Gaining Indulgences for the Holy Souls

"The use of Indulgences, for the Christian people most salutary, and approved of by the authority of sacred Councils, is to be retained in the Church." — Council of Trent, Session XXV, Decree concerning Indulgences

Chapter VII explains what an indulgence is, how the abuses arose, and how the Church corrected them. This chapter is practical. It sets out how a Catholic today, under the Church's current norms, can gain indulgences and give them to the holy souls.

Everything here is taken from the Apostolic Penitentiary's Manual of Indulgences, the English translation of the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, fourth edition (1999), published by the USCCB in 2006. It also draws on the Penitentiary's note The Gift of the Indulgence (2000). The Manual's numbers are given throughout, so that anything can be checked: N for its norms, Grant for its grants.

What the Church teaches, and what is current law

Defined dogma That the Church has from Christ the power to grant indulgences, and that their use is salutary. Trent "condemns with anathema those who either assert, that they are useless; or who deny that there is in the Church the power of granting them". The same decree ordered "that all evil gains for the obtaining thereof … be wholly abolished."

Current norm Everything else in this chapter is the Church's present law: who can gain an indulgence, what must be done, how often. Norms are not dogma. They were rewritten in 1967, the Manual has gone through four editions, and the Apostolic Penitentiary adds particular grants from time to time. Check the current grants for special years and for your own diocese.

Who can gain an indulgence

To be capable of gaining indulgences one must be baptized, not excommunicated, and in the state of grace at least at the completion of the prescribed works (N17 §1). One must also have "at least the general intention" of gaining them, and do the work at the stated time and in the stated way (N17 §2).

Nobody gains indulgences by accident. A general intention is enough, though. The simplest habit is to make it each morning: to gain every indulgence I can today, and to give them to the holy souls.

Giving them to the holy souls

"The faithful can obtain partial or plenary indulgences for themselves, or they can apply them to the dead by way of suffrage" (N3). They "cannot be applied to other persons living on earth" (The Gift of the Indulgence, n. 7). Some grants are given only for the dead: those of Grant 29 (below) are "applicable only to the souls in purgatory".

Common teaching "By way of suffrage" means that the living do not dispense the indulgence to the dead as a priest absolves in confession. As the Lantern puts it in VI, we act "as an intercessor": we offer it to God and ask Him to apply it. That is why the Church never tells anyone that a particular soul has been released. Many Catholics name a particular soul. Others leave the choice to God, or entrust their indulgences to Our Lady to give where she wills, as the Heroic Act does (see VI). Neither is required.

A plenary indulgence, step by step

A plenary indulgence requires all of the following (N20):

1. Exclusion of all attachment to sin, even venial sin.
2. The work to which the indulgence is attached: one of the grants below.
3. Sacramental confession. "A single sacramental confession suffices for gaining several plenary indulgences" (N20 §2).
4. Holy Communion, received for each plenary indulgence.
5. Prayer for the intention of the Holy Father, said for each plenary indulgence. "One Our Father and one Hail Mary" fully satisfies this, though any other prayer may be used (N20 §5).

The three conditions (3–5) "may be fulfilled several days before or after" the work, though it is fitting to receive Communion and pray for the Pope on the same day (N20 §3). The Penitentiary puts "several days" at "about 20" (The Gift of the Indulgence, n. 5). If the full disposition is lacking, or the work and conditions are not complete, "the indulgence will only be partial" (N20 §4).

A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day, apart from one more at the hour of death. Partial indulgences can be gained many times a day (N18).

A practical tip: go to confession on the same date each month. The "about 20 days" either side then covers almost every day of the month.

Four plenary indulgences open on any day

The Manual itself singles out four works, any one of which can gain a plenary indulgence "each day of the year" (Other Concessions, Introduction, n. 7):

• Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for at least half an hour (Grant 7 §1, 1°).
• The Way of the Cross, made before stations legitimately erected, moving from station to station (Grant 13, 2°). Those legitimately impeded can gain it by "at least a quarter of an hour" of reading and meditating on the Passion.
• The Rosary, five decades "without interruption", with meditation on the mysteries, prayed in a church or oratory, or in a family, a religious community or any group of the faithful (Grant 17 §1). Prayed alone outside a church, it gains a partial indulgence. (Eastern Catholics: the Akathistos hymn, Grant 23.)
• Reading Sacred Scripture for at least half an hour as spiritual reading, or listening to it read or recorded (Grant 30).

With the three conditions, any of these can be offered for a soul today.

The indulgences given for the dead

Grant 29. A plenary indulgence, "applicable only to the souls in purgatory", is granted to the faithful who:

• on any and each day from 1 to 8 November, devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, "if only mentally", for the departed;
• on All Souls' Day (or, at the ordinary's judgement, the Sunday before or after it, or All Saints), devoutly visit a church or oratory and recite an Our Father and the Creed.

A partial indulgence, also only for the souls, is granted on any day of the year for:

• a devout visit to a cemetery with prayer for the dead, "at least mentally";
• Lauds or Vespers of the Office of the Dead;
• the prayer Eternal rest:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.

Partial indulgences in ordinary life: the four general grants

The Manual opens with four grants that turn an ordinary day into suffrage. A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who:

1. "while carrying out their duties and enduring the hardships of life, raise their minds in humble trust to God and make, at least mentally, some pious invocation";
2. "led by the spirit of faith, give compassionately of themselves or of their goods to serve their brothers in need";
3. "in a spirit of penance, voluntarily abstain from something that is licit for and pleasing to them";
4. "voluntarily give explicit witness to their faith before others".

How much does a partial indulgence remit? The 1967 reform answered by tying it to the act itself. Whoever performs the act "with at least inward contrition" receives, besides the remission the act earns, "an equal remission of punishment through the intervention of the Church" (N4). The more love in the act, the more is given. That is the end of the old "days" and "years" (see IV-C).

Other partial indulgences come in the ordinary rhythm of the day. Among them: the sign of the cross and the Creed (Grant 28 §2), the Angelus and the Memorare (Grant 17 §2), mental prayer (Grant 15), an act of spiritual communion (Grant 8 §2), and a visit to the Blessed Sacrament (Grant 7 §2).

The year's days of plenary indulgence

This calendar follows the universal grants of the Manual and the 2002 decree for Divine Mercy Sunday. The usual conditions apply to every entry.

Some dates move in local calendars. For example, Corpus Christi is kept on the following Sunday in many countries, and in the southern hemisphere the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is often kept around Pentecost. Some grants are personal: the anniversary of your baptism (Grant 28), your parish church's titular feast (Grant 33), a First Communion (Grant 8), or a retreat of at least three days (Grant 10). Your diocese may add others.

When you cannot meet the conditions

• The sick and the housebound. "Confessors can commute either the prescribed work or the conditions in favor of those for whom these are impossible because of a legitimate impediment" (N24). Ordinaries may also make provision where confession or Communion is impossible (N25). Ask a priest.
• Divine Mercy Sunday carries an explicit provision for those who cannot go to church, including the sick, those who nurse them, sailors and the displaced. With a complete detachment from sin and the intention of fulfilling the usual conditions as soon as possible, they can gain the indulgence before a devout image of Our Lord (Apostolic Penitentiary, decree of 29 June 2002).
• At the point of death (Grant 12). A priest should impart the apostolic blessing. If no priest is available, the Church grants a plenary indulgence at the point of death to anyone "duly disposed" who "has been in the habit of reciting some prayers during their lifetime". In that case "the Church supplies for the three conditions". The use of a crucifix is commendable, and the indulgence can be gained even if another was gained the same day. The Manual asks that the faithful be "frequently reminded" of this. Keep a crucifix near the sick, and tell them.

Six misunderstandings

• "Indulgences forgive sins." No. An indulgence remits temporal punishment "for sins, whose guilt is forgiven" (N1). Forgiveness comes through contrition and the Sacrament of Penance.
• "Indulgences can be bought." No. Trent ordered "all evil gains" connected with them "wholly abolished".
• "'300 days' meant 300 days off Purgatory." No. The old figures belonged to the Church's discipline of penance on earth, and Paul VI abolished them in 1967 (Indulgentiarum Doctrina, Norm 4; see IV-C).
• "I can store them up against future sins." No. An indulgence remits punishment for sins already forgiven (N1). Nothing can be remitted in advance.
• "I must have gained thousands without knowing." No. At least a general intention is required (N17 §2). Make the intention each morning.
• "An indulgence applied to a soul certainly frees it." The Church does not say so. Indulgences reach the dead "by way of suffrage" (N3), as intercession that God applies as He wills. So keep praying.

What the saints and mystics report

Private revelation Several of the accounts turn on indulgences.

• St Teresa sees a nun of "very ordinary life" go almost straight to Heaven because she had gained indulgences (EMO-04).
• St Mary Magdalen de' Pazzi learns of a sister detained only fifteen hours, because she suffered much and gained indulgences (EMO-16).
• Ven. Frances of Pamplona sees three dead bishops freed by plenary indulgences of the Bull of the Crusade (EMO-35). That is an old grant, no longer in force.
• Our Lord tells St Faustina, in the Divine Mercy Novena: "Draw all the indulgences from the treasury of My Church" (FAU-12).
• A dead sister asks Ven. Mary d'Antigua why she stopped making the Stations, which Christ calls "a suffrage of the greatest value" (EMO-48).
• The Unpublished Manuscript ranks the Way of the Cross next to the Mass (UMP-R6).
• Emmerich insists that indulgences require the sacraments (EMM-R1).

St Catherine of Genoa, characteristically, would not seek plenary indulgences for herself, and says that a plenary indulgence is hard to gain (CGE-P1, CGE-R8). She is a reminder that "the exclusion of all attachment to sin" is a real condition, and not a form of words.

A rule for the year

Some Catholics bind themselves to a simple pledge for the dead: one plenary indulgence a month, and partial indulgences every day. That is the Lantern's own Rule of Charity (X) with the indulgences written in. Here is a workable version:

• make the morning intention;
• go to confession on a fixed date each month;
• once a month, make one of the four "any day" works for a named soul;
• add the Eternal rest at every passing of a cemetery or a hearse;
• keep the November days.

Sources:

• Manual of Indulgences: Norms and Grants, English translation of the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, 4th ed. (1999), USCCB 2006. Norms N1, N3, N4, N17, N18, N20, N24, N25; Other Concessions, Introduction n. 7; Grants 1–4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 23, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33.
• Apostolic Penitentiary, decree on Divine Mercy Sunday (29 June 2002), printed in the Manual's appendices.
• Apostolic Penitentiary, The Gift of the Indulgence (29 January 2000), nn. 3–7.
• Paul VI, Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967), Norm 4.
• Council of Trent, Session XXV, Decree concerning Indulgences (trans. Waterworth).