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Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I think nowadays they don't stipulate exact measures of time, merely "plenary" and "partial". If the conditions for a plenary indulgence are not exactly met then the indulgence automatically becomes partial. Still, all nonsense, of course, but they have moved away from exact periods of time.

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Indulgences these days are granted to those who carry out certain tasks – such as climbing the Sacred Steps, in Rome (reportedly brought from Pontius Pilate's house after Jesus scaled them before his crucifixion), a feat that earns believers seven years off purgatory.

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Originally posted by Bostonman:
But still: does someone have access to some secret sentencing guidelines we're not aware of? Are they in John 22 or something?

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One minute per tweeted character read, so a maximum of 140 minutes per tweet.

Of course, there are some pretty heinous ways this doctrine could potentially be abused.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Originally posted by Crœsos:

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Originally posted by Bostonman:
But still: does someone have access to some secret sentencing guidelines we're not aware of? Are they in John 22 or something?

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One minute per tweeted character read, so a maximum of 140 minutes per tweet.

Of course, there are some pretty heinous ways this doctrine could potentially be abused.

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ZAMBEZIA, Mozambique, 2 May 2011 – Linda (not her real name) is a 16-year old girl from a city in Zambezia, who was taken advantage of sexually by her teacher, a 40-year old man, known and respected in the community.

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Originally posted by Bostonman:
The Guardian ...
I was assuming it was correct.

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Ah! I think I have found the problem!

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

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Originally posted by HCH:
Is it possible that this is a deliberate joke?

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• Indulgences do not remit the guilt of sin, and no historical example of an indulgence issued by pope or council that claims to do so exists. Rather, they wrote edicts against such spurious indulgences from the 14thC. Baptism and sacramental confession with absolution remit the guilt of sin.
• If a sin is fully pardoned (sacramental absolution, complete reparation), then an indulgence can (partly) remove the canonical requirements of the Church for penance and the temporal punishment according to Divine justice. The former makes more sense if one knows that penance used to by very harsh. It was less of saying ten Hail Mary's, and more kneeling outside the church doors for many years of Sundays. The latter means that even if a sin is forgiven fully, this does not mean that it has no more ill effects "in time" (in this world). For example, David's child dies as God's punishment even though David has been forgiven for Uriah the Hittite's murder (2 Sam 12). This, as well as venial sin, is being dealt with in purgatory after death.
• The rating of indulgences by days and years was not a reference to whatever mode of time may be passing in purgatory. Rather, it was a reference to the harsh canonical penances of the Church. If you had to kneel three years before church doors, and an indulgence took away two years, then you had a year left to do, basically. It later provided a kind of "rating system" of what acts are more pleasing to God (and Church), simply by comparing the by then fairly abstract numbers. For better or worse, the modern Church has however done away with this quantification. So the Guardian is simply wrong in reporting a specific number of years.
• The basic idea here is that according to Divine justice "what goes around comes around", even after the threat of hell is sacramentally removed. The key point is the claim that the Church cannot only absolve one from sin, but can also catch the karmic boomerang one has thrown before it hits one in the butt. That's an indulgence.

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Originally posted by Ye Olde Motherboarde:

And, as for this theology of Purgatory. It's NOT biblical!

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Originally posted by IngoB:
So the Guardian is simply wrong in reporting a specific number of years.

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Imagine my surprise...

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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'

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Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Personally as a prot, I've found an ill-defined purgatory has many attractions. There are far too many people I'd be uncomfortable if they waltzed into heaven, but few (depending on the day none or a worryingly large number) I'd be comfortable wishing an eternity of punishment on.

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Originally posted by roybart:
In the late 50s and early 60s, however -- those last years before Vatican II -- we who attended catechism classes in suburban Long Island, NY, were presented with something quite unlike what you describe. In fact, what I recall vividly is precisely what you say that indulgences are NOT.

-- Partial indulgences definitely were calibrated in terms of years off in a very real place called purgatory;

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Originally posted by roybart:
-- They were conditional on carrying out penances which were overwhelmingly couched in terms of "Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Glory-be-to-the-Fathers." The number to be recited was sometimes small, sometimes large. I can't remember ever receiving any other penance. My sins at that age tended to be of the namby-pamby variety, so I may not know the whole story about that.

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Originally posted by roybart:
Was this perhaps a time when sophisticated theology was out of sync with what was being taught to, and imposed upon, the laity in the pews? Were we simply being taught some sort of folk religion that did not actually conform to orthodox Catholic teaching? Or have Catholic teachings regarding indulgences changed since then?

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Originally posted by IngoB:
The "seven years of punishment" in purgatory are also not a literal reference to seven actual years. They are a reference to the harsh this-wordly penances of the past, so this simply means "a great deal of punishment". And though this is quantitative, we cannot evaluate the equivalence, just rank it.

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Originally posted by Hawk:
A good attempt at justification but I don't buy it. If the RCC never actually thought that these were literal years they were offering people but that they were just ranking punishment in a convenient nominclature then why did they choose a word for their ranking system so easily misunderstood? Years are years. You sell a peasant seven years, he thinks that means he's getting a literal seven years. Its deceitful. They should have invented some currency like Purgatory Credits for this. The reason they didn't is because they actively wanted the peasants to think they were getting literal time off from purgatory. If the peasants weren't fooled into thinking that, they would have valued the Church's vague-sounding Purgatory Credits much less highly.

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It is more that when the relevant Catholic practice changed drastically, but the Catholic way of talking about it didn't, one had to become "sophisticated" to know the proper meaning of what was being said. The link to direct experience disappeared. The adjustments of Vatican II were intended to remove the ensuing confusion, they were not a change of doctrine.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Because indeed these were "real years" once upon a time, namely years of harsh penance that a penitent would have to perform before being readmitted as full member of the Church. This was so in antiquity, and to some degree up to the middle ages...

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Originally posted by Hedgehog:
Forgive my presumption, Holy Smoke, but I suspect that what you were trying to link to was this entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia:Indulgences. Which, as the section you quoted makes clear, confirms IngoB's summary of the issue.

Although, frankly, I found IngoB to be somewhat clearer in terms of an explanation as to what "ancient canonical penance" was.

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Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
My understanding from the article I quoted from is that the RCC believes that, since the repentant sinner no longer undergoes temporal punishment for his sin, then he will instead have to undergo a period in purgatory in its stead. Therefore, the indulgence now serves to reduce that period in purgatory, rather than reducing the earthly punishment. Real punishment, real remission, rather than labels and karma.

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Oh, and by the way, all this (false) talk of punishment in purgatory reminds me that according to Paul there is now no condemnation awaiting those who are in Christ Jesus.

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‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves,and chastises every child whom he accepts.’
Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This isn't a frivolous question, though since it's me, I can't resist asking it in frivolous terms -

In theory, can the Pope attach an indulgence to anything? I mean, could he say "a plenary indulgence (on the usual conditions) for wearing a goldfish in your ear for a day"?

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Originally posted by glockenspiel:
All this talk of 'remitting punishments' by some arcane formula seems a bit off to me - Surely the RCs would be on much stronger ground if they gave up any special claims in this area, and just proposed purgatory as being roughly equivalent to, say, having to hang around in a train station waiting room, for an extended period of time??

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The mere fact that the Church proclaims an indulgence does not imply that it can be gained without effort on the part of the faithful. From what has been said above, it is clear that the recipient must be free from the guilt of mortal sin. Furthermore, for plenary indulgences, confession and Communion are usually required, while for partial indulgences, though confession is not obligatory, the formula corde saltem contrito, i.e. "at least with a contrite heart", is the customary prescription.

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Finally, from the nature of the case, it is obvious that one must perform the good works — prayers, alms deeds, visits to a church, etc. — which are prescribed in the granting of an indulgence.

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Originally posted by Bostonman:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This isn't a frivolous question, though since it's me, I can't resist asking it in frivolous terms -

In theory, can the Pope attach an indulgence to anything? I mean, could he say "a plenary indulgence (on the usual conditions) for wearing a goldfish in your ear for a day"?

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I suspect the party-line answer goes something like this: Of course not. The Pope doesn't attach indulgences to anything, he instructs us about the indulgences naturally inherent in certain things. Like reading his Tweets, or, for the last pope, sending him new shoes.

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Originally posted by Hedgehog:
And if you accept that acts of piety and devotion can lessen the period of punishment, it also seems reasonable to assume that some acts of devotion grant greater benefit in that regard than others. So, for example, praying a novena might seem to be somewhat more beneficial than making the sign of the cross when you pass by a church. The "arcane formula" was just a way of trying to rate (in the Church's opinion) the relative beneficial nature of various acts of piety.

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Originally posted by Edith:
I have certainly never heard mention of indulgences at Mass or in any parish group for fifty odd years.

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Originally posted by Pancho:
It looks like there already was a thread on indulgences just a few months ago. Certain shipmates above should look at this cached version first:
Indulgences(cached)

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Originally posted by IngoB:
if a sin is fully pardoned (sacramental absolution, complete reparation), then an indulgence can (partly) remove the canonical requirements of the Church for penance and the temporal punishment according to Divine justice...

....even if a sin is forgiven fully, this does not mean that it has no more ill effects "in time" (in this world). For example, David's child dies as God's punishment even though David has been forgiven for Uriah the Hittite's murder (2 Sam 12).

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Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It seems rather harsh that God the Father would subject a soul to the fires of hell, however temporary, just to burn off excess sin.

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