Chapter XI — On indulgences

I. In few words I touch upon the doctrine of indulgences. These things concerning indulgences Trent prescribes, session 25: Since the power of conferring indulgences has been granted by Christ to the Church, and she has used such power divinely delivered to her even from the most ancient times, the holy Synod teaches and commands that the use of indulgences, most salutary to the Christian people and approved by the authority of the sacred Councils, is to be retained in the Church; and condemns with anathema those who either assert that they are useless, or deny that there is in the Church a power of granting them. In granting them, nevertheless, she desires that moderation be employed, according to the ancient and approved custom in the Church, lest by excessive facility ecclesiastical discipline be enervated. But the abuses, and so forth.

II. Three things the Council lays down: first, the power given by Christ to the Church of granting indulgences; second, that they are salutary; third, moderation in the bestowal of them. An indulgence is a remission of temporal punishment. Indulgences are imparted out of the common treasury of the Church. But that treasury is the infinite merits of Christ, and afterwards of all the saints, which receive their value from Christ himself the Head.

III. It is of faith that there exists in the Church a power of granting indulgences, and that the use of them is salutary to the faithful.

IV. Some conceive a false idea of indulgences, because they think, and in fact teach, that satisfactory works are attenuated by the use of indulgences. That this false idea may be blotted out, you must know that we are unequal to paying the price for the debts contracted with the divine justice on account of sins committed after Baptism. A part nevertheless of that debt we are able to pay by our own laborious works. The most clement mother the Church opens the treasury of the merits of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the saints, that it may supply what our infirmity could not render. Indulgences therefore are in supplement of our poverty: indulgences do not free us from paying that part of the debt which we can render, but supply that which we cannot furnish. If indulgences freed us from the laborious works and the due satisfactions which we are able to furnish, they would foster the sloth and torpor of Christians, and would enervate the discipline of the Church.

V. Cardinal Cajetan wisely, after his manner, sets forth the true doctrine of indulgences, in his treatise On Indulgences, question 3, where he has these things: “Penitents are of a twofold order. Some are solicitous to satisfy by themselves for their own sins; some are negligent to satisfy by themselves. The first either ask that condign penances be imposed upon them by the confessor, being ready to fulfil them; or of their own accord they take them upon themselves, and forthwith study to satisfy by their own holy works, by fasting, praying, giving alms, and so forth. But the second either ask a very light penance, or take one up unwillingly, and when they have fulfilled it, which they know to be the least, they care no more about satisfying: and these are they to whom indulgences do not profit, in my judgment. For no one unworthy truly obtains the fruit of an indulgence by another's satisfaction for the punishment owed by himself. But anyone negligent to satisfy by himself is unworthy of another's satisfaction for the punishment owed for his own sins. Therefore no one negligent to satisfy by himself acquires the fruit of an indulgence. Besides, in any well-ordered commonwealth, however reasonable a cause might sometimes exist for dispensing the common treasury among citizens burdened with debt, yet those negligent to pay would be reckoned unworthy of the help of the treasury. For from the fact that they can pay of their own and care not, they render themselves unworthy of such relief: unless such men were held for unworthy, their negligence would be fostered, and others by their example would be provoked to a like negligence. But it is of law to make men not negligent but virtuous. Since therefore the Church is ordained by God, it is not equitable that the spiritual dispensation of the treasury should hold for worthy those negligent to satisfy: for this would truly be to enervate penitential satisfactions. Indulgences therefore do not profit those negligent to satisfy by themselves, since they are unworthy of an indulgence. … But those ready to satisfy by themselves are not those who neglect to satisfy by themselves, but those alone whose will is so ready to satisfy that it does not retard the work unless hindered.”

VI. The most celebrated Bishop BOSSUET in his Instruction on Indulgences hands down rules consonant with the doctrine of Cajetan, drawn from the Council of Trent itself. Take courage, O ministers of God, restore the documents of holy mother Church; hear them expressed in the voice of Trent. For thus Trent speaks, session 14, chapter 2: Moreover the fruit of Baptism is one, and another that of Penance. For by Baptism, putting on Christ, we are made in him altogether a new creature, obtaining a full and entire remission of all sins: to which newness and integrity, nevertheless, we can by no means arrive through the sacrament of Penance without great weepings and labours on our part, the divine justice exacting it; so that Penance has deservedly been called by the holy Fathers a certain laborious Baptism.

VII. This testimony of the Church being premised, Bossuet thus addresses his people: “Hear, sons, the words of the Church your mother. She proposes to you great weepings, great labours, a laborious Baptism: she teaches you that the divine justice exacts it. This rigour of the Church arises from her first spirit, which will never be extinguished; nor will she herself ever cease to declare war upon laxity. What does it avail to detest with the Council the softness of the heretics who rejected the holy rigours of satisfactions, if we ourselves fall into a like languor, and in fact contemn that which in words we confess?”

VIII. In few words it is proved that plenary indulgences profit little those who neglect according to their strength to satisfy the divine justice by laborious works, as Trent teaches. Bring forth fruits worthy of penance, says Matthew. St. Paul did not indulge the incestuous Corinthian save after an austere and long-lasting penance. From the time of the Apostles down to about the fourteenth century we read of no plenary and general indulgence indiscriminately for all the faithful. Now a frequent use of indulgences obtains, which are imparted according to the dispositions of the faithful. They are called plenary indulgences, because the Church on her part remits the whole temporal punishment, which the faithful cannot execute, to those who are disposed for receiving so great a benefit. But we say that those faithful are indisposed for this benefit who do not execute those laborious and satisfactory works which they can. They ought to render that part of the debt which they are able; that which remains the plenary indulgence fully supplies.

IX. Recall to mind the example indicated by Cajetan. A most wealthy Christian bequeaths his whole most opulent patrimony in fruit-bearing lands never to perish to the commonwealth, that every year the debts of poor citizens may be paid. If those who could pay their own debts, if not wholly, at least in part, should refuse, and should wish with their own moneys to live more sumptuously and to clothe themselves more ambitiously, so that all their debts might be paid out of the public treasury — would you not cry out that these debtors were crafty, cunning, and cheats? Render, you would say, what you can; then the treasury will supply your want. Assuredly like to these fraudulent debtors are those penitents who, abusing the clemency of holy mother Church who opens her treasury to supply what is lacking to them, ungrateful and crafty soothe their senses, fatten their body, foster concupiscence after adulteries, fornications, and perjuries perpetrated, and indulge in delights and enticements, that the whole debt may be paid out of the treasury of the Church. They could contribute their own fasts, alms, vigils, scourges, lyings on the ground, and other works of piety toward paying a portion of the debt; but, seized by a pernicious error, they contend that all their debts be paid out of the treasury of the Church. But they are deceived, blind and wretched men.

X. The supreme dispenser of indulgences is the Supreme Pontiff. What indulgences bishops and archbishops can grant it does not concern me to discuss. Indulgences granted without cause are not ratified before God.

XI. Only the baptized faithful are apt for gaining indulgences, if they be free from mortal sin. Since indulgences remit temporal punishment, which cannot be remitted so long as the guilt of the fault remains. It is nevertheless not necessary that all the works prescribed in the bull of indulgences be performed in the state of grace, provided they be fulfilled with a penitent mind. The state of grace nevertheless is required at least when the last work is fulfilled, because then the indulgence obtains its effect.

XII. Sacramental confession is to be sent before for the gaining of indulgences even by those who are in the state of grace, because in the bull the indulgence is granted to the contrite and confessed. And this is the common opinion. When alms are prescribed in the bull, they ought to be more or less according to the riches of the persons. For that is another opinion, of those saying that it is enough that even the least alms be given by the rich, that indulgences may be obtained; and that it is enough for the poor to say some short little prayer. Innumerable other little questions I pass over, as of no moment, and such as the graver theologians disapprove, because they afford a handle to the heretics for deriding indulgences, and would take away satisfactory works out of the midst. Wherefore guard is to be kept against petty opinions of this kind.

XIII. That indulgences can be extended to the souls of Purgatory all Catholics teach against the innovators, by way of suffrage, not of judgment and absolution, because the Church cannot exercise jurisdiction over those souls.

XIV. Indulgence is manifold. Some are perpetual, others temporary; some plenary, others partial. Those partial indulgences, which are granted only for several days or years, have respect to the ancient penitential canons, which enjoined so many days or years of penance.

XV. Plenary indulgences are of two kinds. Some are absolutely such, which remit the whole punishment to disposed faithful. The other is the indulgence which is called jubilee, from the Hebrew word jobel, which signifies liberty and remission, by which the Jews in every fiftieth year recovered their possessions. More things would have to be said here of the jubilee. But because the discussion of these matters would conduce more to wrangling than to instruction, I pass them over. The doctrine given in few words concerning indulgences suffices for the instruction of confessors.

XVI. Let the most learned BOSSUET impose an end upon this chapter, who in the place cited, point 7 and following, writes these things: “The doctrine of the Council of Trent in the adduced decree is enough that there be restored in the practice both of penance and of indulgences the ancient spirit of the Church. There is no need at all to weave a curious history of indulgences, nor to indicate the degrees by which the ancient rigour of the canons was relaxed. Nor is it to be discussed whether those canons in some manner subsist at present, or whether the Church in granting indulgences looks to them, as the Doctors commonly reckon. Plenary indulgences, set over against indulgences of seven years, of fourteen years, of twenty years, of twenty days, of forty days, and others like them, seem to indicate that the penitential canons have not been utterly handed over to oblivion, since in these indulgences she looks to them. But, these questions of the schools being dismissed, that we may meditate those things which serve for our edification, the Council of Trent abundantly shows us that the Church preserves the right and has the intention of exercising her holy rigours, and of enjoining penances that are medicinal and proportioned: penances which may make us conformable to Christ crucified and satisfying for us to the justice of his Father; penances which may cast a bridle upon licence, which may not only be a remedy to us against vicious habits, but also a satisfaction to God for the vengeance and punishment of past crimes. Behold a specimen briefly touched of the doctrine of the Council of Trent, session 14, chapter 2 and 8. Is not this enough that we may understand that it is the perpetual purpose of the Church to continue the ancient right with which she is endowed, and severely to exercise upon penitents the justice which God has deposited in her hands? This doctrine of the Council contains virtually the whole austerity of the ancient canons. The gravity of the sins which Christians perpetrate is not less; the crime of an ungrateful mind against the Holy Ghost, whom they received in Baptism, is not less horrid; the justice of God has not changed its rules; the inclination of depraved habits is not less pernicious, nor the licence of sinning less to be dreaded than in the first centuries. The Church in the Council of Trent confirms all these reasons with so great strength that it yields in nothing to those things which the Fathers adduced. Nor is penance a second Baptism, save at this price, and, as the Council says, save if it be joined with our great weepings and labours: nor will that be a laborious Baptism which brings us back to the pristine purity and integrity of morals. But if the vigour of the ancient spirit of Christianity stood in its whole strength, we should always have need of the indulgence and clemency of the Church. … All things in these decrees of the Council savour of piety and of antiquity; nor can we sufficiently admire either the wisdom of the Church or the purity of her doctrine. And at the outset it is established that the holy Council recalls all things to the ancient discipline approved in the Church and in the Councils. But the spirit of the ancient Councils, and above the rest of the Nicene, is wholly in this, that it grants indulgences to those who compensate by fervour of spirit for a diminished austerity of body. Hence it appears to follow that the spirit of the Church is the same today also: namely, that the faithful, restoring this spirit, may love the more ardently the more they receive, as Christ pronounced with his own mouth. Secondly, the Council desires a moderation of indulgences, lest by excessive facility discipline be enervated. And, that we may pass over those things which regard the vigilance of pastors, nothing more valid occurs for hindering this mournful relaxation of discipline than that the faithful, by the use of indulgences, restore a fervour of spirit consonant with the Gospel and with antiquity.”