Last week I started a brief series on the Sacraments of Healing with a reflection on the Sacrament of Penance. One of the more controversial teaching and practice of the Church, that is closely linked to the Sacrament of Penance, are indulgences.
Let’s begin by defining what an indulgence is. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “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” (CCC #1471) The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.
To understand this we need to understand that sin has a double consequence. As I mentioned last week, grave or mortal sin deprives us from communion with God (sanctifying grace) and makes us incapable of eternal life. The Church calls this privation the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand, any sin, even venial sin, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth through our acts of charity, or after death in a state called Purgatory, before we can enter into heaven. This purification frees us from what the Church calls the “temporal punishment” of sin. Recalling the example I used last weekend of playing ball by the house even when told not to, breaking the neighbor’s window breaks our relationship with him (sort of “eternal punishment” if our neighbor is God), and when we apologize and our neighbor forgives us, that relationship is restored. However, there is still a window that needs to be fixed (sort of “temporal punishment”), which might be giving our neighbor the money to have the window replaced.
“In the communion of saints, “a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. Between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things.” In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin” (CCC #1475).
“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.
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” (CCC #1478-79).
An indulgence may be plenary (remits all temporal "punishment" required to cleanse the soul from attachment to anything but God) or partial (remits only part of the temporal "punishment", i.e. cleansing, due to sin).
To gain a plenary indulgence, upon performing the charitable work or praying the aspiration or prayer for which the indulgence is granted, one must fulfill the prescribed conditions of:
A complete and whole-hearted detachment from all sin of any kind, even venial sin,
Making a valid sacramental confession within a week of performance of act or prayer,
Receiving Holy Communion in the state of grace
Praying for the intentions of the Pope.
The minimum condition for gaining a partial indulgence is to be contrite in heart; on this condition, a Catholic who performs the work or recites the prayer in question is granted, through the Church, remission of temporal punishment equal to that obtained by the person's own action.