of purgatory. However, you had to go into the Church with the intent of doing this and you could only do it once per visit. So it was common practice for people to go to Church, say the prayers, then leave, walk back in and say the prayers for someone else, leave, etc. She clearly remembered groups from her parish saying the prayers, walking out one door, around the building, entering through a different door, praying, exiting, etc.

I found this all very fascinating. This would have been the late 1940s in the midwest U.S.

Are plenary indulgences still part of the Catholic Church tradition today? Do people still perform this kind of prayer?

 

[DavidFilmer]

Are plenary indulgences still part of the Catholic Church tradition today?

Yes (there are also partial indulgences). But they usually have more requirements than your mother mentioned. It is generally necessary to go to Confession and attend Mass (and make certain prayer intentions).

A plenary indulgence is a full indulgence. There’s no reason to do it repeatedly.

Do people still perform this kind of prayer?

Not as often as they should - it’s crazy that you can get so much for so little and people don’t do it all the time.

 

[Dale_M]

Indulgences never went away, although they were greatly downplayed in the wake of Vatican II. However, for the past ten years, particularly under the current pope, there has been increasing mention of them.

Here is some information from a 2009 news article

The fact that many Catholics under 50 have never sought one, and never heard of indulgences except in high school European history (Martin Luther denounced the selling of them in 1517 while igniting the Protestant Reformation), simply makes their reintroduction more urgent among church leaders bent on restoring fading traditions of penance in what they see as a self-satisfied world.

The return of indulgences began with Pope John Paul II, who authorized bishops to offer them in 2000 as part of the celebration of the church’s third millennium. But the offers have increased markedly under his successor, Pope Benedict, who has made plenary indulgences part of church anniversary celebrations nine times in the last three years. The current offer is tied to the yearlong celebration of St. Paul, which continues through June.

nytimes.com/2009/02/10/world/americas/10iht-10indulgence.20064066.html

 

[EricFilmer]

I was talking to my mother today (she’s 70) and she told me about plenary indulgences.

As she described it, you could pray a set of prayers (3 Our Fathers, 3 Hail Marys, and 3 Glory Bes) for a deceased relative and immediately relieve their entire term of purgatory…

I’m not familiar with this particular devotion, but there is more involved in the process of gaining a plenary indulgence (either for ourselves or souls in Purgatory). Or at least there is more involved according to the current instructions from the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum. What your mother described sounds more in keeping with a partial indulgence, but a partial indulgence would not relieve an entire term in Purgatory. Here are some online resources that are very informative about this whole subject:

For information concerning the nature of indulgences, and a Catholic response to criticisms and misconceptions, visit this webpage

For information on the process involved in gaining an indulgence, see this link concerning the norms.

To learn about the prayers and devotions associated with both partial and plenary indulgences, visit this website, and click on the word “Indulgences” on the left hand side of the page. This will take you to a page containing mostly information concerning partial indulgences, and there will be a link to give you more information specifically concerning plenary indulgences.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Are there ANY plenary indulgences that are not subject to the norm that one be not attached to ANY sin including venial sin?

How hard is it not to be attached tro ANY sin including venial sin?

Can a NON SAINT ever be NOT ATTACHED to ANY sin including venial sin?

If an adult who had never been baptized was baptized–if that adult IMMEDIATELY after Baptism tried to obtain a plenary indulgence so he/she could apply it to one of their relatives in purgatory–would that person probably be NOT ATTACHED to ANY sin including venial sin or can attachement to ANY sin including venial sin happen 1 billionth of a second after even a valid baptism?

It seems to me that NON ATTACHMENT to sin is very difficult. If that is true then one should seek plenary indulgences all their lives and all their lives ask Jesus if it be His will that He give the person the grace of NOT BEING ATTACHED to sin so the person could obtain one.

One last question–when a person is giving the Apostolic Pardon right before death–is that pardon subject to the norm that one be totally non attached to ANY sin including venial sin?

The reason I ask is that I’ve read that some people say that is not the case. Is it the case or not?

Here’s another question: if an unconscious person receives the Anointing of the sick–they are forgiven of their mortal sins–if they receive Viaticum they are forgiven of their venial sin–if after all that they received the Apostolic pardon would that person be NON ATTACHED to ANY sin including venial sin or would they STILL BE ATTACHED to venial sin?

If Annointing of the sick plus viaticum plus the person being unconscious could not make them UNATTACHED to ANY sin including venial sin then what would?!!

In other words are plenary indulgences realisticaly received by NON saints or not?

 

[EricFilmer]

Are there ANY plenary indulgences that are not subject to the norm that one be not attached to ANY sin including venial sin?

How hard is it not to be attached tro ANY sin including venial sin?

Can a NON SAINT ever be NOT ATTACHED to ANY sin including venial sin?

…It seems to me that NON ATTACHMENT to sin is very difficult. If that is true then one should seek plenary indulgences all their lives and all their lives ask Jesus if it be His will that He give the person the grace of NOT BEING ATTACHED to sin so the person could obtain one.

The problem is that the term “attachment to sin” has two different meanings in the context of plenary indulgences, and the instructions concerning indulgences are not very clear in making the distinction (so your concerns are quite understandable). The requirement to have no attachment to sin (in order to receive a plenary indulgence) means that your intention must be to live a sin-free life (with the help of God’s grace). This is the same thing as the requirement of having a “firm purpose of amendment” in order to be properly absolved from sin when going to Confession.

For example, let us say that I have a “favorite little sin” in terms of a gluttonous ritual of over-eating and getting drunk every Friday night while watching sports (I don’t actually have this problem, so this is all hypothetical). Now let us say that I want to get a plenary indulgence. If it is my intention to actually stop doing the sinful Friday ritual (and to give up all other sins as well) then there is no problem with pursuing the plenary indulgence.

But let us say that my attitude is that, despite wanting a plenary indulgence, I fully intend to keep doing the sinful Friday ritual. In this case, I would not actually gain a plenary indulgence because I have an “attachment” to that sinful ritual; I plan to keep it.

So in this case, “attachment to sin” does not refer to our attachment to sins we committed in the past. It simply refers to our present attitude concerning sin. So long as it is our sincere desire to live free of sin, it suffices to say that we meet the requirement of having no attachment to sin. Even if we have a habitual sin or a sin we are addicted to (and therefore we realize that, due to our weak human nature, we will probably commit such sins again), if we sincerely wish that such sins were out of our lives, then we meet the requirement.

**To summarize all this, the instructions on gaining a plenary indulgence are confusing because they basically state (as you pointed out): In order to be cleansed of your attachment to past sins, you can pursue a plenary indulgence, but to get one you must have no attachment to sin.

Instead, I humbly submit that the instructions should have said something like this: In order to be cleansed of your attachment to past sins, you can pursue a plenary indulgence, but to get one you must have a firm purpose of amendment to give up all sin in your life (with the help of God’s grace).**

One last question–when a person is giving the Apostolic Pardon right before death–is that pardon subject to the norm that one be totally non attached to ANY sin including venial sin?

Here’s another question: if an unconscious person receives the Anointing of the sick–they are forgiven of their mortal sins–if they receive Viaticum they are forgiven of their venial sin–if after all that they received the Apostolic pardon would that person be NON ATTACHED to ANY sin including venial sin or would they STILL BE ATTACHED to venial sin?

Within the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (and its application as the Last Rites), the Apostolic Pardon is given after the recipient goes to Confession. Therefore, assuming that the person made a good Confession, he will be absolved from all mortal and venial sins. And, as you can see from my above clarification concerning the concept of attachment to sin, there is nothing to inhibit the Apostolic Pardon from granting a plenary indulgence.

If the person is unable to go to Confession (i.e., he is unconscious, too medicated to actually give a good confession, unable to talk, etc.) then prior to the Apostolic Pardon the priest will go through a Penitential Rite. Under these circumstances, the Penitential Rite is considered to absolve all sins (including mortal sins) through an extraordinary application of grace. In other words, in terms of the sacraments, the ordinary way for dealing with post-Baptismal sins is the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but the Anointing of the Sick may provide for this in an extraordinary way (keep in mind that the Letter of James’ description of the Anointing of the Sick includes the statement, “And if he has committed any sins, his sins will be forgiven.”).

 

[Jerry-Jet]

So if a person if able would want to receive the annointing of the sick–if that unconscious person receives the annointing of the sick and then receives the apostolic pardon–would that person skip purgatory and go straight to heaven?

 

[DavidFilmer]

So if a person if able would want to receive the annointing of the sick–if that unconscious person receives the annointing of the sick and then receives the apostolic pardon–would that person skip purgatory and go straight to heaven?

Yes.