So I learned that it was simply a falsehood to present indulgences as being about the purchasing of forgiveness. Anyone who says that simply does not "know what the Catholic church teaches and what it's about."
Hello Mad Dawg, I only know you from what a friend of mine said about you (truthdefender). These remarks about indulgences need some re-thinking by you, IMHO!
The issue came up in 1516 when Pope Leo X granted an indulgence to the dead which could be earned by those who contributed to the completion of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. This was a big part of Luther's posting his 95 theses on the church door in Wittenburg and the Protestant revolt was underway!
"An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned. It can be full or partial, accordingly as it removes all or a part of the temporal punishment due for sin....The church's tradition pastoral practice and teaching on indulgences was summed up in a decree of the Council of Trent, dated January 26, 1564. It reads: 'Whereas the power of conferring indulgences was granted by Christ to the church, and she has, even in the most ancient times, used the said power given to here by God; the sacred adn holy synod teaches and enjoins that the use of indulgences, most salutary for Christian people and approved by the authority of sacred councils, is to be retained in the church; and it condemns with anathema those who either assert that they are useless, or who deny that there is in the church the power of granting them.'"
What is meant by "temporal punishment"? Simple. As Pope Paul VI said in his Constitution on Indulgences: "These punishments are imposed by the just and merciful judgment of God for the purification of souls, the defense of the sanctity of the moral order and the retoration of the glory of God to its full majesty." (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, January 1, 1967).
The "punishments" are not defined, and will never be defined! However, sins forgiven do not forgive the "punishment" due, that must be forgiven in Purgatory, which almost all Catholics go to be "purged" of the temporal punishment before they can enter into the gate of heaven. Thusly, indulgences were created!
Seeing as how no one, not even the pope, knows how long the punishments may take, indulgences earned deduct from the time the soul stays in Purgatory. Each indulgence forgives some of the punishment due to ones sins.
I speak of this as one who was once a Roman Catholic. I remember vividly a little contest the Nuns started when I was in the 8th grade at St. Michael's Grade School in St. Paul, MN. The contest was to see how many days or plenary indulgences we could get over a three month period - there was a prize to the one with the most. I was far from winning :-)
A person can win a plenary indulgence only once per day. A plenary indulgence gets a soul out of Purgatory, so, we gathered indulgences to get a dead person's soul out of Purgatory, for the benefits of indulgences are not for the living. I must have released many "souls" from there over that three months because I received many plenary indulgences according to the Roman Catholic Church :-)
Catholics love to bring up Augustine when he said, "Every sin, whether great or small, must be punished either by man himself doing penance, or by God chastising him." In speaking to this, the Catholic church says, "All sin is to some degree the rejection of the friendship of God and makes necessary some type of reparation to the majesty of the Creator." (Fr. Albert J. Nevins M.M., Life After Death, 1983, published by Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., Huntington, Indiana.)
I have a rather long list of things to do to receive plenary indulgences. If you want to get a list of everything that earns indulgence one can find them in the Catholic bookstores (one may have to order though). It's titled Enchiridion of Indulgences.
Now have fun with it...
Thanks for the friendly intro.
I don't see how a single part of this long (and good) post requires rethinking on my part. Not a single part.
Work with me here:
When I break your window we have (at least) two problems.
(1) I'm a jerk.
(2)you need a window and/or I'm the kind of guy who breaks windows.
If you are a mellow D00d, you forgive me. That's what God did in Christ.
But I'm still a jerk and you still need a window.
The "temporal punishment" that you mention is about those aspects.
Think of you as some crazy gangster. Imagine I come to you with the money for the window and say "When I broke your window I realized that I am a careless and uncaring person. So I am doing everything I know how to do AND taking advice on how to be more caring and to assess where I hit baseballs BEFORE I hit them."
Now you CAN say, "I don't care. You broke my window. You're a jerk. Drop dead. I don't care. Luigi here will now break your kneecaps."
OR you could say; "Hey, good apology. You did wrong but it's okay. Fix the window, take the psychology therapy stuff; we're good."
OR you could say, "You know, if you were to volunteer to manage the little league team AND to pick up litter along route 626, that would mean just as much to me as if you did the therapy and the window thing -- and I think it would be just as good for you."
That's indulgences.
The MAIN forgiveness issue, the whether you're good with God stuff, that's all IHS. The details, the purgatory -- remember: everyone in purgatory is saved. Though they are suffering, it's a happy place; it's the suburbs of heaven! -- that's the indulgences stuff.
So indulgences to not get you forgiveness. They get you remission of the temporal penalty of sin. IHS and only IHS gets you in the front door.