Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 71:282 (Apr 1914)
Article: The Doctrine Of The Catholic Church Touching Indulgences
Author: Hugh Pope

BSac 71:282 (April 1914) p. 296

The Doctrine Of The Catholic Church Touching Indulgences

Hugh Pope

“But to whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also: for what I also have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, for your sakes have I forgiven it in the person of Christ.”—2 Cor. 2:10.

“What is an Indulgence?”

“An indulgence is the remission of the debt of temporal punishment due to sin after its guilt has been forgiven.”

This question with its answer is familiar to every Catholic child. It is a bald statement of doctrine and is meant to be learnt by heart. Needless to say it receives all necessary amplification in the classes of Christian Doctrine, especially in those destined for the higher school-classes. We will take the definition word by word. Indulgence or pardon, or condonation, is the remission — not the commutation —; that is to say; an indulgence does not mean that one merited penalty is commuted for another; it is a whole or a partial remission of that penalty. Of the debt of temporal punishment; not therefore of the guilt of the sin — for with this latter an indulgence neither has — nor can have — any concern. Due to sin the guilt of which has been forgiven.1 Therefore not of

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the punishment which shall become due for future sins, but for past sins forgiven.

But many sins are forgiven her for she hath loved much. Forgiveness, therefore, supposes — nay demands — love, and love means sorrow for having offended him whom we love. Hence we may say at once that indulgences have nought to do with those who are out of charity with God, who — in other words — are in mortal or deadly sin; neither has it ought to do with those who are already in hell, for they are finally and irremediably out of charity with God. Indulgences, then, have to do solely with those who are on the way to heaven but have not yet reached its portals, hence the expression temporal as opposed to eternal punishment.

Hence for a person to gain an indulgence he must fulfill certain conditions: he must repent of his sin, he must confess it, he must be prepared to do penance for it; these last two conditions being but manifestations of the first.2 Innocent III. was at pains to insist that this contrition must affect all a man’s sins and not merely some of them;3 while the clause vere poenitentibus et confesses, or its equivalent, occurs in e...