Return of the Indulgence

The egregious sale of indulgences precipitated the Protestant Reformation. The Second Vatican Council (1960) resulted in their disuse. But Pope Pope John Paul II reinstated indulgences in 2000 to celebrate the Church's third millennium. Pope Benedict XVI has found indulgences to be a useful means of reawakening a sense of personal sin in Catholics and to bring them back to the confessional.

Today's New York Times has an article that explores complications of the doctrine of indulgences.

"The indulgence is among the less noticed and less disputed traditions to be restored. But with a thousand-year history and volumes of church law devoted to its intricacies, it is one of the most complicated to explain.

"According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

"There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.

"It has no currency in the bad place"

In my estimation the return to indulgences (especially as a means of restoring a sense of sinfulness) indicates the conservative strategy of the current Pope to restore the authority of the traditional Church, as opposed to the reformed Church put forth by the Second Vatican Council and associated with Pope John XXIII.