What Exactly is an Indulgence?

by Michael Shackleton · April 10, 2016

Perplexed by the Church’s teaching on indulgences, I sought guidance from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 1471-1473. I found the explanation there inadequate, leaving me no wiser. Please explain in really simple words what an indulgence is. P Evans

People pray on the Holy Stairs at the Pontifical Sanctuary of the Holy Stairs in Rome. Tradition maintains that Jesus climbed the stairs when Pilate brought him before the crowd. Indulgences are associated with climbing the stairs on one’s knees. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

In the early Church the faithful were very close to one another in love and good works.

When members behaved sinfully and repented, they were given a public penance to encourage them to abandon their sinful habits and rely on the love and help of their fellow Christians.

The penance, which could last for months, might, for instance, be to dress in penitential clothing or to be refused the Eucharist. Sacramental absolution was given only after the penance was concluded. They were then reconciled with the Church and God.

This delaying of absolution led to the fear that some could die or be near death before the penance period had elapsed. So bishops would shorten the penance, trusting in God’s mercy and the prayers of the Christian community. This modified penance was called an indulgence and was always associated with the sacrament of reconciliation.

In later centuries absolution was given first, followed by the performing of the penance, such as visiting a shrine, prayers and works of charity.

But the idea of an indulgence was still attached to the practice of being let off so many days or months of the original penance—the so-called temporal punishment for sin—and so began the practice of attaching indulgences to various prayers and pilgrimages.

Devout people wanted to accumulate indulgences as a kind of hedge against a long stay in purgatory, sometimes irrespective of their personal faith and state of soul. The scandal of the sale of indulgences in the 15th century was due to this perception.

The Catechism says that sin, even venial sin, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth or after death in purgatory. This purification process frees one from what is called the temporal punishment of sin.

Here temporal punishment is not linked to the idea of a shortened time of penance. Rather, it is the unhealthy attachment to worldly practices that can keep us in evil ways.

How can we be freed from this condition? One way is to perform the acts required for an indulgence: prayer, works of charity, confession, Holy Communion. These acts, done by one with the right disposition and sorrow for sin, can amount to some satisfaction to God for offending him.

The Church, as the Christian community, claims authority to prescribe these exercises to cleanse its members from some (partial indulgence) or all (plenary indulgence) of the effects of sin, provided there is repentance and forgiveness.