What the Church actually means by a plenary indulgence
The definition is fixed, and it is short. The Catechism gives it in 1471: “An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.” The Code of Canon Law states the same thing in can. 992. And the Catechism continues: “An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.”
Read the first clause slowly, because everything turns on it: sins whose guilt has already been forgiven. An indulgence forgives nothing. The forgiving is done in Confession. What remains after forgiveness — the disorder a sin leaves behind in a man — is what an indulgence addresses, and it addresses it by the Church applying to him the merits of Christ and the saints, not by any transaction of his own.
The conditions, as the norms state them
The governing text is the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum (the Manual of Indulgences), 4th edition, published by the Apostolic Penitentiary in 1999. Norm 20 §1 requires, besides the total exclusion of attachment to any sin even venial (omnimodam exclusionem affectus erga quodcumque peccatum etiam veniale), the performance of the indulgenced work and three conditions: sacramentalis confessio, communio eucharistica et oratio ad mentem Summi Pontificis. The Apostolic Penitentiary put the same list into English in its 2000 notice The Gift of the Indulgence:
- Be in the state of grace — “at least at the time the indulgenced work is completed” (see also can. 996 §1).
- Complete detachment from sin, even venial sin — named as an “interior disposition.” This is not sinless perfection. It is the settled refusal of every sin, including the small ones a man keeps half-defending. Without it the indulgence is partial only (Norm 20 §4).
- Sacramental Confession.
- Holy Communion — “it is certainly better to receive it while participating in Holy Mass, but for the indulgence only Holy Communion is required.”
- Prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff — the choice of prayer is free, “but an ‘Our Father’ and a ‘Hail Mary’ are suggested” (The Gift of the Indulgence, n. 5; cf. Norm 20 §5, which says the condition is fulfilled by one Our Father and one Hail Mary).
- And the intention to gain it — at least a general one (can. 996 §2).
On timing: it is fitting, not required, that the Confession and especially the Communion and the prayer for the Pope fall on the same day as the work; it is enough that they be carried out “within several days (about 20) before or after the indulgenced act.” One sacramental Confession suffices for several plenary indulgences, but a separate Holy Communion and a separate prayer for the Pope's intentions are required for each one. A plenary indulgence can be gained only once a day (Norm 18 §1) — with one exception: a man may gain a plenary indulgence in articulo mortis, at the point of death, even if he has already gained one that day (Norm 18 §2).
The works a man can actually use, any day of the year
The Enchiridion singles out four works by which a member of the faithful can obtain a plenary indulgence on any day of the year, the once-a-day rule still standing:
- Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for at least half an hour — a visit made to adore, per dimidiam saltem horam (concession 7 §1, 1°). How to make that visit, if you have never been.
- The Way of the Cross (concession 13, 2°). It must be made before lawfully erected stations — fourteen crosses — moving from one station to the next; devout meditation on the Passion and Death of the Lord is enough; consideration of each station’s own mystery is not required. Whoever is lawfully impeded may instead spend some time, “e.g. a quarter of an hour,” in reading and meditating on the Passion. Our step-by-step Stations guide.
- The Rosary prayed in a church or oratory, or in the family, in a religious community, or in an association of the faithful — and generally whenever several gather for some honest purpose (concession 17 §1, 1°). Five decades, recited continuously; the vocal prayer joined to meditation on the mysteries. In other circumstances the indulgence is partial.
- Reading Sacred Scripture for at least half an hour, from a text approved by competent authority, with the reverence due the divine word and in the manner of spiritual reading (concession 30 §1). Less than half an hour, and the indulgence is partial. If for a reasonable cause a man cannot read it himself, hearing the text — read by another, or on video or audio — counts (concession 30 §2).
These are not loopholes, and none of them is a technique. They are, in the Catechism's words, the Church spurring her children “to works of devotion, penance, and charity” (CCC 1478).
Partial and plenary
“An indulgence is partial or plenary insofar as it partially or totally frees from the temporal punishment due to sins” (can. 993). A partial indulgence asks far less: the work, and at least contrition of heart. A partial indulgence may be gained more than once a day (Norm 18 §1). And if a work carrying a plenary indulgence can reasonably be divided into parts — the Rosary into decades, for instance — a man who has good reason not to finish it still gains a partial indulgence for the part he prayed.
Offering one for the dead
“Any member of the faithful can gain partial or plenary indulgences for oneself or apply them to the dead by way of suffrage” (can. 994). The Catechism gives the reason: because the faithful departed being purified are members of the same communion of saints, “one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted” (CCC 1479). Name the man. Then do the work for him.
Common mistakes
- Thinking it forgives sin. It does not. Mortal sin is forgiven in Confession; the indulgence concerns what remains after forgiveness (CCC 1471).
- Thinking it can be bought. Nothing in the norms involves money. The conditions are the state of grace, detachment, Confession, Communion, and prayer for the Pope. The history of that charge, and the Church’s answer to it, are in Sed Contra: Indulgences.
- Offering one for a living friend. You cannot. Indulgences may be applied to yourself or to the dead, never to another person living on earth (can. 994; The Gift of the Indulgence, n. 7).
- Assuming a missed condition voids everything. If the full disposition is lacking, or the work and the three conditions are not all fulfilled, the indulgence is partial rather than nothing (Norm 20 §4).
- Treating detachment as a feeling. It is a disposition of the will, and no one is asked to certify his own interior state with certainty. Make the act of renunciation honestly and leave the accounting to God.
- Stacking two plenary indulgences in one day. Only one per day, apart from the indulgence at the point of death (Norm 18).
Why temporal punishment exists at all
To grasp the indulgence, a man has to grasp the wound. The Catechism teaches that sin has a double consequence: grave sin deprives us of communion with God, the privation called the eternal punishment of sin, while “every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory” (CCC 1472). That purification is the temporal punishment.
These punishments, the Catechism is careful to say, “must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin” (CCC 1472). A man pardoned for a reckless act still carries the habit he formed doing it. Forgiveness of sin remits the eternal punishment, “but temporal punishment of sin remains” (CCC 1473) — and the Christian is told to accept it as a grace, and to work at it by mercy, charity, prayer and penance.
Where the Church gets the authority — the treasury of merit
The Catechism 1478 explains that the Church, by the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ, “intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins.” The power invoked is the one given to Peter: “whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven” (Matthew 16:19, Douay-Rheims).
The treasury is not a vault of coins. It is, in the Catechism's words, “the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ's merits have before God,” together with “the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and of all the saints (CCC 1476–1477). Paul VI set the modern norms for its use in the 1967 apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina, from which the Catechism takes its definition.
Do this: a plain plan for the week
Here is a repeatable plan a working father can actually run — and offer for a soul in Purgatory by name.
- Get to Confession. One confession covers several plenary indulgences over the following days.
- Pick the work. The most available: half an hour before the Blessed Sacrament, half an hour of Scripture read prayerfully, the Stations, or the Rosary prayed with your family at the table.
- Make the act of detachment. Tell God plainly that you renounce every sin, including the small ones you keep excusing. Mean it.
- Receive Holy Communion — that day if you can, or within the window.
- Pray for the Pope's intentions — an Our Father and a Hail Mary.
- Apply it. Intend it for him before you begin — a capable subject “must have at least the general intention of acquiring” the indulgence (can. 996 §2), and an indulgence is applied to the dead “by way of suffrage” (can. 994). Saying his name aloud, with “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord,” helps you mean it.
Then go back to the sacrament and do it again next month. The doctrine is not new. The neglect of it is.
See also: A Prayer for the Pope