Indulgences: Spreading the Wealth

Homiletic & Pastoral Review ^ | November 2000 | Dermott J. Mullan

[PetroniusMaximus]

"PM you're proving my point: explicit references are not required for reality of a dogma... The word "Trinity" is nowhere found in scripture but the concept the reality of it is."

The word "Trinity" is our word. It is not God's word (so to speak) because it is not in the Bible. But the reality of the three persons of the Godhead (Biblical word) is clearly taught by Scripture. All three Presons are called "God" in Scripture. It is unambiguous - but "Trinity" is our convenient word for this unambiguous Scriptural concept.


"Purgatory" is ambiguous. No specific passage can be pointed to that refers to it's existence unambiguously. I think the 250+ references to Heaven and 250+ references to Hell are a striking contrast to this ambiguity.

Furthermore, "Purgatory" is a "necessary" doctrine that has grown up around a theology that teaches that what Jesus did on the cross was not enough to completely and utterly save you from sin and hell. "Limbo" is a similar "necessary" concept nowhere taught in Scripture.

"Purgatory" speaks to the need of the (I'm sure often) sincere soul who believes in Jesus but still has this nagging feeling that they are not ready - not pure enough to enter heaven. I find that same dilemma in the NT - in Paul who says...

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

Rom 7&8

Paul sees clearly that he is a wretched man who is at war with the evil tendencies within himself. He looks to what Gos has done in Christ as his source of liberation and freedom.

[conservonator]

You see "our word" trinity in scripture because that is how the Church teaches us to understand God, it seems clear and logical today only because the early Church fathers settled this issue about 1600-1700 years ago. You know very well that this was far from a settled issue in the early Church, and in fact there are several "Christian" churches today that reject the trinitarian formula. Does there rejection of the Trinity have any impact on the truth of the Triune God? of course not, truth is not dependent on belief, it is what it is.

Same with purgatory, it is what it is, it is referenced in Scripture, not as often as the two ultimate ends to be sure, but I don't believe, and I really don't think that you truly believe, that the number of times something is mentioned in Scripture make it more real than if it is not mentioned specifically at all. If that were true than you and I would both agree that sola fide is anti biblical since the only time that particular phrase appears in the bible it is preceded by the words "not by". As someone mentioned, that 's not ambiguous at all, is it.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"You see "our word""

I though you would like that ! :)


"because that is how the Church teaches us to understand God, it seems clear and logical today only because the early Church fathers settled this issue about 1600-1700 years ago."

And why/how did they settle it? Because the found it in the Scriptures!!! It was not revealed to them from heaven.



"Same with purgatory, it is what it is, it is referenced in Scripture, not as often as the two ultimate ends to be sure,"

"Not as often" - not at all. Not even once in an unambiguous fashion.



"and I really don't think that you truly believe, that the number of times something is mentioned in Scripture make it more real than if it is not mentioned specifically at all."

True, but a theological point needs to be expressed clearly ONE TIME - just one time. Jesus is clearly called God by the NT - so is the Holy Spirit.


"the only time that particular phrase appears in the bible it is preceded by the words "not by".

Luke 7:50
And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

[conservonator]

And why/how did they settle it? Because the found it in the Scriptures!!! It was not revealed to them from heaven.

What is scripture if not revelation from heaven?;) If resolving the the issue (and many, many others) was as simple as flipping open a page in a book there would not be many denominational splits in the church. The simple fact that scripture is not self revealing should be self evident. Now, I would never disagree that the concept of the triune nature of God is found in scripture, but I wold argue that it's easily discernible, if it were, why the need for a council to define the dogma?

You can't see purgatory in scripture because you've been tough not to see it, it conflicts with the dogmas that you have accepted, this does not mean that the references are not there. The Jew and the atheist rejects the divinity of Christ even though they are perfectly capable or reading hte very same scripture that you and I read, why? It's there for all to see, but their world view, and a lack of grace prevent them from seeing the truth. You as a Christian do not lack grace, but you lack the willingness, due to a particular theological view, to see what is there. But I have hope for you!

Luke 7:50 And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.

Christ didn't insert the word "alone" why should we?

go in peace.

:)

[armydoc]

The Catholic Church has never, ever taught that indulgences lessened time in purgatory.


How then, do you explain the "Sabbatine Privilage"?

The name Sabbatine Privilege is derived from the apocryphal Bull "Sacratissimo uti culmine" of John XXII, 3 March, 1322. In this Bull the pope is made to declare that the Mother of God appeared to him, and most urgently recommended to him the Carmelite Order and its confratres and consorores. The Blessed Virgin asked that John, as Christ's representative on earth, should ratify the indulgences which He had already granted in heaven (a plenary indulgence for the members of the Carmelite Order and a partial indulgence, remitting the third part of the temporal punishment due to their sins, for the members of the confraternity); she herself would graciously descend on the Saturday (Sabbath after their death and liberate and conduct to heaven all who were in purgatory.

The Sabbatine privilege thus consists essentially in the early liberation from purgatory, through the special intercession and petition of Mary, which she graciously exercises in favour of her devoted servants preferentially -- as we may assume -- on the day consecrated to her, Saturday.

- Catholic Encyclopedia
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13289b.htm

[annalex]

I am somewhat puzzled by Sanormal's assertion as well. How then are we to interpret this:

A partial indulgence commutes only a certain portion of the penalty; and this portion is determined in accordance with the penitential discipline of the early Church. To say that an indulgence of so many days or years is granted means that it cancels an amount of purgatorial punishment equivalent to that which would have been remitted, in the sight of God, by the performance of so many days or years of the ancient canonical penance. Here, evidently, the reckoning makes no claim to absolute exactness; it has only a relative value.

God alone knows what penalty remains to be paid and what its precise amount is in severity and duration. Finally, some indulgences are granted in behalf of the living only, while others may be applied in behalf of the souls departed. It should be noted, however, that the application has not the same significance in both cases. The Church in granting an indulgence to the living exercises her jurisdiction; over the dead she has no jurisdiction and therefore makes the indulgence available for them by way of suffrage (per modum suffragii), i.e. she petitions God to accept these works of satisfaction and in consideration thereof to mitigate or shorten the sufferings of the souls in Purgatory.

(Indulgences, scroll to VARIOUS KINDS OF INDULGENCES)

[sanormal]

Let's keep in mind a few guardrails for our discussion of the Sabbatine Priviledge.

1. There is no time or space in Purgatory.
2. Only dead saints are there.
3. There are no clocks, watches, daytimers, calendars or organizers in Purgatory.

There is no Saturday in Purgatory (see above). Saturdays only occur for the living. Note that the Bull says, "especially on Saturdays, the day consecrated by the Church to the Blessed Virgin."

Read in context the Bull underlines Mary's constant intercession for the faithfully departed and our immitation of her faithfulness not some magic formula to spring souls on Saturday.

And that's no bull.

[sanormal]

"To say that an indulgence of so many days or years is granted means that it cancels an amount of purgatorial punishment equivalent to that which would have been remitted, in the sight of God, by the performance of so many days or years of the ancient canonical penance."

Let's unpack this slowly as it is exactly what I have proposed.

Let's use that novena card that Grammy used to have on her bedside table. It said down at the bottom INDULGENCE 36 DAYS.

In prayerfully and devoutly saying the Novena, one would do the spiritual equivalent of 36 days of ancient canonical penances (sackcloth and ash).

The equivalence was with the ancient canonical penances, not with any time lessened out of Purgatory.

So Grammy had a choice. She could fast and wear sackcloth and ash for 36 days OR she could say her novena devoutly. No wonder she chose the novena.

As to the length of the purification process for individual souls, nothing can be said in terms of years. Pope Alexander VII, Decree 18 March 1666 in Denziger 1143

See also Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, L. Ott, pg 485.

Great question.

[annalex]

OK. So a partial indulgence does lessen the purgatorial suffering, but it cannot be measured in time units, except by indirection.

[sanormal]

The Church has always used terms such as partial and plenary to describe indulgences. Time units used to be included by analogy, that is, they established an analogy between actions meant for the laity living in the world and penitential actions meant for religious monks living in community.

[sanormal]

"The name Sabbatine Privilege is derived from the apocryphal Bull "Sacratissimo uti culmine" of John XXII, 3 March, 1322."

The apocryphal Bull is bull, BTW, I'm not sure if I made that clear. Pope John XXII never wrote such a document.

[armydoc]

The apocryphal Bull is bull, BTW, I'm not sure if I made that clear. Pope John XXII never wrote such a document.

We reproduce here the whole passage dealing with the Sabbatine privilege, as it appears in the summary approved by the Congregation of Indulgences on 4 July, 1908. It is noteworthy that the Bull of John XXII, which was still mentioned in the previous summary approved on 1 December, 1866, is no longer referred to (cf. "Rescript. authent. S.C. Indulg.", Ratisbon, 1885, p. 475). Among the privileges, which are mentioned after the indulgences, the following occurs in the first place: "The privilege of Pope John XXII, commonly [vulgo] known as the Sabbatine, which was approved and confirmed by Clement VII ("Ex clementi", 12 August 1530), St. Pius V ("Superna dispositione", 18 Feb., 1566), Gregory XIII ("Ut laudes", 18 Sept., 1577), and others, and also by the Holy Roman General Inquisition under Paul V on 20 January, 1613, in a Decree to the following effect: It is permitted to the Carmelite Fathers to preach that the Christian people may piously believe in the help which the souls of brothers and members, who have departed this life in charity, have worn in life the scapular, have ever observed chastity, have recited the Little Hours [of the Blessed Virgin], or, if they cannot read, have observed the fast days of the Church, and have abstained from flesh meat on Wednesdays and Saturdays (except when Christmas falls on such days), may derive after death -- especially on Saturdays, the day consecrated by the Church to the Blessed Virgin -- through the unceasing intercession of Mary, her pious petitions, her merits, and her special protection. With this explanation and interpretation, the Sabbatine privilege no longer presents any difficulties, and Benedict XIV adds his desire that the faithful should rely on it (Opera omnia, IX, Venice, 1767, pp. 197 sqq.). Even apart from the Bull and the tradition or legend concerning the apparition and promise of the Mother of God the interpretation of the Decree cannot be contested. The Sabbatine privilege thus consists essentially in the early liberation from purgatory, through the special intercession and petition of Mary, which she graciously exercises in favour of her devoted servants preferentially -- as we may assume -- on the day consecrated to her, Saturday. Furthermore, the conditions for the gaining of the privilege are of such a kind as justify a special trust in the assistance of Mary. It is especially required of all who wish to share in the privilege that they faithfully preserve their chastity, and recite devoutly each day the Little Hours of the Blessed Virgin. However, all those who are bound to read their Breviary, fulfil the obligation of reciting the Little Hours by reading their Office. Persons who cannot read must (instead of reciting the Little Hours) observe all the fasts prescribed by the Church as they are kept in their home diocese or place of residence, and must in addition abstain from flesh meat on all Wednesdays and Saturdays of the year, except when Christmas falls on one of these days. The obligation to read the Little Hours and to abstain from flesh meat on Wednesday and Saturday may on important grounds be changed for other pious works; the faculty to sanction this change was granted to all confessors by Leo XIII in the Decree of the Congregation of Indulgences of 11 (14) June, 1901.


It appears that it doesn't matter if the Bull was authentic or not. Its content was approved and confirmed by multiple subsequent Popes. It still contains references to time.

[annalex]

My objection is that the term "lessen" is applicable, even though time measure does not properly apply. If we can speak of partial indulgence, we can speak of partial suffering.

[sanormal]

While the bull is fake, the Carmelite practices recommended in it are longstanding and worthy.

Yes, fasting and praying is good. Yes, Mary prays for the faithfully departed every day and on Saturday. We can count on that.

While the article you quote mentions early release (a poorly chosen phrase) nothing in the teaching of the Church refers to early release...because...there ain't early, late or right on time in Purgatory.

This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?

I'll have to admit imagining the Communion of Saints all staring at their watches waiting for the second hand to tick to Saturday so that the souls in Purgatory might finally cross the finish line is hilarious.

[sanormal]

Excellent point. More or less is quite appropriate and analagous to plenary or partial. Early or late is neither appropriate nor analagous.

[armydoc]

nothing in the teaching of the Church refers to early release...

Isn't the Catholic Encyclopedia approved by the Church?

[bonfire]

"Purgatory translates into a "second chance" for Catholics who think that if they don't pursue holiness and righteousness in this world they can deal with it in the next. In reality these people are more than likely lost - i.e. spiritually unconverted and Purgatory is they lie that lulls them into a waiting hell."

The Mormon's picked up on this and ran with it.

[Kolokotronis]

Alex, this posted article is, to put it kindly, a bit simplistic, even dumbed down. This is 4th grade stuff and I'm surprised that a Professor would pen such a piece. I am therefore thankful for the link to the Vatican site for "INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA". Its somewhat easier to work with than stories of little kids and their pennies!

It seems to me that this article speaks of three things, namely, purgatory, indulgences and the treasury of merit. Within the system of the Latin Church, I can see how each of these concepts developed. To be fair, the concept of "indulgences" predates the schism by many centuries and is found in popular beliefs within The Church in North Africa where some of the faithful were in the habit of acquiring letters of remission of punishment for sins issued by certain monks on account of the "merits" gained by martyrs. This practice was never widespread in the areas which eventually became the Orthodox world but I think its hard to distinguish these, fundamentally from the Latin concept of indulgences and perhaps, without too much stretching, to the idea of a treasury of merit administered in some fashion by holy men, The Church or in the Latin system by the Pope. Again, though, this isn't anything which gained currency in the Eastern Church. Purgatory, another concept which never gained a foothold in the East, does have its roots in the theology of the early Church and the writings of The Fathers. The Church has always taught that there was a place where most souls go after death for an intermediate period between the Partial and Final Judgments. The early Church also believed that in this place God's love, spoken of as a fire, either purifies and fills the soul with joy or torments depending on the destination of the soul at the time of the Final Judgment. I suspect the concept of purgatory developed from this early theology, a theology which Orthodoxy maintains to this day. But purgatory seems to carry with it the concept of atonement, of making up for sins committed, for offenses given to God. As I understand it, the Latin Church teaches that while a soul cannot repent of its sins, or do much of anything for that matter after death, we can, through our prayers, activate the "merits" of Christ, Panagia and the saints for the benefit of those souls and thus do away with, in some non-temporal sense, the suffering "due" to God in recompense for the sins of the deceased and thus that soul enjoys the "beatific vision" "before" it might otherwise (I'm leaving out for now any benefit for us here on earth).

Having read Paul VI's writing, I am struck, as I often am, with the great difference between the Latin/Western concepts of sin and salvation and that of Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy. I have noted before that this stands in stark relief when one compares the Western focus on atonement, a sort of payback for sin through the Cross and the East's focus on the descent to Hades and the Resurrection. In the West, sin is an offense which God takes very personally and demands retribution for. This just isn't the way the East looks at things at all. Payback has nothing to do with salvation. The West, at least in popular belief, sees the Cross as an expiation for the sins of man, then past, then present and then future. The East sees the Cross as the means whereby Christ died in order to destroy the power which death formerly had over us on account of the Sin of Adam; "Death took a corpse and found God". In other words, Christ didn't die on the Cross to "make up" for your sins or mine, but rather to release us from the inevitable consequences of the Sin of Adam, spiritual death (which is the only real death). As the people pray in the Latin Rite Mass, "Dying you destroyed our death; Rising you restored our life!"

I noticed in the pope's writing that he speaks of how our sins affect not just ourselves but indeed everyone (and I assume everything). This is what The Church has always taught. Our sin distorts God's perfect creation and every sin we commit adds to the burden under which "all creation groans". What the West sees as a "punishment from God" for sin, whether it be personal, or societal or global, isn't a "punishment" at all, at least not most of the time; it is as a result of the distortion of creation caused by sin. God allows it to happen, but he doesn't cause it, we do. This is not to say that there are not what some theologians have called pedagogical punishments, punishments to truly "teach a lesson", but these are quite different from retributions or "paybacks" or atonements.

Orthodox theologians often note that at the Final Judgment we are not judged as if our good and bad deeds are placed on some sort of scale (though that is certainly a very, very ancient, pre Christian idea), but rather by how much like Christ we have become. We sin and thus separate ourselves from God because sin makes us less like Christ than we might otherwise be. We repent of those sins, not because that pays God back but rather because repentance is a denial of the self, which opens us to grace which in turn makes us more like Christ. All of this happens during this life. If we die without being fully in the image and likeness of Christ, it is only by God's mercy that our souls, in some fashion resembling Christ, will become through God's love, burnished and shining as by fire. Our prayers for the dead, therefore, are for our loving God, a God we call "Philanthrope", Lover of Mankind, to show mercy.

Do the prayers of intercession from the saints and Panagia help here? Orthodoxy believes so. Do the prayers of the living faithful help? Orthodoxy hopes so and in any event, those prayers are efficacious for those who make them.

As I said, in a system where God demands satisfaction, where good and bad deeds are weighed out in a judgment process, purgatory as a place of suffering, becomes necessary lest people loose hope. The concept of a treasury of merit administered by the Pope fits in with such concepts of sin, punishment, and the meaning of Christ's granting of the Keys to +Peter and indeed the Western concepts, at least the popular concepts, of the purpose of the Cross. In the Eastern Church, however, with very different beliefs in these areas, they have neither meaning nor place.