On Indulgences[1]
What is an Indulgence?
AN indulgence is the remission by the Church, on specified conditions, of the whole or a part of the debt of satisfaction remaining due for sin. The Church has power to absolve from guilt; she has also power to remit the punishment. The one she exercises in the sacrament of Penance; the other she exercises when she grants an indulgence. And it is clear from what has been said that an indulgence is supplemental to absolution, and presupposes the forgiveness of the guilt of sin.
Theologically considered, an indulgence is not a mere exercise of spiritual power and authority on the part of the Church; it is truly a payment of the debt, made out of her treasury of satisfactory merit; for in this are stored up the superabundant merits of Jesus Christ, and the accumulated merits of our Lady and all the saints. With this inexhaustible fund at her command, she has the means of satisfying the debts due from her children to the justice of God.
In form, an indulgence emanates from the Pope, leaving out of account the limited power exercised by bishops in favor of their flocks and by cardinals, nuncios, and others; and it is registered in a Decree or Rescript of the Congregation of Indulgences, or some similar document. It attaches to a specified prayer or good work an additional satisfactory value, such value being expressed in the terms of an ancient canonical penance, viz., so many days, quarantines (which lasted forty days), or years, to which the indulgence is thereby declared to be equivalent. The earliest indulgences were, in fact, remissions of these very penances.
Indulgences are either plenary or partial, according as a remission of all, or of part, of the debt of punishment due is granted. In either case the actual benefit obtained
- ↑ From "The Raccolta"(the 1910 Edition, Burns and Oates).
