Indulgences

To convey the distinction between eternal punishment and temporal punishment, Matthieu Lavagna proposes the analogy of the fire (op. cit., p. 355, note 557) — a comparison Lavagna attributes to Bishop Perrier (Jubilee of the year 2000) without referring to a primary source for that contribution, which could not be found. It is therefore rendered here as an analogy by Lavagna, in paraphrase, not as a textual quotation, without attribution to Bishop Perrier:

Paraphrase after Lavagna: the fire destroys the building; putting out the fire is the sacrament of forgiveness. But after the fire has passed, traces remain to be erased: cleaning the site, repairing the damage, replacing what was lost — such are the temporal punishments which the indulgence remits.^[3]

Sacramental forgiveness puts out the fire; the indulgence helps rebuild what the fire damaged — not only in the penitent himself, but also in those he has wounded and in the fabric of the world.

The key idea is that of the treasury of the Church, formulated by the Catechism (§ 1476):

"These spiritual goods of the communion of saints, we also call the treasury of the Church, which 'is not an accumulation of goods, as if they were material riches accumulated during the course of the centuries, but the infinite and inexhaustible value before God of the expiations and merits of Christ our Lord, offered so that mankind might be freed from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, our Redeemer, are found in abundance the satisfactions and merits of his redemption.'"^[4]

To this treasury of Christ is added, says § 1477, "the truly immense, unfathomable and ever new value before God of the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints"^[5]. The Church, as the "dispenser of redemption", applies this treasury by her authority — that is the indulgence.

The idea is not mercantile: it is mystical. Every Christian, by virtue of baptism, stands in solidarity with all others in the Body of Christ. The holiness of one benefits all, just as the sin of one wounds all. The indulgence is the institutional expression of this communion of saints: "Recourse to the communion of saints enables the contrite sinner to be more promptly and more efficaciously purified from the punishments for sin" (CCC § 1475)^[6].

Lavagna insists on a capital point, the source of almost all misunderstandings:

"An indulgence is therefore the remission of the temporal punishment due for sin already forgiven. It can be obtained for oneself or for a departed soul in purgatory, but it can in no case erase a sin!"^[7]

An indulgence does not forgive — that is the exclusive role of the sacrament of reconciliation, in which the penitent receives absolution from Christ through the ministry of the priest (cf. Jn 20:23). The indulgence acts downstream of forgiveness: on what remains to be purified after the fault itself has been remitted.

The means of obtaining an indulgence have always been spiritual or temporal works:

"Indulgences could be, and can still be, obtained by spiritual or temporal means: prayers, pilgrimages, almsgiving, assistance to the needy, to parishes, and so on. A purchase for an amount that will serve the apostolate of the Church is a sacrifice like any other."^[8]

A necessary doctrinal precision: since Trent, almsgiving given on the occasion of an indulgence is never a price — "all illicit gains" (pravos quaestus omnes) are abolished (DS 1835)^[9]. Almsgiving counts only as a charitable disposition of the faithful, like fasting or prayer: it opens one to the grace distributed by the Church; it does not buy it.

Lavagna directly connects the doctrine to the power given by Christ to the apostles: "It is moreover Jesus himself who gives his disciples (and by extension priests) the power not only to 'loose' sins (to forgive in the name of God) but also to impose penances (Mt 16:19; 18:18; Jn 20:23)."^[10]

Were indulgences born with the Crusades?

A recurring historical objection holds that the indulgence was "invented" out of nothing in the 11th century to recruit crusaders. The starting fact is correct; the conclusion is not. The practice of indulgences is the organic culmination of the ancient penitential discipline: from the insular and Frankish penitentials of the 7th-8th centuries, the Church authorised "commutations" (in Latin redemptiones) which replaced a long canonical penance with a briefer work — almsgiving, fasting, pilgrimage^[11]. The indulgence proper merely extends this regime: no longer a commutation negotiated in the confessional, but a remission granted by the authority of the Church, drawing on the treasury of the merits of Christ.

It is in this framework that the first plenary indulgence in history was granted by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont (27 November 1095) to those who set out to free Jerusalem. Canon 2 of the council is both explicit and revealing:

"Whoever, out of devotion alone and not to gain honour or money, sets out to free the Church of God at Jerusalem, let that journey count in place of all penance." — Council of Clermont, canon 2, 1095^[12]

The text speaks neither of purchase nor of negotiated salvation. On the contrary, it lays down an explicitly anti-mercantile condition — "not to gain honour or money" — and presents the pilgrimage as the substitution of one penance for another, exactly the logic of the ancient commutations. The crusade indulgence does not erase sin, which the crusader first had to confess; it remits temporal punishment, in strict continuity with ancient penance. The objection therefore confuses the appearance of a juridical form (11th century) with the invention of a doctrine — whereas the latter, as we shall see, has its roots in the Fathers.

What Luther really said in the 95 Theses

One of the most unsettling details for readers formed by Protestant (or secular) historiography is that Luther himself, in his 95 Theses, did not denounce the doctrinal truth of apostolic indulgences (thesis 71) — even though he already criticised their abusive preaching and certain interpretations (theses 27, 32, 56-58). As Lavagna writes:

"What few people know is that Luther himself, in his ninety-five theses, did not denounce indulgences! On the contrary, he quite rightly opposed the abuses of certain members of the clergy who used them to make money."^[13]

The text of the 95 Theses (original Latin: Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum, posted at Wittenberg on 31 October 1517^[14]) is unambiguous. Lavagna cites several of them:

• Thesis 69: "Tenentur Episcopi et Curati veniarum apostolicarum Commissarios cum omni reverentia admittere." — "Bishops and parish priests are bound to receive with every mark of respect the commissaries of apostolic indulgences."^[15]
• Thesis 71: "Contra veniarum apostolicarum veritatem qui loquitur, sit ille anathema et maledictus." — "Cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic indulgences."^[16]
• Thesis 73: "Sicut Papa iuste fulminat eos, qui in fraudem negocii veniarum quacunque arte machinantur." — "Just as the Pope rightly excommunicates those who scheme against his indulgences."^[17]
• Thesis 74: "Multomagnis fulminare intendit eos, qui per veniarum pretextum in fraudem sancte charitatis et veritatis machinantur." — "He intends all the more to excommunicate those who, under pretext of defending indulgences, scheme against holy charity and truth."^[18]
• Thesis 91: "Si ergo venie secundum spiritum et mentem Pape predicarentur, facile illa omnia solverentur, immo non essent." — "If therefore indulgences were preached according to the spirit and mind of the pope, all these difficulties would easily be resolved; indeed, they would not exist."^[19]

The picture is therefore nuanced: in 1517 Luther defends the "truth of apostolic indulgences" (thesis 71) and deplores their abusive preaching — but he already disputes their automatic efficacy for the departed (thesis 27: "as soon as the coin clinks in the chest, the soul flies out"), assurance of salvation through letters of indulgence (thesis 32: "Damnabuntur ineternum cum suis magistris, qui per literas veniarum securos sese credunt de sua salute" — "they will be damned eternally, with their teachers, who believe themselves assured of their salvation by letters of indulgence") and, on the treasury of the Church, its ill-defined character in the eyes of the Christian people (thesis 56: "Thesauri ecclesie, unde Pape dat indulgentias, neque satis nominati sunt neque cogniti apud populum Christi" — "the treasures of the Church, from which the pope draws indulgences, are neither sufficiently named nor known among the people of Christ"), its non-temporal character (thesis 57: "Temporales certe non esse patet, quod non tam facile eos profundunt, sed tantummodo colligunt multi concionatorum" — "that they are not temporal is evident: many preachers do not readily pour them out, they merely amass them") and the idea that it consists of the merits of Christ and the saints (thesis 58: "Nec sunt merita Christi et sanctorum, quia hec semper sine Papa operantur gratiam hominis interioris et crucem, mortem infernumque exterioris" — "and they are not the merits of Christ and the saints, for these always work, even without the pope, the grace of the inner man — and outwardly the cross, death and hell")^[20]. Lavagna concludes:

"We can only rejoice that one of the leaders of Protestantism defended certain Catholic positions. We hope contemporary Protestants can follow Luther's example on this point!"^[21]

Tetzel and the German scandal

What triggered the 95 Theses was the scandalous preaching of the Dominican Johann Tetzel (c. 1465-1519) at Juterbog, on the borders of Saxony — the preaching of indulgences being forbidden in Saxony by Elector Frederick the Wise — commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz Albert of Brandenburg to collect funds — destined partly for the building of St Peter's Basilica in Rome and partly to pay off the archbishop's debt to the Fugger bankers. It is in this context that the now legendary slogan is said to have been launched:

"Sobald die Munze im Kasten klingt, die Seele aus dem Fegefeuer springt."

("As soon as the coin clinks in the chest, the soul flies out of purgatory.")^[22]

Luther's thesis 27 targets exactly this caricature:

"Hominem predicant, qui statim ut iactus nummus in cistam tinnierit evolare dicunt animam." — "They preach a human fiction who say that as soon as the coin clinks in the chest, the soul flies out [of purgatory]."^[23]

Lavagna points out that this practice was indeed condemned by the Church:

"But such a thing was never permitted by the pope. That certain priests gravely sinned in their ministry by selling spiritual goods does not imply that the Church validated such acts! These were grave and abusive deviations on the part of the clergy."^[24]

And he recalls in a note the canonical qualification of this practice: simony, named after Simon Magus (Acts 8:18-24) who wanted to buy from St Peter the power of giving the Holy Spirit:

"The sin of selling spiritual goods is called 'simony' and has been condemned by the Church herself since the earliest centuries. That did not stop certain priests from committing this fault later on. These pastoral abuses were, let us acknowledge, quite rightly denounced by Luther."^[25]

Canon 2 of the Council of Chalcedon (451) deposes any minister who confers ordination for money, and the Lateran councils (12th-13th centuries) repeat the condemnation. The word "simony" does not appear in the Tridentine decree on indulgences: Trent strikes at the thing — illicit gains abolished, quaestors suppressed — without using the term.

The pontifical answer: Leo X, Exsurge Domine (15 June 1520)

Faced with Luther's radicalisation — who moved, between 1517 and 1520, from criticising abuses to rejecting the doctrine itself — Pope Leo X promulgated on 15 June 1520 the bull Exsurge Domine ("Arise, O Lord"), which condemned 41 propositions drawn from Luther's writings^[26]. Refusing to retract, Luther publicly burned it at the Elster Gate (Wittenberg) on 10 December 1520; he was excommunicated by the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem on 3 January 1521.

The Council of Trent joined doctrinal reaffirmation to disciplinary reform in two stages: from session XXI (16 July 1562, decree of reformation), it abolished the office of the alms-questors (quaestores) and entrusted collection to the Ordinaries assisted by two canons, without any remuneration; then, in its session XXV (3-4 December 1563), it issued a Decretum de indulgentiis (DS 1835) which: (1) affirms the doctrinal legitimacy of indulgences; (2) expressly orders the abolition of "all illicit gains obtained to acquire them" — "pravos quaestus omnes pro his consequendis [...] omnino abolendos esse"^[27]. Trent — the first legislative act on indulgences — thus formally strikes at their sale, while reaffirming the doctrine itself (simony, for its part, had been condemned since the earliest centuries, and the Tridentine decree strikes at the thing without using the word).

The present regime of indulgences was entirely reorganised by Pope Paul VI in the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina, promulgated on 1 January 1967^[28]. Three major changes:

1. Radical simplification: the Raccolta (the official collection of indulgences) — grown gigantic over the centuries — is replaced by the much shorter Enchiridion Indulgentiarum.
2. Disappearance of the numbers of days: partial indulgences are no longer measured in "days" or "years" (a medieval formulation aimed at the duration of canonical penance), but simply as "partial indulgence".
3. Spiritual recentring: the emphasis is placed on the interior disposition of the faithful, not on mechanical accumulation.

Paul VI explicitly grounds this reform on the primacy of charity, which forbids any mechanical or accounting reading of indulgences:

"Indulgences cannot be gained without a sincere conversion of mind and union with God, to which is added the performance of the prescribed works." — Paul VI, Indulgentiarum doctrina, no. 11^[29]

Far from being automatic, an indulgence therefore presupposes metanoia — conversion of heart — without which no work can obtain it.

The 1983 Code of Canon Law (CIC) sums up the practice in a few canons (cann. 992-997). Canon 994 states: "Any member of the faithful can gain partial or plenary indulgences for himself; he can also apply them to the dead by way of suffrage."^[30]

To gain a plenary indulgence (total remission of temporal punishment), the faithful must today jointly fulfil the following conditions:

1. Perform the indulgenced work (e.g. visiting a church on the occasion of a Jubilee, reciting the rosary as a family, reading Holy Scripture for 30 minutes, the Stations of the Cross, etc.).
2. Sacramental confession (may be made a few days before or after).
3. Eucharistic Communion on the same day (as far as possible).
4. Prayer for the intentions of the Holy Father (at least one Our Father and one Hail Mary).
5. Total detachment from all sin, even venial — the most demanding condition, without which the indulgence remains only partial.

An indulgence may be applied to oneself or to a departed soul ("by way of suffrage": God remains free to grant it effectively). It cannot be applied to another living person.

The principal application of indulgences today is intercession for the souls in purgatory. The Catechism (§ 1032) explicitly recommends indulgences for the departed:

"From the beginning the Church has honoured the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God. The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead."^[31]

From 1 to 8 November, visiting a cemetery accompanied by prayer, even only mental prayer, for the departed carries each day a plenary indulgence applicable to the departed alone; on 2 November (commemoration of the faithful departed — or, at the judgment of the Ordinary, the preceding or following Sunday, or the solemnity of All Saints), visiting a church or oratory with an Our Father and a Creed opens the same indulgence^[32].

The doctrine of indulgences was not fixed all at once: it was progressively defined, then purified of its abuses, through five major acts of the magisterium. The table below sums up this trajectory, from the first privilege granted to crusaders to the contemporary Code of Canon Law.

Three lessons emerge from this trajectory: the doctrine is well older than the Reformation; the Church herself condemned abuses as soon as they appeared (Trent, 1563); and she simplified the practice again to remove every mercantile trace (Paul VI, 1967).

Objection 1 — "Indulgences = the sale of salvation (Tetzel: 'As soon as the coin clinks, the soul flies out')"

Answer: The precise historical analysis above has shown that (1) Tetzel's slogan was a pastoral distortion condemned as simony by the Catholic Church herself since the earliest centuries (Acts 8:18-24; Chalcedon 451 canon 2; Lateran II 1139, Lateran III 1179, Lateran IV 1215); (2) Luther himself in his 95 Theses (31 October 1517) defended the "truth of apostolic indulgences" (thesis 71) even as he already criticised abusive preaching and certain interpretations (theses 27, 32, 56-58); (3) the Council of Trent abolished the office of quaestors (session XXI, 1562) then abolished "all illicit gains" (pravos quaestus omnes [...] omnino abolendos esse — session XXV, 1563, DS 1835), and Pope Paul VI in Indulgentiarum doctrina (1967) completely reorganised the practice to rid it of every mercantile trace.

Reducing indulgences to Tetzel amounts to judging the sacrament of reconciliation by the corrupt confessionals of the 16th century. It is a permanent confusion between doctrine and pastoral deviation. The doctrine never authorised the sale of salvation; the Church always condemned the preachers who did so.

Objection 2 — "Christ paid all punishments on the Cross (Heb 10:14) — there is nothing left to expiate"

Answer: The objection confuses — as in the debate on purgatory — the remission of guilt (forgiveness, reatus culpae) and the remission of temporal punishment (reatus poenae temporalis). Christ indeed paid the eternal punishment (separation from God) for the sins of men; that is the objective and unsurpassable aspect of the Cross.

But the subjective application of this salvation to each sinner presupposes its progressive assimilation — as a forgiven debt sometimes leaves consequences to be repaired. That is the fire analogy proposed by Lavagna (paraphrase)^[38]: putting out the fire (the sacrament of forgiveness), then repairing what the fire damaged (the temporal punishments which the indulgence remits).

Indulgences are not a second redemption; they are the adjusted distribution by the Church, in the communion of saints, of the infinite merits of Christ. The whole treasury of the Church is "the infinite and inexhaustible value before God of the expiations and merits of Christ our Lord" (CCC § 1476)^[39]. The source is one — Christ —; the distribution is ecclesial.

Objection 3 — "The 'treasury of the Church' is a medieval fiction invented by Clement VI (bull Unigenitus Dei Filius, 27 January 1343)"

Answer: The dogmatic formulation of the treasury of the Church by Clement VI (1343) — like that of the Trinity by Tertullian (213) or of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX (1854) — is indeed later than the doctrine it systematises. But the thing is attested well before.

The concept appears implicitly in the New Testament:

• St Paul (Col 1:24): "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the Church." — nothing is lacking in the objective satisfaction of Christ; what is lacking is its application to the Mystical Body, which the sufferings of the saints complete.
• 2 Corinthians 4:12: "So death is at work in us, but life in you" — the trial of one member benefits the others in the mystical communion.
• 1 Corinthians 12:26: "If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it."

St Cyprian of Carthage (c. 250) already speaks of the "satisfactions" of martyrs offered for sinners (Epistula 15-22). St Ambrose (c. 390) theorises spiritual "compensation" within the Mystical Body (De paenitentia II, 10). St Thomas Aquinas systematises the doctrine of the treasury in the Summa theologiae (Supplement, q. 25, a. 1, taken from his commentary on the Sentences) three quarters of a century before Clement VI. The 1343 bull Unigenitus Dei Filius merely formalises what had been believed for thirteen centuries.

And Clement VI's definition, far from inventing a hoard, is of a purely spiritual sobriety:

"[The only-begotten Son of God] acquired a treasury for the Church militant [...], so that it might be, for the men who use it, an infinite treasury rendering them sharers in the friendship of God." — Clement VI, bull Unigenitus Dei Filius, 27 January 1343^[40]

No "sum of money" in this text: the treasury is called "infinite" precisely because it is made of the merits of Christ and the saints, not of coins. It is this denial — thesis 58, within the group 56-58 on the treasury of the Church — that Leo X would reject along with the other errors concerning indulgences in Exsurge Domine (15 June 1520)^[41].

Objection 4 — "Indulgences in days ('100 days of indulgence', 'X years') are mathematically absurd"

Answer: This objection targets a historical formulation already abolished by Paul VI in 1967. In medieval practice, the "measure" in days or years did not refer to the length of the stay in purgatory — as if the soul literally served X years there which could be subtracted arithmetically. It referred to the duration of the public canonical penances which should have been accomplished on earth according to the ancient penitential (for example 40 days of fasting and public pilgrimage).

An indulgence of 100 days therefore meant: "this work has the expiatory value which 100 days of public canonical penance would have had according to the norms of the ancient penitentials". It was a measure of the value of the work, not of time subtracted from purgatory — whose duration and manner exceed all earthly measure (cf. St Catherine of Genoa: purgatory does not stand in the relation to time we ascribe to it).

To avoid all confusion, Paul VI in Indulgentiarum doctrina (1 January 1967) entirely abolished the formulation in days: there remain only "partial indulgence" (without number) and "plenary indulgence" (total remission). Canon 992 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law reflects this simplification.

Objection 5 — "Vatican II abolished indulgences"

Answer: False. No document of Vatican II abolishes indulgences. The constitution Lumen Gentium (1964) explicitly maintains the doctrine of the communion of saints (§§ 49-51) which theologically grounds indulgences. Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963) on the liturgy is silent on the subject. And it is precisely after the council that Paul VI reorganises — without abolishing — the practice through Indulgentiarum doctrina of 1 January 1967, which remains the reference legislative act on indulgences^[42].

The contemporary Jubilees (2000 under John Paul II, 2015-2016 Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy under Francis, 2025 Jubilee of Hope — proclaimed by Francis, opened on 24 December 2024, closed on 6 January 2026 by Leo XIV^[43]) all opened plenary indulgences to pilgrims. The practice is therefore not only maintained but actively taught and exercised in the contemporary Church.

Objection 6 — "Indulgences contradict sola gratia (Eph 2:8-9): they suppose a meritorious work to gain salvation"

Answer: The objection projects onto indulgences the Protestant scheme of salvation. But Catholic doctrine does not place indulgences in the sequence of initial salvation (which is by grace, through faith, in baptism — cf. CCC § 1992). Indulgences intervene within the Christian life of the baptised as a means of completing the sanctification already received by grace.

More precisely: the indulgenced work (prayer, pilgrimage, biblical reading) is not the meritorious cause of the remission; it is the disposition by which the faithful open themselves to the grace already acquired by Christ and distributed by the Church. As the last condition of a plenary indulgence formulates it — total detachment from all sin, even venial — it is the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul, not the autonomous effort of the penitent, which effectively actualises the indulgence.

See Sola Fide article, Objection 6 on the JDDJ 1999: the Catholic doctrine of justification (sola gratia, faith working through charity, Augustinian merit) is compatible with that of the contemporary Lutheran Reformation as reformulated at Augsburg in 1999.

Lavagna's apologetic argument is sober and effective: (1) the doctrine of indulgences is coherent with the communion of saints, purgatory and the sacrament of penance; (2) historical abuses (Tetzel) were condemned by the Church herself; (3) Luther himself acknowledged the "truth of apostolic indulgences" (thesis 71) in 1517, even as he already disputed abusive preaching and certain interpretations (theses 27, 32, 56-58); (4) the practice was purified and simplified again by Paul VI in 1967.

The argument does not claim that the history of indulgences is spotless: simony did indeed corrupt part of late medieval practice, and Trent (1563) had to be awaited for complete institutional reform. But it strictly distinguishes doctrine (always intact) from pastoral abuses (always condemned). It is this distinction which anti-Catholic polemic has, for five centuries, systematically blurred.

• Purgatory
• The Council of Trent
• Martin Luther
• Sola Fide — faith alone
• Sola Scriptura — Scripture alone
• The Eucharist — Real Presence

Principal sources

• Matthieu Lavagna, Soyez rationnel, devenez catholique !, MDN Productions (distributed by Salvator), 1st ed. 2022, pp. 355-357 (abridged version 2023; new augmented ed. 2025, Ed. Marie de Nazareth).
• Paul VI, apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina, 1 January 1967. Official text on vatican.va.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 1471-1479 (indulgences) and § 1032 (suffrages for the departed).
• Code of Canon Law (CIC 1983), cann. 992-997.
• Martin Luther, Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum (95 Theses), 31 October 1517 — Weimar edition (WA) vol. 1, p. 233-238; Latin text and translation on faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/95.theses.html.
• Leo X, bull Exsurge Domine, 15 June 1520, condemning 41 propositions of Luther.
• Council of Trent, Session XXV (3-4 December 1563), Decretum de indulgentiis — DS 1835 in Denzinger-Hunermann, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 43rd ed. 2015.