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Merit Abridged by Annalex FOREWORD This is an abridgement of long and detailed Catholic Encyclopedia article on Merit where I condense the necessary definitions and distinctions in a more concise manner, omitting discussion that seemed to me too arcane. I follow the same subtitle structure as the original and invite the reader to study the original sections for deeper understanding. Much of this abridgement is directly copied from the original, but for the ease of reading I do not use quotation marks. None in this is my own thoughts; my only input was in shortening and paraphrasing. MERIT Merit (meritum)...

An indulgence is an action of the Church which spreads her treasure of merits to the suffering members of the family of God. Indulgences: Spreading the wealth By Dermott J. Mullan I. Introduction Indulgences have to do with how God handles evil and good. To God, sin is always horrible, but humans do not always think so. The Church’s teaching on indulgences is meant to impress on us some of God’s horror of sin. The Church says sin is never an isolated event: rather, each sin has after-effects, not only in the person who sins but also in other parts...