Question about Obtaining Indulgences for the Dead

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DonnaNoble

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In a weird series of events, my boss told me to go home early because he “knew I was religious.” Since he did that and I then had the time, I decided to go to Stations of the Cross on my new free tim. That’s when I found out that one can earn a Plenary Indulgence for doing so.

So I read more about Indulgences (I really knew very little before today and still know little) but one thing I read is that I can also obtain Indulgences on behalf of the dead. I pray for a lot of dead people I once knew and would love to obtain Plenary Indulgences for them if I can.

I read that I can only obtain one Plenary Indulgence per day and that such and that sort of Indulgence frees us from all of the Temporal Punishment. Does this mean:
  1. I only need to obtain one Plenary Indulgence per deceased person?
  2. And can I only earn one per day for someone else (I know I can only obtain one per day for myself, but is it one per day for who obtains it or one per day for the person the Indulgence is for?
  3. Lastly, can I obtain indulgences for non-Catholic dead?
Knowing these answers will help me to understand what I need to do to help those souls.

I am a horrible sinner myself, so I am probably going to have to keep earning Indulgences for myself too. Thanks!
 
  1. If you are successful in achieving it yes. That’s an if. You need to be free from all attachment to sin. You also need to have gone to Confession 20 days before or after and have received Communion in the same interval. One confession suffices for several plenary indulgences but you need one Holy Communion per indulgence. You also need to pray for the Pope’s intentions for a plenary (1 prayer per indulgence)
  2. Yup, one per day doesn’t matter who it is for. More than one a day could be partial+ if you do more it does not matter since your first may have been successful in a partial and not plenary way.
  3. Yes
 
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DonnaNoble said:
I only need to obtain one Plenary Indulgence per deceased person?

And can I only earn one per day for someone else (I know I can only obtain one per day for myself, but is it one per day for who obtains it or one per day for the person the Indulgence is for?

Lastly, can I obtain indulgences for non-Catholic dead?
Click to expand...
  1. The issue with just getting one Plenary Indulgence is that you don’t know if it is truly plenary, because you have to have that pesky “detachment from all sin, even venial sin” and we are never quite sure if we meet the requirement. If you did the Plenary Indulgence perfectly, then one Plenary Indulgence per soul should be enough.
However, since there is often some doubt in our own heads if we were truly detached enough from sin, we often do multiple Plenaries for particular people who were are very close to. For example, I loved my deceased parents so I have probably done at least 5 or 6 plenaries for each of them in addition to having Masses said for their souls. But if we are just doing a plenary for a stranger or someone to whom we’re not close, then we maybe just do one. For example, let’s say I see a murder victim in the paper and want to do a plenary for them, I’m likely to just do one and try to make it a good one.

It’s really up to you how many you want to do and for who.
  1. You can only get one plenary a day. You can keep it for you or give it to a deceased soul, but you can only get one plenary a day. You can’t earn two and keep one and give one away.
  2. Yes. I earn indulgences all the time for non-Catholic dead and frankly they may be more in need of them because a lot of them come from faith traditions where nobody prays for the souls of the dead.
 
Thank you for the answers! This looks like it’s going to be a challenge for me, but one for a good cause (and hopefully it will help me to improve too).
 
I’m posting Fr. Heilman’s “how to” for gaining plenaries, which he usually posts in November as that’s the month dedicated to praying for the dead. You might find this helpful; if you don’t, then feel free to skip it. I was getting indulgences for about a year, mostly for my deceased relatives and friends, before I read this method of Father’s, but I switched to this method last November because it helped me get more organized and it added some new features.

Please note that his sections called “Holy Alliance” and “Stealth Evangelization” are NOT required for getting the indulgence - they are additional prayers that Father recommends we say in order to send grace to a living person, on top of the indulgence we are doing for the dead person. Nevertheless, the Holy Alliance is fun and helps me feel less alone when I pray and I also learn about new saints - I have added about 115 saints to my Alliance since November - and the Divine Mercy to send grace to the living has been helpful in many cases where I am praying the indulgence for a deceased person and I then say the accompanying Divine Mercy to send grace to their widow or their son/ daughter or other person who is grieving them.

 
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