c. 2008 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) No modern Catholic practice may be as misunderstood as indulgences. The term still brings to many minds the medieval practice of selling a quicker route to heaven condemned by Martin Luther in his 95 theses.
But the Catholic Church today uses indulgences to encourage individuals to examine their souls and change their lives, church observers say.
“It’s not a magic thing,” says Sister Mary McCormick, an assistant professor of systematic theology at St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio. “It’s always done within the context of a person trying to reform their life.”
In Catholic teaching, there are both temporal and eternal punishments for sin. For Catholics, the sacrament of penance forgives the eternal consequences of sin.
But there also are other punishments for wrongdoing, requiring repentance, renewal and reparation in this life. Those temporal punishments can lead to a longer time in purgatory, a state of being where souls are purified before entering heaven, according to the church.
Indulgences can reduce the temporal punishments incurred by sin. A plenary indulgence, such as the one Pope Benedict XVI has granted to those who observe the 150th anniversary celebration of the apparitions of Mary at Lourdes, is a remission of all temporal punishment due for sins committed by an individual.
The indulgence requires going to confession and Communion along with the anniversary observance.
The purpose is to ensure that Catholics “really do have a change of heart,” McCormick said.
The Rev. Johann Roten, director of the International Marian Research Institute at the University of Dayton, said indulgences are linked to individuals examining their souls and saying, “This is what I am and this is what I have done.”
The question, and the process of getting rid of obstacles to heaven, then becomes, “Am I going to be a better person? How can I do that?”
(David Briggs writes for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)
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Eds: see mainbar, RNS-LOURDES-MARY, transmitted Feb. 14.
