indulgences

indulgences. The remission by the Church of the temporal penalty due to forgiven sin, in virtue of the merits of Christ and the saints. The practice of granting indulgences presupposes that sin must have a penalty either on earth or in purgatory, even after the sinner has been reconciled to God by penitence and absolution; that through the Communion of Saints all Christians can share in the merits of Christ's saving work and in the merits of the saints; and that the Church can administer the benefit of these merits.

In the early Church the intercession of confessors and those awaiting martyrdom was allowed by the ecclesiastical authorities to shorten the canonical discipline of those under penance; with the development of the doctrine of purgatory in the W., canonical penance came to be considered as a substitute for temporal punishment in purgatory, and from there followed the belief that the prayers and merits of the saints availed to shorten such punishment, even for sins which did not require canonical penance. Later alternative works were permitted instead of the prescribed penances, and the merits of Christ and the saints applied to make up the deficiency. From the 12th cent. the granting of indulgences became common. The considerable abuses which developed in the later Middle Ages, such as the sale of indulgences, were the immediate cause of the Reformation. In 1967 Paul VI revised the practical application of the traditional doctrine in order to make it clear that the Church's object was not merely to help the faithful to make due satisfaction for their sins, but chiefly to induce them to a greater fervour of charity. Indulgences are no longer reckoned in days and years; they simply supplement, and to the same degree, the remission which the person performing the indulgenced action has already gained by the charity and contrition with which he does it. See also PLENARY INDULGENCE.