Indulgences

The first difficulty is to locate the indulgence among the channels by which the Church transmits grace. Spontaneously, from the sound of the word, one places it alongside the sacraments; some bring it closer to sacramentals. Neither: the indulgence belongs to a third category.

The three ways the Church dispenses grace

The Church has several orders of means, which must be distinguished without being set against one another.

The seven sacraments were instituted by Christ himself and act ex opere operato — "by the very fact that the act is performed" — independently of the minister's holiness: baptism regenerates, absolution remits sin, the Eucharist gives the Body of the Lord. This is the highest order, that of the efficacious cause of grace^[4].

The sacramentals — holy water, candles, ashes, medals, blessings — were instituted by the Church "in imitation of the sacraments". They do not act ex opere operato but ex opere operantis Ecclesiae, by the power of the Church's prayer: they do not confer grace, they dispose us to receive it and sanctify daily life. They are treated elsewhere^[5].

An indulgence, for its part, belongs to neither of these two categories. It does not confer sanctifying grace (the faithful already possess it, since they must be in a state of grace); nor does it merely dispose us to receive grace. It remits a punishment — the debt of reparation that subsists after forgiveness. It is an act not of the power of orders (which consecrates and sanctifies), but of the power of jurisdiction: the Church, by authority, applies to the faithful the treasury of the Redemption.

This table avoids the most frequent confusion. A blessed medal is a sacramental; the indulgence sometimes attached to its pious use is something else than the blessing of the medal — it is a remission of punishment granted by the Church on the occasion of that act of devotion^[6].

The power of the keys exercised outside the sacrament

The scriptural foundation is Christ's word to Peter:

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." — Gospel according to Saint Matthew 16:19^[7]

This "power of binding and loosing" has two distinct exercises. In the sacrament of penance, it looses the fault itself: the priest, by absolution, remits sin in the name of Christ. But the Church holds from this same power a second capacity: outside the sacrament, to dispense to souls, through indulgences, the superabundant satisfaction of Christ and the saints, and thus to lighten the temporal punishment that remains^[8]. The Council of Trent defined it against the reformers: the power of granting indulgences was given by Christ to the Church, which has used it from the earliest times^[9].

That is why the indulgence is an ecclesial act in the strong sense. The faithful do not remit their own punishment; nor do they obtain it as a mechanical automatism. They obtain it "through the help of the Church" — the very formula of the Code^[10] — which intervenes on their behalf "to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of temporal punishments"^[11].

What the indulgence does not do

A negative clarification is necessary, because everything else depends on it. An indulgence does not wipe away sin: neither mortal guilt (which only absolution or an act of perfect contrition remits), nor even venial guilt directly. It presupposes sin already forgiven^[12]. The Catechism distinguishes here two things that everyday language confuses: guilt (the rupture with God) and punishment (the trace, the debt of purification that subsists). Absolution remits guilt; the indulgence acts on punishment^[13].

This guilt/punishment distinction, the image of the nail driven in and then pulled out that leaves its hole in the board, the meaning of "temporal punishment": all of this is developed in the article What Is an Indulgence?. It suffices here to retain that the indulgence is grafted onto a sin already remitted — and that this is precisely what binds it organically to the sacrament of penance.

If the indulgence is not a sacrament, it is inseparable from the first of them in the order of conversion: the sacrament of penance and reconciliation. One does not understand indulgences until one sees that they come after absolution, as a second moment of the same penitential journey.

The indulgence presupposes absolution

The order of operations is strict. First the sin is forgiven: mortal guilt by sacramental absolution, venial guilt by contrition united with the Eucharist or a sacramental. Only then can the indulgence intervene, upon the remaining punishment. Paul VI's definition says so in so many words:

"An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins whose guilt is already blotted out, which the well-disposed faithful, and under certain defined conditions, obtain through the help of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints." — Paul VI, Indulgentiarum doctrina, norm 1, 1 January 1967^[14]

"Whose guilt is already blotted out": the formula posits absolution as a prerequisite. That is why sacramental confession stands first among the conditions for a plenary indulgence. It is not an added formality: it is what makes the indulgence conceivable, by first remitting the guilt whose punishment is to be wiped away.

Confession, the first of the conditions

To gain a plenary indulgence, the faithful must have gone to sacramental confession^[15]. The present discipline allows this condition to be fulfilled in the days surrounding the indulgenced work — current practice generally retains about twenty days before or after — and a single confession can serve as the basis for several plenary indulgences gained on different days^[16]. But Eucharistic Communion and prayer for the pope's intentions must be renewed for each plenary indulgence.

This arrangement is not arbitrary. It says that the indulgence prolongs the movement of confession: one does not "earn" an indulgence as one cashes a voucher; one completes a conversion begun at absolution. Pope Francis recalled this when presenting the indulgence of the 2025 Jubilee:

"above all by approaching the sacrament of reconciliation, the irreplaceable starting point of a true journey of conversion." — Pope Francis, Spes non confundit, no. 5, 9 May 2024^[17]

Why is absolution not enough to remit everything?

One readily objects: if God forgives, why does any punishment remain? The objection is treated in depth in the apologetic article^[18]. For the sacramental angle, it suffices to note this: the sacrament of penance infallibly remits guilt and eternal punishment (damnation), but leaves a temporal punishment subsisting — a demand for purification and reparation, in this life or in purgatory^[19]. The sacrament itself partly provides for it, through satisfaction (the "penance" given by the confessor). The indulgence completes this satisfaction by applying to it no longer only the works of the penitent, but the inexhaustible treasury of the Church. It is, in this sense, the crowning of the penitential logic: where man cannot complete his reparation, the Church opens to him the merits of Christ.

Whence does the Church draw what is needed to remit a punishment she has not herself contracted? The answer lies in one technical expression: the treasury of the Church (thesaurus Ecclesiae). It is the doctrinal heart of the indulgence, and it is what links it to the communion of saints.

The doctrine of the treasury

The first magisterial definition of the treasury goes back to Clement VI's bull Unigenitus Dei Filius in 1343: the superabundant and infinite merits of Christ, increased by the merits of the Virgin Mary and of all the saints, constitute a treasury entrusted to the Church, which she dispenses notably through indulgences^[20]. The Catechism takes up this doctrine in precise terms:

"These spiritual goods constitute the 'treasury of the Church,' which is the infinite and inexhaustible price that the expiations and merits of Christ our Lord have before God." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1476^[21]

"There belongs to this treasury the truly immense, incommensurable and ever new price that the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the saints have before God." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1477^[22]

The word "treasury" is no bookkeeping metaphor, despite the medieval imagery. It designates the infinite value of Christ's satisfaction: a reserve that never runs dry, because it is the Cross itself, to which is added — not to complete it, but to share in it — the holiness of Mary and the saints.

The communion of saints: the circulation of spiritual goods

The treasury would be but an abstraction without the communion of saints, which is its distribution network. Because all the baptised form one body, the good of one benefits the others:

"The life of each of God's children is joined in Christ and through Christ, in a wonderful way, to the life of all the other Christian brethren." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1474^[23]

"There thus exists between the faithful — those who are in possession of the heavenly homeland, those who have been admitted to expiation in purgatory, and those who are still pilgrims on earth — a constant bond of love and an abundant exchange of all goods." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1475^[24]

It is this solidarity that makes the indulgence intelligible. When the Church remits a punishment, she does not manufacture a pardon: she puts into play the real communion of the members of Christ, applying to one the superabundance of the others. The indulgence is the communion of saints translated into a juridical act.

"Minister of redemption": the Church that distributes

The Church is not the owner of the treasury: she is its dispenser. The texts insist on this status of minister, never of master. The Code takes up Paul VI's definition word for word: the Church "as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints"^[25]. The verb is "dispense", not "create": the Church's authority does not create grace; it opens a treasury that belongs to Christ.

This distinction protects the indulgence from caricature. The Church sells nothing and fabricates nothing: she administers, in Christ's name, an infinite reserve that is not properly her own. This is precisely what the Council of Trent sought to safeguard when it condemned abuses while maintaining the principle: it struck with anathema "both those who assert that indulgences are useless and those who deny that the Church has the power to grant them"^[26].

An indulgence is never automatic. It requires of the faithful a set of dispositions and acts that are, almost all of them, liturgical and sacramental. This is another sign of its rootedness in the life of the Church: one does not gain an indulgence on the margins of the sacraments, but by immersing oneself in them.

The four conditions for a plenary indulgence

To gain a plenary indulgence, one must perform the work to which the indulgence is attached and fulfil four related conditions^[27]:

Three of these four conditions are directly sacramental or liturgical: confession, Communion, prayer for the pope. The fourth is interior, and it is the most demanding.

Detachment from all sin: the decisive condition

The condition that makes all the difference between a partial and a plenary indulgence is not an outward act, but a disposition of the heart: the exclusion of all attachment to sin, even venial^[28]. If this full disposition is lacking, or if one of the conditions is not fulfilled, the indulgence is only partial.

This requirement forbids thinking of the indulgence as something owed. One does not "land" a plenary by the mere material performance of a work: the soul must be, at that moment, without complacency towards any sin. Which is to say that a plenary indulgence perfectly gained is already, in itself, a summit of the spiritual life — the state of a soul entirely turned towards God.

One plenary a day, partials without number

The discipline clearly distinguishes the two degrees. A plenary indulgence can be obtained only once a day — except for the faithful at the point of death, who may receive it even if they have already gained one that same day^[29]. A partial indulgence, on the other hand, can be gained several times in the day^[30]. The one-daily-plenary rule recalls that such a grace is not a currency to be hoarded, but the fruit of a conversion that demands the momentum of a whole day.

The state of grace and intention: what the law requires

Beyond the four conditions for the plenary, the Code lays down the underlying dispositions for gaining any indulgence. One must be baptised, not excommunicated and in a state of grace, at least at the completion of the prescribed works^[31]. One must also have the intention, at least general, of gaining the indulgence and of performing the prescribed work^[32]. An indulgence is therefore never received inadvertently: it requires a will, a faith, a living membership in the Church.

Indulgences do not float outside the Church's time: they are woven into the liturgical calendar. Many of them are attached to feasts, high points or specific devotions, so that the Christian year is studded with occasions to draw upon them. This is one of the most concrete aspects of their liturgical rootedness.

The indulgenced high points

Several great moments of the year carry a plenary indulgence, under the usual conditions. Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday, the recitation of the Tantum ergo on Holy Thursday, the renewal of baptismal promises in the Easter night, the public use of blessed objects of piety on the great feasts: so many works collected in the manual of indulgences^[33]. The logic is constant: the indulgence accompanies the summits of the liturgy, as if to prolong their grace in the purification of the faithful.

Urbi et Orbi: the blessing that remits punishment

At least twice a year — at Christmas and at Easter — the pope gives from the balcony of Saint Peter's the solemn Urbi et Orbi blessing, "to the City and to the world". To this blessing is attached a plenary indulgence, which can be gained not only by the faithful present in Saint Peter's Square, but also by those who follow it by radio or television, provided they fulfil the required conditions^[34]. The universal scope of this gesture — a remission of punishment offered to the whole earth from Rome — illustrates the ecclesial dimension of the indulgence: it is the whole Church that opens her treasury.

The Pardon of Assisi: the Portiuncula (2 August)

The most famous indulgence of the Franciscan calendar is that of the Portiuncula, or "Pardon of Assisi". According to Franciscan tradition, Saint Francis obtained from Pope Honorius III, around 1216, a plenary indulgence for whoever, having confessed and communicated, would visit the little chapel of the Portiuncula — today enshrined within the Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels, near Assisi^[35]. It can be gained on 2 August (and, in practice, from 1 August at noon until the evening of 2 August), now in all Franciscan and parish churches. The Pardon of Assisi shows how a local devotion, born of a mystical grace, became integrated into the Church's ordinary regime of indulgences.

The indulgenced works of everyday life

Indulgences are not reserved for great feasts. The manual attaches them to ordinary acts of Christian life: prayerful reading of Scripture, recitation of the rosary in the family or in church, the Stations of the Cross, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, visiting a church. Above all, the 1999 Enchiridion reduced the essentials to four "general grants" covering an entire Christian life^[36]:

• raising one's soul to God, with humble trust, in the performance of one's duties and the acceptance of life's trials, joining to it a pious invocation;
• giving oneself or one's goods, in a spirit of faith and mercy, to the service of brethren in need;
• freely abstaining, in a spirit of penance, from something lawful and pleasant;
• openly witnessing to one's faith before others, in the circumstances of daily life.

These four ways say the essential: an indulgence is not a technique for the devout, but a grace offered to one's duty of state, to charity, to penance and to witness — that is, to ordinary holiness.

An indulgence is an act of authority; it therefore presupposes an authority that grants it and a body that regulates its use. This institutional apparatus — often unknown — is proof that the indulgence is not a floating practice, but a discipline closely governed by the Church.

Who can grant an indulgence?

The power of granting indulgences does not belong to just anyone. The Code is restrictive:

"Besides the supreme authority of the Church, only those can grant indulgences to whom this power is acknowledged by law or granted by the Roman Pontiff." — Code of Canon Law (1983), can. 995 § 1^[37]

Concretely, the source of every indulgence is the Supreme Pontiff, in whom resides the fullness of the power of the keys. Diocesan bishops can grant them within the limits fixed by law (notably the papal blessing with a plenary indulgence, three times a year). But no one, below the pope, can transmit to another the power of granting them, except by express grant of the Apostolic See^[38]. This concentration guarantees unity: there are no "private" or improvised indulgences.

The Apostolic Penitentiary, tribunal of indulgences

The body that concretely governs indulgences is the Apostolic Penitentiary, the oldest of the three tribunals of the Roman Curia. Competent for the internal forum — the realm of conscience and sacramental secrecy — it is also competent for everything concerning the granting and use of indulgences^[39]. Led by a cardinal Major Penitentiary, it prepares the decrees of indulgences, publishes the official manual and fixes, for each jubilee, the precise conditions. When the pope attaches an indulgence to an event, it is the Penitentiary that drafts the norms of application — as it did for the 2025 Jubilee^[40].

The Enchiridion indulgentiarum, the manual of indulgences

All indulgences in force in the universal Church are collected in one official book: the Enchiridion indulgentiarum ("Manual of Indulgences"), whose reference edition is the fourth typical edition, published in 1999 by the Apostolic Penitentiary^[41]. Its structure tells the logic of the system: first the Norms (which take up the doctrine of Paul VI and the Code), then the four general grants already cited, and finally some thirty other particular grants attached to precise acts or places. This manual is the living inventory of the treasury the Church places at the disposal of the faithful — and it evolves: the 1968 edition counted only three general grants, the fourth (public witness to the faith) having been added in 1999.

If the ordinary indulgence concerns the faithful in their personal journey, the jubilee is its solemn and universal form. Every twenty-five years, the Church opens a "Holy Year" and offers all a plenary indulgence linked to pilgrimage and conversion. The history of jubilees is, in a sense, the history of the indulgence carried to its greatest liturgical scale.

The first Jubilee (1300)

The first jubilee was instituted by Boniface VIII, by the bull Antiquorum habet fida relatio of 22 February 1300^[42]. The pope granted therein a plenary indulgence — "the fullest remission of all sins" — to pilgrims who, having confessed, would visit a set number of times the basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. The success was immense; the jubilee became one of the great rhythms of Christendom.

From a hundred years to twenty-five

The periodicity of the jubilee narrowed over the centuries, as the Church wished to bring its grace closer.

Since the 15th century, then, the Church has celebrated an ordinary jubilee every twenty-five years, to which are added extraordinary jubilees (such as the Year of Mercy, 2015-2016). The central gesture is crossing the Holy Door: a threshold the pilgrim passes as a sign of the passage from sin to grace, from the world to Christ who calls himself "the door" (Jn 10:9).

The 2025 Jubilee and the indulgence of Hope

The most recent ordinary jubilee was convoked by Pope Francis in the bull Spes non confundit ("Hope does not disappoint") of 9 May 2024^[43]. The Apostolic Penitentiary fixed its conditions by a decree of 13 May 2024: one gains the jubilee indulgence by making a pilgrimage to one of the designated basilicas or jubilee sites, by piously visiting a sacred place, or by practising works of mercy and penance — always under the usual conditions (confession, Communion, prayer for the pope's intentions)^[44]. The Holy Door of Saint Peter's was opened on 24 December 2024 and the Holy Year closed on 6 January 2026.

Francis summed up in one sentence the spiritual meaning of every indulgence, which he ties not to calculation but to the discovery of mercy:

"The indulgence, in fact, allows us to discover how unlimited the mercy of God is." — Pope Francis, Spes non confundit, no. 23, 9 May 2024^[45]

One last feature completes the picture of the indulgence in the Church's economy: it can be offered for the dead. This is one of its most consoling dimensions, and it follows directly from the communion of saints.

"By way of suffrage": the meaning of a formula

The faithful can apply any indulgence, partial or plenary, either to themselves or to the souls in purgatory^[46]. But the manner differs. For themselves, the living gain the indulgence through a direct act of the Church's jurisdiction. For a departed soul, the Church no longer has jurisdiction — the soul is no longer a pilgrim on earth; she therefore offers it "by way of suffrage" (per modum suffragii), that is, as a prayer, an intercession presented to God, who accepts it according to his mercy^[47]. The Catechism puts it simply:

"We can help the souls in the process of purification by obtaining indulgences for them, so that they may be acquitted of the temporal punishments due for their sins." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1479^[48]

The month of the departed and prayer for purgatory

That is why Catholic piety traditionally attaches indulgences for the departed to the beginning of the month of November — All Saints and the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (2 November). From 1 to 8 November, the faithful who visit a cemetery praying for the dead can gain a plenary indulgence applicable to the departed alone^[49]. The doctrine of purgatory and prayer for the dead are developed elsewhere^[50]; it suffices here to note that the indulgence gives this prayer its highest form: no longer merely asking for the dead, but applying to them the very treasury of the Redemption.

The contemporary regime of indulgences stems from a decisive reform, willed by the Second Vatican Council and accomplished by Paul VI in the constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina of 1 January 1967. This reform did not abolish indulgences — contrary to a widespread idea; it purified and refocused them on their spiritual meaning.

The end of reckoning "in days and years"

The most visible change concerns language. Until 1967, a partial indulgence was reckoned in "days" or "years" ("a hundred days' indulgence", "seven years"), a legacy of the old canonical penances which were counted in durations. This system lent itself to an arithmetic misunderstanding, as though one were subtracting a number of days from a punishment measured in days. Paul VI abolished it:

"The partial indulgence will henceforth be designated solely by the words 'partial indulgence', without adding any set number of days or years." — Paul VI, Indulgentiarum doctrina, norm 4^[51]

Henceforth, the measure of a partial indulgence is no longer a figure, but the fervour of the act: the faithful receive, over and above the remission linked to their work, a remission of punishment equivalent to what that work already effects by itself. The reform thus shifted attention from quantity to the quality of conversion.

Refocusing the indulgence on charity

Paul VI also considerably reduced the number of plenary indulgences and tied the indulgence more closely to acts of faith, charity and penance — which would lead to the four general grants of 1999. The intention was clear: to make the indulgence not an exercise in devout bookkeeping, but a stimulant of the whole Christian life. In this sense, the 1967 reform restored the indulgence to its truth: it is not a shortcut, but the liturgical and sacramental expression of a real conversion, sustained by the communion of saints.

"Through indulgences the faithful can obtain the remission of temporal punishment resulting from sin for themselves and also for the souls in Purgatory." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1498^[52]

• What Is an Indulgence? — the word-for-word catechetical definition: guilt and punishment, the image of the nail and the board, what an indulgence is not.
• Indulgences: Answering the Objections — the apologetic dossier: the myth of the "sale of salvation", Luther, Tetzel, and the answers to the six great Protestant objections.
• Confession — the sacrament of penance, whose grace the indulgence prolongs.
• The Eucharist — Communion, the second of the conditions for a plenary indulgence.
• Sacramentals — so as not to confuse indulgence with sacramental.
• Purgatory — temporal punishment and prayer for the departed.

Principal sources

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 1471-1479 and § 1498 (Mame/Plon, 1992).
• Paul VI, apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina, 1 January 1967.
• Code of Canon Law (1983), can. 992-997.
• Apostolic Penitentiary, Enchiridion indulgentiarum. Normae et concessiones, 4th typical edition, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999.
• Council of Trent, session XXV, Decree on Indulgences, 4 December 1563 (Denzinger-Schönmetzer 1835).
• Francis, bull of indiction Spes non confundit, 9 May 2024.