Let’s be clear: an indulgence is not a permission to commit sin.  It is not a permission to indulge in some behavior that would ordinarily be considered sinful.  It is not something that you pay for to get forgiveness. The Catholic Church teaches that indulgences are a means by which the faithful can obtain the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin, the guilt of which has already been forgiven. This teaching is rooted in the Church’s understanding of the interconnectedness of sin, repentance, and the effects of sin on the soul and the community. The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a thorough explanation of indulgences, particularly in Paragraphs 1471-1479.

An indulgence is a “remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven [emphasis added], 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.” (CCC 1471)  An important point is that an indulgence does not apply to an eternal punishment (perdition; hell) but only to the temporal punishment for sins that have already been forgiven. And you may have noticed that indulgences are not limited to being applied to the faithful departed, but can be received by the living if disposed under the prescribed conditions.

At the root of indulgences is the understanding that sin has a double consequence. Sin entails a guilt that must be forgiven, and it also causes a disorder that must be repaired. In Scripture, sin is forgiven by God, yet its consequences may remain. Earlier we considered the analogy of the “broken window” but the idea is also rooted in the Bible. Consider the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 12:13–14). The prophet Nathan tells David that God has forgiven his sin of adultery, yet the child born of their infidelity will still die. In Exodus, Moses is God’s friend, yet because of his failure at Meribah, he is barred from entering the promised land. (Numbers 20:12). These are just examples of double consequences. Prayers for the dead presumes that there remains some liability for sin beyond death. (cf. 2 Maccabees 12:44–46) That liability might be in the lack of wholeness (completion or perfection, telios) in the person that needs to be made perfect before entering the Temple of Heaven and into the presence of God.

Public penance in the first centuries reflected this distinction. Even after absolution from guilt through sacramental confession or episcopal reconciliation, penitents often had to perform extended works of penance (fasting, pilgrimage, exclusion from the Eucharist) — not to “earn” forgiveness, but to heal the damage caused by sin and to satisfy the justice of God and the Church.

This teaching emphasizes that while the guilt of sin can be absolved through confession, the consequences of sin—specifically, the disorder it creates—may still require reparation, which can be addressed through indulgences.

At this point you might be thinking of the 16th century sale of indulgences. Some might argue it was a rogue cardinal and not the Church as a whole. Rogue cardinal, for sure. The whole church? I don’t think that view is well supported in history. But either way, it was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” and tipped the Church into the Protestant Reformation. The sale of indulgences was a serious abuse and had long lasting effects on a long-held tradition of the Church associated with prayers for the faithful departed. By and large the tradition was removed from reformed and protestant theology.

But Indulgences remained – and the Church undertook efforts to make clear the theology of Indulgences to priests and laity alike.

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Image credit: All Souls’ Day | Jakub Schikaneder, 1888 | National Gallery Prague | PD-US