Article — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
Article V. On Certain Indulgences In Particular
Preliminary note. The number of indulgences is so great and the rules to be observed in gaining the individual indulgences are so manifold that it is altogether impossible to present them in a Manual of Moral Theology. Therefore works which treat professedly of indulgences must be consulted, such as, for example, Beringer-Steinen, Lepicier, Mocchegiani, and so forth. Here we briefly indicate two indulgences which frequently occur in priestly practice, namely, the indulgence at the moment of death and that of the privileged altar.
563. a) The indulgence or blessing at the moment of death.
Nature. Many confraternities grant their members a plenary indulgence at the moment of death. Similarly, many others can gain a plenary indulgence at the moment of death, for example, those who keep certain blessed Rosaries, crosses, or medals. We are not speaking here of those indulgences, but of the papal blessing at the moment of death, which the Roman Pontiff grants with a plenary indulgence.
According to the discipline in force, any priest who assists the sick can impart this blessing.102
It cannot be given to hardened excommunicates and public sinners; it can and must, however, be given to all those who are capable of receiving sacramental absolution.103
The conditions required that someone validly receive it are: a) The state of grace; and therefore at least an act of contrition must be elicited by the sinner; commonly, however, this blessing is imparted after confession and Viaticum. b) The dying person must at least mentally invoke the Most Holy Name of Jesus104 and accept death from the hand of God with an equable and willing mind;105 therefore the priest should prudently admonish the dying person concerning this twofold act. c) The formula prescribed by Benedict XIV must be employed under pain of nullity. Hence even those priests, for example, regulars, who follow a particular rite must employ the formula prescribed in the Roman Ritual; regulars can, however, add the name of their own founder in the Confiteor.106 If the papal blessing is given after Viaticum and Extreme Unction, the Confiteor must be repeated, so that then the Confiteor is to be recited three times.107 "But if the sick person is so near death that time does not permit either the making of a general confession or the recitation of the preceding prayers, let the priest immediately impart the blessing to him," beginning with the words: "Our Lord," and so forth.108
The indulgence annexed to the papal blessing is acquired at the moment when death actually occurs, and consequently during the same illness this blessing cannot be given more than once, even if Viaticum and Extreme Unction are given several times. But if the sick person recovers and afterward, for any cause whatever, falls into a new danger of death, it is indeed lawful to repeat the papal blessing;109 but this is not necessary, because the plenary indulgence is acquired, not at the time when the blessing is imparted, but at the time when death actually follows, as has been said.
102 Code of Canon Law, c. 468, § 2.
103 Cf. Roman Ritual. This blessing can also be given to boys capable of malice, although they have not yet been admitted to First Communion.
104 This is a condition sine qua non; cf. Decreta authentica Indulgentiarum, n. 237 ad 7.
105 Thus the Bull Pia mater.
106 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, May 7, 1882.
107 Decreta authentica Indulgentiarum, n. 286 ad 6.
108 Cf. Beringer-Steinen, loc. cit. I, n. 1028.
109 Thus expressly the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences (Decreta authentica Indulgentiarum, nn. 263 and 300).
564. b) The indulgence of a privileged altar.
Notion and species. A privileged altar, as we speak of it here, is nothing other than a plenary indulgence annexed to a Mass said at a certain altar or by a privileged priest.
It is distinguished, first, into a privileged altar for the living and the deceased, and a privileged altar for the deceased alone. Today a privileged altar for the living and the deceased is very rarely granted. But if the inscription "privileged altar for the living and the deceased" is found on some altar, it is to be interpreted in this way: a plenary indulgence is granted both for the living (after the manner of jurisdiction), if the sacrifice of the Mass is applied for the living at that altar, and for the deceased (after the manner of suffrage), if it is applied for them.110 A privileged altar for the deceased is a plenary indulgence annexed to a Mass applied for some deceased person. These privileged altars are now most frequent.111
It is distinguished, secondly, into a local, personal, and mixed privileged altar. A local privilege is annexed to a determinate fixed altar, so that all who celebrate at it can enjoy this privilege. A personal privilege is granted, not to some determinate altar, but to the priest himself, so that, celebrating Mass at any altar whatever, he may apply a plenary indulgence for the deceased person for whom he applies the Mass. All priests, for example, who have made the "heroic act of charity" enjoy a privilege of this kind.112 A mixed privileged altar is called one which is partly local and partly personal; for example, an indult is granted that a plenary indulgence be annexed to Masses which are celebrated in this church for deceased members of such a confraternity.113
110 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, August 25, 1897.
111 Cf. Code of Canon Law, cc. 916 and 917.
112 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, September 30, 1852.
113 Sometimes altars are granted after the manner of the altar of St. Gregory, which also have certain graces. We are not speaking of these here. Cf. Beringer-Steinen I, n. 975.
565. Conditions required for a privileged altar.
A local privileged altar must be fixed and not portable. In the matter of indulgences, however, all those conditions which are necessary for a fixed altar in the liturgical sense are not required for a fixed altar. For a privileged altar it suffices that it be in some manner stable and dedicated to some saint, containing a consecrated portable altar in the middle. Therefore it is not required that it be consecrated and that its table consist of one whole stone.114 Sometimes by a special indult it is granted that even a portable altar be privileged.115 Nothing prevents a personal privileged altar from being portable.
The plenary indulgence is not acquired: a) unless the Mass and the indulgence are applied for the same deceased person. Therefore the application of the Mass and the plenary indulgence cannot be separated from one another, so that the Mass is applied for A and the indulgence bestowed upon B;116 b) unless it is applied to one soul, although the Mass is applied for many.117 This holds also if, on the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, a priest applies the Mass for all the souls in purgatory; and therefore it is to be counseled that the celebrating priest then designate in some manner the soul to whom he wishes to apply the indulgence, for example, to the most abandoned soul, or to the soul which God wishes to liberate first, and so forth; c) unless both the celebrating priest and the faithful person offering the stipend have elicited at least a virtual intention of gaining this indulgence for the deceased.118
A priest cannot accept a larger stipend for this sole reason, that he is to say the Mass at a privileged altar.119 If a priest obliged to say a Mass at a privileged altar has forgotten or neglected this, he has not, of itself, satisfied the obligation of justice, nor can he satisfy it by applying another plenary indulgence to the deceased for whom he ought to have celebrated at the privileged altar.120 The reason is that other plenary indulgences do not seem to be as infallible and efficacious for the deceased as that which is joined with the sacrifice of the Mass. In practice, it is sometimes not expedient to accept Mass stipends with the strict obligation of celebrating them at a privileged altar, because it can easily happen that, for one reason or another, those Masses are not celebrated at a privileged altar. Then difficulties by no means small would arise. Indults of a privileged altar are not always of the same amplitude; therefore attention must first of all be given to the clauses added.
114 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, July 18, 1902.
115 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, January 13, 1841.
116 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, August 25, 1897, and January 23, 1901.
117 Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, December 19, 1885; Sacred Penitentiary, July 6, 1917 (Acta Apost. Sed. IX, 440).
118 Holy Office, June 16, 1915 (Acta Apost. Sed. VII, 410).
119 Decreta authentica Indulgentiarum, n. 228; Code of Canon Law, c. 918, § 2.
120 "Whether one who, for any reason whatever, does not gain the indulgence of a privileged altar can satisfy by applying another plenary indulgence to the deceased for whom he ought to have celebrated at the privileged altar? - In the negative." Thus the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, May 2, 1852 (Decreta authentica Indulgentiarum, n. 357 ad 2). This declaration must be observed, whatever the same Congregation otherwise answered for a particular case on February 22, 1847, as it itself explained on July 24, 1885. Hence the opposite opinion no longer seems sufficiently safe in practice. Cf. St. Alphonsus (Theol. mor., l. 6, n. 329, note II, and the note added by Gaudé).
566. Note. For gaining the indulgence of a privileged altar, a Requiem Mass, or a Mass of the feria or vigil with the proper collect for the deceased, is no longer required under pain of nullity (this is nevertheless laudably done when it is lawful and fitting out of piety toward the deceased). Thus the Holy Office, February 20, 1913.121 Therefore the earlier decrees establishing the contrary have been abolished, and by any Mass whatever (the other conditions having been fulfilled) the indulgence of a privileged altar can be acquired.
567. Scholion. Rules for distinguishing true indulgences from apocryphal ones. Although the Supreme Pontiffs at all times have treated the whole matter of indulgences with the greatest vigilance, nevertheless apocryphal indulgences are sometimes circulated, to the harm of the faithful and the derision of the enemies of the Church. Therefore, on August 10, 1899, Leo XIII approved nine rules prudently elaborated by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences for distinguishing true indulgences from apocryphal ones:122
Rule I. "All indulgences contained in the latest collection edited by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences are authentic." This rule concerns the collection commonly called the Raccolta.123
Rule II. "General indulgences which are not presented in the aforesaid collection, or which are said to have been granted after the collection was edited, are to be held as authentic only when the autograph document of their grant has been reviewed by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences, to which it must be presented under pain of nullity before it is published." This rule has now been changed slightly by the Code of Canon Law, c. 920; for all indulgences, whether general or particular (provided that they do not concern only the persons of the petitioners themselves), must be reviewed by the Sacred Penitentiary, and this under pain of nullity. Indulgences and faculties granted by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, however, do not need such review,124 as was already said above under n. 549.
Rule III. "Indulgences granted to orders and religious congregations, archconfraternities, confraternities, archsodalities, sodalities, pious unions, pious societies, certain more celebrated churches, pious places, and objects of devotion are to be held as authentic when they are contained in summaries reviewed and approved by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences and printed by its authority or permission."
Rule IV. "Indulgences, whether general or particular, which are contained in books, booklets, summaries, sheets, small papers, or even printed images without the approval of the competent authority are not to be held as authentic; this approval is to be granted after diligent review and distinctly expressed."
The competent authority in general is the Sacred Penitentiary, with the following cases excepted, however, in which even the approval of the Ordinary suffices:
If it is a question of publishing the grant of some particular indulgence, or of publishing a summary of indulgences which has been taken from only one apostolic rescript.
If it is a question of a new edition of some summary already published by the authority of the Sacred Penitentiary, with the following excepted, however: a) the list of apostolic indulgences; b) any translation of the complete collection of the Raccolta. In these two cases the permission of the Sacred Penitentiary is always required.
If it is a question of publishing a summary of those confraternities which either have been committed to some religious institute or are aggregated to an archconfraternity; for then the review and approval of that bishop in whose diocese the institutes or archconfraternities have their principal seat suffices.125
Rule V. "All indulgences of a thousand or several thousand years, at whatever time they are said to have been granted, are apocryphal or now altogether revoked."
Rule VI. "Plenary indulgences which are asserted to have been granted to those reciting only a few words are to be held suspect, with indulgences at the moment of death excepted."
The Supreme Pontiffs have been accustomed with great liberality to grant a plenary indulgence to the Christian faithful placed at the moment of death, because then a man most needs indulgences, and ordinarily time and strength for performing greater works are lacking.
Rule VII. "Indulgences are to be rejected as apocryphal when they are circulated in printed or handwritten booklets, sheets, or small papers, in which, from slight or even superstitious causes and uncertain revelations, or under illusory conditions, indulgences and graces exceeding measure and manner are promised."
An example of such a superstitious and false prayer is that prayer which is said to have been found in the tomb of Our Lord Jesus Christ and once revealed to Saints Elizabeth, Mechtilde, and Bridget, and which was rejected as apocryphal by the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences on May 26, 1898.
Rule VIII. "Sheets and booklets in which liberation of one or more souls from purgatory is promised to the faithful reciting one or two prayers are to be rejected as fictitious; and the indulgences which are customarily added to the said promise are to be held as apocryphal."
Although in past centuries the Supreme Pontiffs sometimes granted an indulgence for the liberation of a certain soul, nevertheless this signifies nothing other than that a plenary indulgence was granted. The Supreme Pontiffs, however, never granted indulgences for liberating several souls from purgatory at the same time, and still less for a few short prayers.
Rule IX. "Indulgences asserted to have been granted more recently are to be held as apocryphal or at least gravely suspect if they are extended to an unusual number of years or days."
For a long time now the Church has granted partial indulgences, for example, of 30, 100, or 300 days, or of 1, 2, 3, 7 years, and so forth; but it is altogether foreign to the practice of the Holy See to grant, for example, an indulgence of 1,080 days, as was read to be annexed to a certain medal. Therefore the Sacred Congregation of Indulgences declared this indulgence apocryphal on February 23, 1856.126 In our times, certain persons, led by bad zeal, calculate together all the indulgences granted to some prayer or confraternity, so that, this calculation having been made, at once a thousand or several thousand days and years of indulgence result. This manner of acting is to be reproved; for it often arises from an insane rivalry wishing thus to show that the indulgences granted to some confraternity are greater than those which have been granted to similar confraternities. It is to be desired that bishops by no means permit sheets or booklets of this kind to be printed, although the calculation may appear to correspond to the truth in every respect.127
122 Cf. Analecta eccl. VII (1899), 494 ff., and the commentaries added there.
123 Cf. above, n. 557.
124 Holy Office, July 13, 1910 (Acta Apost. Sed. II, 575).
125 Decreta authentica Congregationis Indulgentiarum, n. 388.
126 Decreta authentica Indulgentiarum, n. 370.
127 Thus Beringer-Steinen rightly says, loc. cit. I, n. 221, explaining this ninth rule.