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Common Questions

Each answer gives the Church’s teaching first, marked by its weight, and then what the saints and mystics report.

The Church’s answers

From the Lantern’s Purgatory page, with what the saints and mystics add.

Is Purgatory a "second chance"?Defined dogma

No. Purgatory is not an opportunity for repentance after death. Those who enter Purgatory have already died in the state of grace — they are saved. They will certainly reach Heaven. The soul's fundamental choice for or against God is made in this life and is irrevocable at the moment of death. Purgatory is the purification of those who are already saved but not yet perfectly clean.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

What the soul meets at death: the tribunal, the self-judgment, the anticipated judgment.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: What Purgatory Is Read: Death and the Particular Judgement Theme A: Death and the particular judgment 2 accounts on this question

How long does Purgatory last?Open question

The Church has not defined whether Purgatory involves duration in the way we experience time on earth. The councils speak of purification and suffering, not of calendars and clocks. Many theologians have speculated about the duration of purgatorial suffering, and the tradition of offering Masses on the third, seventh, and thirtieth day after death (as well as the annual anniversary) reflects the intuition that the process has some temporal character. What is certain is that Purgatory is not eternal — every soul in Purgatory will eventually be admitted to the Beatific Vision, and at the latest, Purgatory will end at the General Judgement.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

From a quarter of an hour to “until Judgment Day” — and why no figure is a fact.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Time and Intensity Read: The November Devotions and All Souls Theme G: Durations and intensity 6 accounts on this question Variant tellings

Do the souls in Purgatory suffer?Defined dogma Open question

Yes. The Church teaches that the souls in Purgatory undergo real suffering. The nature of this suffering is debated among theologians. The Western tradition has generally spoken of a purifying fire; the Eastern tradition has often preferred to speak of a process of maturation and growth. The defined doctrine requires belief in the reality of purgatorial purification and its attendant suffering, but does not mandate a particular theory about the nature of the fire. What all agree on is that the greatest suffering of the holy souls is the pain of separation from God — the aching desire to see Him face to face, delayed by the stain of imperfection that still clings to the soul.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

From a quarter of an hour to “until Judgment Day” — and why no figure is a fact. Joy and pain together; Our Lady, the angels and St Michael among the souls.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Time and Intensity Read: Levels and Degrees Read: A Drop for the Holy Souls Read: The Saints and Mystics Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Theme G: Durations and intensity Theme I: Consolations 5 accounts on this question

Can a soul in Purgatory be lost — can it go to Hell?Defined dogma

No. The soul in Purgatory is confirmed in grace. It can no longer sin, and it is absolutely certain of its salvation. The only question is when — not whether — it will enter into the glory of Heaven. This is the definitive teaching of the Church, expressed in all three conciliar definitions: the souls in Purgatory are those who died "in the grace and friendship of God".

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

Joy and pain together; Our Lady, the angels and St Michael among the souls.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Three States of the Church and the Communion of Saints Theme I: Consolations 2 accounts on this question

Is Purgatory a place?Open question

The Church has not defined whether Purgatory is a “place” in the spatial sense. The councils teach purification after death without defining its geography. In his General Audience of 4 August 1999, John Paul II described it as a “condition of existence”. Many Fathers and Doctors used spatial language, but no particular map is binding. What is essential is that the final purification is real, not merely a metaphor. Read The Place of Purgatory.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

Purgatory as a place, souls serving their Purgatory on earth, haunted houses.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Place of Purgatory Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Theme C: Where the souls expiate — a place, the earth, the house, the “ghost”5 accounts on this question

Do the souls in Purgatory know we pray for them?Common teaching

This is not a matter of defined doctrine, but the common opinion of theologians and the consistent witness of the mystics is that yes, the holy souls are aware, at least in some manner, of the prayers and Masses offered for them, and that they are consoled and relieved by them. Many saints report that the holy souls expressed gratitude for the suffrages of the living. Whether this knowledge is direct or mediated through the angels is debated.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

Who prays for them, whether they pray for us, warnings, help and gratitude.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Three States of the Church and the Communion of Saints Theme E: What the souls know, and do, for the living 5 accounts on this question

Can the souls in Purgatory pray for us?Common teaching

The common teaching, though not solemnly defined, is that the holy souls can and do pray for the living, especially for those who have aided them. St. Robert Bellarmine, the great Doctor of the Church, defended this position. The practice of invoking the "holy souls in Purgatory" is widespread in Catholic piety and has never been condemned by the Church. St. Alphonsus Liguori encouraged the faithful to invoke the holy souls as powerful intercessors.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

Who prays for them, whether they pray for us, warnings, help and gratitude.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Three States of the Church and the Communion of Saints Theme E: What the souls know, and do, for the living 6 accounts on this question

Why do Protestants reject Purgatory?Defined dogma

The Protestant Reformers rejected Purgatory for several reasons: they held that justification is by faith alone and that the merits of Christ's Sacrifice are applied fully and immediately to the believer, leaving no room for temporal punishment after death; they rejected the deuterocanonical books (including 2 Maccabees) as non-canonical; and they were reacting, understandably, against the severe abuses connected with indulgences. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine is founded on Scripture (rightly understood), on the unbroken Tradition of the Fathers, and on the solemn definitions of three ecumenical councils — and that the correction of abuses does not invalidate the doctrine that was abused.

Read: The Witness of Scripture Read: The Church’s Definitions Read: On Indulgences

What should I do for the dead?Defined dogma

Pray for them. The simplest and most effective things you can do:

Have Masses offered for them — especially the Gregorian series of thirty consecutive Masses, if possible.
Pray the Rosary, the De Profundis, or the Requiem aeternam for them daily.
Offer your daily sufferings, work, and sacrifices for their intentions.
Gain indulgences and apply them to the faithful departed.
Give alms to the poor in their name.
Visit a cemetery and pray for the departed, especially in November.
Consider making the Heroic Act of Charity — a voluntary offering to God, for the souls in Purgatory, of the satisfactory value of one's good works and the indulgences one may gain.
Do not forget the "most abandoned souls" — those who have no one to pray for them.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics add

The Mass first; then prayer, alms, works of mercy, indulgences — and the traps.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Read: How We Help the Holy Souls Read: A Rule of Charity for the Holy Souls Read: The November Devotions and All Souls Read: When Someone Dies Theme F: The most efficacious prayers and works 4 accounts on this question

Questions the accounts raise

Answered from the Church’s texts first, then from the witnesses.

What happens to the soul at the moment of death?Defined dogma Private revelation

Defined dogma What the Church holds

At death the time of merit and conversion ends, and each soul is judged at once: it goes to Heaven (at once or after purification) or to Hell. The Particular Judgement is personal and immediate; the General Judgement at the end of the world reverses nothing, but makes everything manifest.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

The accounts give three pictures of the moment that do not quite agree: a courtroom with accusers and Our Lady pleading; a light in which the soul sees itself and goes to its purification of its own accord; and an anticipated judgement such as St Faustina’s “one day of fire”. A striking number turn on one act of perfect contrition in a sudden death.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Death and the Particular Judgement Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Read: When Someone Dies Theme A: Death and the particular judgment 5 accounts on this question

Are there levels or regions in Purgatory?Open question Private revelation

Open question What the Church holds

Theology speaks of degrees of purification proportioned to each soul’s debt, and of nothing more: no regions, storeys or stages are defined. The Directory on Popular Piety (§258) lists the application of “spacio-temporal categories to the dead” among the things to be avoided.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

Almost every visionary describes Purgatory as layered, and no two layer it alike: three regions (Frances of Rome), prisons sorted by sin (Magdalen de Pazzi), three stages (the Unpublished Manuscript), a great, middle and summit (the Portuguese Visions), three levels (Maria Simma) — and no regions at all for Catherine of Genoa.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Levels and Degrees Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Theme B: Levels and degrees 6 accounts on this question

Do the souls appear to the living? What about “ghosts”?Common teaching Private revelation

Common teaching What the Church holds

God may permit the dead to appear — St Augustine allowed it — but no particular apparition is an object of faith. The Directory on Popular Piety warns against divination and against reading dreams about the dead as messages.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

A very old strand of the accounts says some souls serve part of their Purgatory on earth, where they sinned: a monk in his own choir stall, a deacon at the baths, a banker in his own house. The books use the word “ghost” only to deny it — Schouppe calls a haunting a forgotten soul claiming the prayers due to it — and no witness says a soul is trapped, lost, or needs a medium.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Place of Purgatory Read: The Fathers and Tradition Read: The Saints and Mystics Theme C: Where the souls expiate — a place, the earth, the house, the “ghost”Theme D: How the souls appear and communicate Theme J: Discernment — soul, demon, or imagination 7 accounts on this question

When the souls appear, what do they ask for?Defined dogma Private revelation

Defined dogma What the Church holds

That the souls are helped by the suffrages of the faithful, “but principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar”, is defined by Trent.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

Almost always something small and specific: one Mass and three short prayers, thirty Masses, a pilgrimage, an Office left unsaid, a debt paid, a will fulfilled, a pardon spoken. No soul in these books asks money for itself, teaches new doctrine, or asks to be contacted again.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: How We Help the Holy Souls Read: A Rule of Charity for the Holy Souls Theme D: How the souls appear and communicate 6 accounts on this question

Which prayers and works help the souls most?Defined dogma Private revelation

Defined dogma What the Church holds

The Mass first: Trent says the souls are helped “principally by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar”, and the Directory on Popular Piety ranks after it prayer for the dead, alms, works of mercy and indulgences applied by way of suffrage. No prayer formula has a guaranteed yield.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

The witnesses agree on the Mass. Beyond it, each saint’s own devotion is the one the souls praise to her — the Precious Blood, the Stations, the Rosary, obedience, Communion. Two cautions: every “300 days” in the older books is pre-1967 arithmetic, and the “1,000 souls” promise attached to St Gertrude’s prayer has no located source in her writings.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Read: How We Help the Holy Souls Read: On Indulgences Read: A Rule of Charity for the Holy Souls Theme F: The most efficacious prayers and works 6 accounts on this question

Are there special days when souls are released?Defined dogma Private revelation

Defined dogma What the Church holds

The Church keeps days for the dead — the third, seventh and thirtieth day, the anniversary, and All Souls’ Day with its novena and octave — and attaches plenary indulgences for the souls to the cemetery visit on 1–8 November and the church visit on 2 November. She recommends these as fitting, never as hours of greater efficacy.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

The accounts build a liturgical calendar of releases: All Souls’ Day, Christmas night, Easter and Good Friday, Our Lady’s feasts and Saturdays (the Sabbatine privilege, whose bull Schouppe himself records as doubted). The only “hour” the Church would recognise is the moment of the Mass offered for a soul.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Read: The November Devotions and All Souls Read: Mary, Mother and Queen of the Holy Souls Theme H: Days and hours 7 accounts on this question

Is there joy in Purgatory?Defined dogma Private revelation

Defined dogma What the Church holds

The souls in Purgatory are saved, confirmed in grace and certain to see God; Purgatory is “entirely different from the punishment of the damned”.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

Here the mystics are most alike: St Catherine of Genoa says the souls suffer the greatest pain and the greatest joy at once, and one does not prevent the other; St Francis de Sales calls it a Hell as to the suffering and a Paradise as to the sweetness of charity; Faustina hears the souls call Our Lady “the Star of the Sea”.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: What Purgatory Is Read: Mary, Mother and Queen of the Holy Souls Read: The Saints and Mystics Theme I: Consolations 6 accounts on this question

How should I weigh private revelations about Purgatory?Defined dogma Private revelation

Defined dogma What the Church holds

Private revelation, even when approved, is never an object of faith; approval says only that nothing in it is contrary to faith and morals, and the faithful remain free. The defined doctrine — that Purgatory exists, that its sufferings are real, and that the suffrages of the living avail — rests on Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium alone.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

The witnesses tested their own visitors — the Pater, Ave and Credo, the sign of the cross, holy water, the threat of exorcism — and the collectors were franker than their reputation: Schouppe attaches “nothing but a personal and private authority” to his stories.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Saints and Mystics Read: The Church’s Definitions Theme J: Discernment — soul, demon, or imagination 6 accounts on this question

Can my refusal to forgive keep a soul in Purgatory?Defined dogma Open question Private revelation

Defined dogma Open question What the Church holds

What detains a soul in Purgatory is its own unpaid debt — that is doctrine — and the living can truly help it. The Church does not define that a particular grudge prolongs a particular soul’s purification (The Last Farthing, section II).

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

Maria Simma tells of a barn wall that fell every night until a farmer forgave a dead neighbour, and of an old woman held until someone took her in; Schouppe and St Margaret Mary describe Masses diverted to the poor families an unjust soul had ruined. These are devotional testimony, not revealed mechanics.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: How We Help the Holy Souls Essay: The Last Farthing Theme F: The most efficacious prayers and works Theme E: What the souls know, and do, for the living 4 accounts on this question

Could someone who glimpsed Purgatory think they had seen Hell?Common teaching Private revelation

What the Church holds

Common teaching The Church's only word on this is that Purgatory is "entirely different from the punishment of the damned" (CCC 1031, in the Directory, §251). It is different in kind: in hope, love and the certainty of salvation. None of those can be seen from outside.

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation Yes, and the saints nearly did.

St Faustina, watching a worldly man die, said its torments were "in no way different from the torments of hell" except "that they will someday come to an end" (Diary §426; FAU-06).
Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich "thought myself in Hell" until her guide told her, "Hell cannot be where I am" (Life I, p. 395).
Maria Simma was "almost convinced" she was in Hell in Holy Week 1954 (SIM-38).
The lowest level, the witnesses say, has fire, demons nearby, and the very souls an onlooker would call lost, saved at the last moment (CGE-R3, UMP-R2, VIS-04, FAU-05).
A near-death subject without a third category would almost certainly call it Hell. But Simma warns that such people "have not died" (SIM-04, SIM-R10).

For more, see VIII-A, "Why the lowest level looks like Hell".

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Read: Levels and Degrees Theme B: Levels and degrees Theme J: Discernment — soul, demon, or imagination 9 accounts on this question

Are we already in Heaven, Purgatory or Hell, so that death only lifts the veil?Defined dogma Common teaching

What the Church holds

In the strong form, no.

Defined dogma Death "puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace" (CCC 1021).
Judgement and its outcome come "at the very moment of [one's] death" (CCC 1022). The purified then see God "after the purification … before the general judgment" (Benedictus Deus).
Common teaching Purgatory, John Paul II taught, is not a prolonging of earthly life, "almost as if after death one were given another possibility to change one's destiny" (General Audience, 4 August 1999).
It is "this final purification of the elect" (CCC 1031). The purification can begin "here on earth" (CCC 1472), but whatever is left is finished after death.

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation A qualified form of the idea runs right through them:

Judgement as unveiling. Faustina "saw the complete condition of my soul as God sees it" (FAU-03); the Manuscript's soul sees its whole life in a light that pronounces its sentence (UMP-R1); the Visions' soul goes to Purgatory of its own accord (VIS-01); Catherine's soul "plunges" (CGE-R1).
Continuity. Catherine lives her purgatory in the body (CGE-01). Emmerich is told, "The poor souls are always in the state in which thou now art" (EMM-07). Faustina understands how closely "life on earth, in purgatory and in heaven" are bound together (§594; FAU-08).
Against the strong form. Simma insists Purgatory is "a condition" and "most definitely also a place" (SIM-R3). Merit ends at death, and Purgatory's sufferings "earn no merit" (UMP-R7).

The defensible version is this: we are already becoming what we will be seen to be. Death removes the veil, and the soul goes, by its own nature, where it already belongs. What remains unfinished is finished there, by God's mercy and our prayers.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Read: Death and the Particular Judgement Theme A: Death and the particular judgment 9 accounts on this question

When someone dies

Pastoral questions, answered from the Catechism and the Code of Canon Law first, then from the witnesses.

Can I have a Mass said for a non-Catholic or an unbeliever?Current norm Common teaching

What the Church holds

Current norm Yes. "A priest is free to apply the Mass for anyone, living or dead" (can. 901).
A Catholic funeral can even be granted to a baptized member of another Church, at the bishop's judgement, if their own minister is not available and they would not have objected (can. 1183 §3).
Common teaching The Church holds that "every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved" (CCC 1260).

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation

Emmerich: "no soul is lost whom ignorance alone kept from Jesus" (EMM-20).
The Manuscript's soul reports a drowned Englishwoman saved by baptism of desire (UMP-07).
Simma counts "non-Catholics' Our Father" among the helps of the souls (SIM-R6).

Accounts that bear on this

Read: When Someone Dies 3 accounts on this question

Someone I love died by suicide. Is there hope, and can I pray for them?Common teaching Current norm

What the Church holds

Common teaching Yes, and yes.

"We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives" (CCC 2283).
"Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide" (CCC 2282).
Current norm Suicide is not among the cases in which the Code requires a funeral to be refused (can. 1184).

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation One witness counts a man who took his own life among the souls she saw being purified, that is, saved (VDL-04). Other accounts turn on a single moment of contrition at a sudden death (SIM-05, SIM-R1).

Accounts that bear on this

Read: When Someone Dies 3 accounts on this question

What if I fear that someone I love is lost?Defined dogma Common teaching

What the Church holds

Defined dogma Judgement belongs to God, at "the very moment of his death" (CCC 1022).
Common teaching No one on earth can see it. The Church's Eucharistic prayer has always prayed "in general for all who have fallen asleep before us" (St Cyril of Jerusalem, quoted in CCC 1371). Benedict XVI: "It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain" (Spe Salvi 48).
So pray: if they are in Purgatory, your prayer helps them; if not, "our prayer is not lost" (FAU-09).

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation The accounts are full of last-moment salvation:

a woman of bad reputation saved by one sentence of acceptance (SIM-05);
"two or three minutes to say yes" (SIM-R1);
a duelling prince saved by contrition (EMO-83);
a supposed libertine saved by secret alms (VIS-11);
a man who mocked the Church, saved by a stranger's whispered prayer (SIM-31).

The lowest level, the witnesses say, is full of those an onlooker would have called lost (see VIII-A).

Accounts that bear on this

Read: When Someone Dies Read: The Saints’ Map of Purgatory Theme A: Death and the particular judgment 6 accounts on this question

What happens to children who die?Defined dogma Common teaching

What the Church holds

Defined dogma Baptized children who die "before attaining the use of free will" go "immediately" to God (Benedictus Deus, 1336).
Common teaching For children who die without Baptism, "the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them". The great mercy of God and "Jesus' tenderness toward children … allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation" for them (CCC 1261).
Current norm A child whose parents intended Baptism may be given a Catholic funeral with the bishop's permission (can. 1183 §2). For Limbo as a theological idea, see the Lantern's Limbo page.

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation

Simma says "children's Purgatory is short" (SIM-R7), and tells of a four-year-old purified for swapping a broken doll for her twin's (SIM-39). Weigh that last story against Benedictus Deus.
She also places unbaptised infants in Limbo (SIM-41).

Accounts that bear on this

Read: When Someone Dies Read: Death and the Particular Judgement 3 accounts on this question

May we keep the ashes at home, divide them, or scatter them?Current norm

What the Church holds

Current norm The ordinary rule is that ashes are kept in a sacred place, not scattered or made into jewellery. The 2016 instruction permits keeping ashes at home only in grave and exceptional cases with the competent permission; it rejects ordinary division among family members (Ad resurgendum cum Christo, nn. 5–7).

Read that instruction together with the DDF’s clarification of 9 December 2023. It permits ecclesiastical authority to evaluate a family’s request to preserve a minimal portion in a place significant to the deceased’s history, subject to its stated conditions, including the keeping of the ashes in a sacred place. It also permits a defined, permanent sacred place for commingled ashes of deceased baptized persons, with their identities recorded. Neither provision is a general licence to scatter ashes or divide them privately.

Cremation itself is allowed unless chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine (can. 1176 §3). The point of a sacred resting place is reverence for the body and continued remembrance and prayer. Consult the parish and the competent ecclesiastical authority about any proposed exception.

Read: When Someone Dies

Can I avoid Purgatory?Common teaching Current norm

What the Church holds

Common teaching It is possible, and the Church tells us how.

"A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain" (CCC 1472).
Meanwhile the Christian should accept sufferings "as a grace", and strive "by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the 'old man'" (CCC 1473).
Current norm Add the sacraments at the end (CCC 1525), the plenary indulgence at the point of death (Grant 12), and preparation for one's own hour (CCC 1014).

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation

St Faustina is offered a short suffering on earth instead of "one day of fire" (FAU-03).
Catherine of Genoa lives her purgatory "in the body" (CGE-01).
The Manuscript: Purgatory on earth "by suffering or by love" (UMP-R3).
A nun of "very ordinary life" goes almost straight to Heaven because she gained indulgences (EMO-04).

Accounts that bear on this

Read: When Someone Dies Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls 4 accounts on this question

Did the Second Vatican Council abandon Purgatory?Defined dogma

What the Church holds

Defined dogma No.

Lumen Gentium teaches that "some having died are purified" (n. 49), and that the Church "offers suffrages for them" (n. 50).
The Council "accepts with great devotion this venerable faith of our ancestors" about "our brethren who … having died are still being purified", and "proposes again the decrees" of Florence and Trent (n. 51).
Since then the doctrine has been taught again by the Catechism (nn. 1030–1032), John Paul II (1999), the Directory on Popular Piety (2001) and Benedict XVI (Spe Salvi, 2007).
The Church prays it at every funeral Mass, asking God "to purify his child of his sins and their consequences" (CCC 1689).

Read: The Church’s Definitions Read: When Someone Dies

Indulgences in practice

From the Church’s current norms: the Manual of Indulgences and the Apostolic Penitentiary.

Can I gain an indulgence for someone who has died?Current norm Common teaching

Current norm Common teaching What the Church holds

Yes. “The faithful can obtain partial or plenary indulgences for themselves, or they can apply them to the dead by way of suffrage” (Manual of Indulgences, N3). They cannot be applied to other people still living (The Gift of the Indulgence, n. 7). Some grants are for the dead alone: the cemetery visit from 1 to 8 November and the church visit on All Souls’ Day (Grant 29). “By way of suffrage” means we offer the indulgence to God as intercession and He applies it as He wills. You may name a soul, or leave the choice to God or to Our Lady.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

Several accounts turn on indulgences. St Teresa sees a nun of “very ordinary life” go almost straight to Heaven because she had gained them. Our Lord tells St Faustina: “Draw all the indulgences from the treasury of My Church.”

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Read: How We Help the Holy Souls 3 accounts on this question

What exactly does a plenary indulgence require?Current norm

Current norm What the Church holds

Five things (N20): the exclusion of all attachment to sin, even venial sin; the indulgenced work; sacramental confession; Holy Communion; and prayer for the Holy Father’s intention (one Our Father and one Hail Mary suffice). The three conditions can be fulfilled “several days” (about 20) before or after the work. One confession covers several plenary indulgences, but Communion and the prayer for the Pope are needed for each one. Only one plenary indulgence can be gained a day, except at the hour of death. If anything is lacking, the indulgence is partial.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

St Catherine of Genoa says that a plenary indulgence is hard to gain, a reminder that detachment from all sin is a real condition. Emmerich insists that indulgences require the sacraments.

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls 2 accounts on this question

Can I gain a plenary indulgence for a soul on an ordinary day?Current norm

Current norm What the Church holds

Yes. The Manual names four works that are open every day of the year (Other Concessions, Introduction n. 7): half an hour of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; the Way of the Cross; five decades of the Rosary prayed without interruption in a church, in a family or with others; and half an hour of reading Sacred Scripture. With the three conditions, any of them can be offered for the dead.

Private revelation What the saints and mystics report

The witnesses press the same works: the Way of the Cross next to the Mass (the Unpublished Manuscript); the Stations as “a suffrage of the greatest value” (Ven. Mary d’Antigua); and the Rosary (Maria Simma, the Portuguese visionary).

Accounts that bear on this

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls 4 accounts on this question

What if I am ill or housebound and cannot meet the conditions?Current norm

Current norm What the Church holds

Confessors can commute the work or the conditions for those who are legitimately impeded (N24), and ordinaries can provide where confession or Communion is impossible (N25). The Way of the Cross can be replaced by a quarter of an hour of reading on the Passion (Grant 13). On Divine Mercy Sunday the sick and the housebound have an explicit provision (decree of 2002). At the point of death, if no priest is available, the Church grants a plenary indulgence to anyone duly disposed who has been in the habit of praying, and herself supplies the three conditions (Grant 12).

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Read: Death and the Particular Judgement

Have I been gaining indulgences without knowing it?Current norm

Current norm What the Church holds

No. One must have “at least the general intention” of gaining them (N17 §2). But a general intention is enough, so make it each morning: to gain every indulgence I can today, and to give them to the holy souls.

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls

Did “300 days” mean 300 days off Purgatory?Current norm Open question

Current norm Open question What the Church holds

No. The old figures belonged to the Church’s discipline of penance on earth, not to time in Purgatory, and Paul VI abolished them: a partial indulgence is now designated “without any determination of days or years” (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, Norm 4). Its measure is now the act itself. Whoever performs it with at least inward contrition receives, through the Church, a remission equal to the one the act already earns (N4). Neither the councils nor the Catechism give any figure for time in Purgatory.

Read: Time and Intensity Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Theme G: Durations and intensity

Do indulgences forgive sins, or can they be bought?Defined dogma Current norm

Defined dogma Current norm What the Church holds

Neither. An indulgence remits temporal punishment “for sins, whose guilt is forgiven” (N1); forgiveness comes through contrition and the Sacrament of Penance. Trent defended indulgences as “most salutary”, and in the same decree ordered “that all evil gains for the obtaining thereof … be wholly abolished” (Session XXV).

Read: Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls Read: On Indulgences