Chapter I. The Nature of an Indulgence

IN every sin the teaching of the Catholic Church distinguishes two elements: the guilt and the penalty which it incurs. The guilt is the injury committed against God by the sinner and the displeasure with which God views the sinful act. If the sin is mortal, it deprives the soul of sanctifying grace and of God’s friendship, so that a state of enmity exists between God and the sinner. A venial sin is an injury against God; it is the object of his displeasure, and is a stain on the soul, but it does not rob the soul of sanctifying grace or deprive it of the friendship of God. Besides this guilt a sin deserves and ordinarily receives punishment at the hands of God. It is a law of God’s justice that wrongdoing entails suffering either in this world or in the world to come. It is the sanction which in the nature of things is annexed to the great moral law. The penalty for mortal sin, as befits the unrepenting and obstinate enemies of God, is eternal separation from him and punishment in the fires of hell; the penalty for venial sin is temporary punishment in this world or in purgatory. These two elements in sin are not only distinct from each other in thought; they may be, and frequently are, separated in reality. When God pardons mortal sin, the eternal penalty which it deserves in hell is also remitted, but we know from revelation that he frequently exacts from the sinner some temporary punishment for the serious offence which has been committed against him and right order. The guilt of David’s adultery was forgiven on his repentance, but he had to endure the loss of the child and other punishments. This is only in keeping with what we might expect at the hands of a wise Providence and with what observation of the order of nature teaches us. A man may truly repent of his sin, and he may have the fullest confidence that God has pardoned it, but he knows that he will have to bear the sad effects of it till his dying day.

This distinction between the guilt of sin and the penalty due to it is necessary for the understanding of what is meant by an indulgence. An indulgence is not the forgiveness of the guilt of sin; much less is it a permission to commit sin. It is the remission of the temporal punishment which often remains due to sin after its guilt has been forgiven. An indulgence, then, cannot be gained for unrepented sin, nor for sin of which the guilt still stains the soul. If, however, the guilt has been forgiven, any temporal punishment which remains to be suffered in consequence of it may be remitted by indulgences and by other means.

As the Catholic Church claims that her divine Founder empowered her ministers to forgive sin, provided that the sinner has the requisite dispositions, so she also lays claim to the power of remitting the temporal punishment due to sin both by the ministration of the sacraments and by granting indulgences. From the first centuries of the Christian era her bishops have used the power to condone temporal punishment due to sin outside sacramental confession, and they have understood that this power was contained in the general power to bind and loose granted to the Apostles and their successors by our Lord. As the Pope has jurisdiction over the whole world, he can grant indulgences to all the faithful; a bishop can only grant indulgences to those who are within his diocese, and up to the limits imposed on him by the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff (Can. 349, sec. 2, ii).

The doctrine of indulgences is intimately connected with other dogmas of the Catholic faith. When the Church remits temporal punishment due to sin, she does not simply condone it outright in the name of God, but she pays the debt due to sin out of the treasure of the Church. This treasure of the Church is made up of the satisfactions of our Lord and of his saints. Christ and all the members of his Church form one mystical body: “ For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office: so we being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.”¹ “One body and one Spirit: as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all.”² By virtue of this oneness in Christ, there is among the faithful what is called the communion of saints. Not only do all get the benefit of the same sacrifice and sacraments, but the good works of each benefit to some extent all the rest. The merit, indeed, which every good action possesses with God, with a view to an eternal reward, is personal and belongs exclusively to the doer of it; but besides meriting, every good action has also a power of placating God and satisfying for sin, as well as a power of impetrating his graces and blessings. The satisfactory part of the good actions of Christ and his saints was not required to satisfy for their own offences, and it is available to satisfy for the sins of those who form with them one mystical body. It needs, however, application to the individual soul, and one of the ways in which this is done is through indulgences. The dispensing of the mysteries of God belongs to the prelates of his Church, and inasmuch as they have jurisdiction over the faithful in this life, indulgences are applied to them directly by the power of the keys.

Over the faithful departed who are suffering for their sins in purgatory the Church has no jurisdiction, but as we can pray for them, and they are helped thereby, so if the Church permits it we can gain indulgences and apply them to the souls of the faithful departed by way of suffrage, asking God to accept the satisfaction offered for the holy souls (Can. 911).

¹ Rom. xii 4.

² Eph. iv 4-6.

A plenary indulgence is one by which all the debt of temporal punishment due to a person for his sins is remitted, while a partial indulgence, of say, forty days, remits the same amount of temporal punishment as would have been remitted by undergoing canonical penance for forty days according to the ancient discipline of the Church.

Indulgences are local, if they can only be gained in a particular place, as by visiting some particular church; they are personal, if they are attached to certain persons who fulfil certain conditions; they are real, if they are attached to a particular object, as to a crucifix or a rosary.

Again, they are temporary if they can only be gained within a specified time; if granted without any time limit, they are perpetual.