Wednesday Liturgy: Follow-up: Indulgences on Sold Items

ROME, AUG. 22, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Answered by Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina Apostolorum university.

After our piece on indulgences (July 18), a reader from Dunedin, New Zealand, asked: "I am very confused as to the exact nature of indulgences in our faith. When engaged in interdenominational dialogue they are often raised as a sign of the corruption of Catholicism! How do indulgences differ today from the pre-Reformation era? How do we justify the authority of their dispensation? And who benefits from the indulgence? Do we need to offer them for others?"

We dealt with the general theme of indulgences in Church doctrine in our columns of Feb. 15 and March 1, 2005. I hope that what was written there will render the doctrine of indulgences a little less alarming to our reader.

There is no essential doctrinal difference regarding indulgences today with respect to the pre-Reformation era. The so-called sale of indulgences that served as tinder for the Protestant Reformation was due more to an incorrect presentation of the doctrine concerning them by certain overzealous preachers.

This led some to understand indulgences as a sort of permission to commit sin with no consequent fault or loss of grace, an idea totally foreign to the general doctrine which requires the state of grace in order to obtain an indulgence.