The year 2025 was declared an Ordinary Jubilee Year by Pope Francis in his papal bull Spes Non Confundit (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”), which takes its title from Romans 5:5. An Ordinary Jubilee Year, also called a Holy Year, traditionally takes place every twenty-five years. The last Ordinary Jubilee Year was celebrated in 2000, though there was a special Extraordinary Jubilee Year announced in 2015 for the year 2016.
Jubilee Years are associated with indulgences, which are one of the least understood aspects of the Catholic faith. Even Catholics who seek to obtain indulgences do not always fully understand what they are and how they are justified theologically. Neither a full exposition nor a comprehensive defense of indulgences is possible in this brief article. Nevertheless, I would like to offer a preliminary explication of the basic notions underlying the doctrine and practice of indulgences as presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) and explained by the two great scholastics St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure.
In the apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967), Pope St. Paul VI defines “indulgence” as “the remission before God of the temporal punishment due sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned, which the follower of Christ with the proper dispositions and under certain determined conditions acquires through the intervention of the Church which, as minister of the Redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints” (n. 1; see also CCC 1471).
If an indulgence is the remission of temporal punishment due to sin, then it is reasonable to ask: What is temporal punishment due to sin? As the Catechism acknowledges, “To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence” (1472). It then goes on to explain the two-fold consequence of sin under the terms “eternal punishment” and “temporal punishment.” Eternal punishment results from mortal sin which “deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life” (1472). Temporal punishment, by contrast, results from every sin, whether mortal or venial: “Every sin . . . entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory” (1472). In other words, sin breeds disorder in our souls—our minds and our wills. Even if one repents and is forgiven of the guilt associated with the sin, that does not always and necessarily mean that the ontological damage done by the sin—the disordered attachment—is automatically healed. Accordingly, such punishment “must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin” (1472).
“A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.”
The good news, however, is that “a conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain” (1472, citing the Council of Trent). In order to facilitate the removal of such disordered attachments, the Christian “should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the ‘old man’ and to put on the ‘new man’” (1473, citing Eph. 4:22, 24).
The possibility of being healed of disordered attachments (sin) requires divine grace, which—first and foremost—is a freely given gift and not something that one can earn in the strict sense. As St. Bonaventure explains, “No person is in any way worthy to attain this supreme good, which totally exceeds the limits of human nature, unless elevated above self through the condescending action of God.” Jesus Christ alone has merited for us the gift of sanctifying grace, which is “properly called ‘the grace that makes pleasing.’”
Since one cannot merit the gift of sanctifying grace, one might wonder how a person can be said to “merit” anything through the practice of indulgences. The key is to differentiate the possibility of merit prior to and after the reception of sanctifying grace. Without sanctifying grace, one cannot merit anything. But, when one is in a state of sanctifying grace—given through the merits of Christ—one is then capacitated to merit an increase in grace. St. Bonaventure says, “This grace [which makes pleasing], as the root of merit, precedes all our merits. . . . Therefore no one can merit this grace in the full sense of the word [de condigno]. And yet ‘grace itself merits to be increased by God in this life and that increase merits perfections’ in our homeland and everlasting glory by that same God; who alone has power to infuse, augment, and perfect that grace according to the cooperation of our will and according to God’s own purpose.”
It is only after we have been made pleasing to God that we can perform actions that please God and thus can be called “meritorious” in a qualified sense. For “once we possess this grace, it merits its own increase if we make good use of it here below.” This explanation fits well with the words of Sacred Scripture: “The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (James 5:16). It is only because the person has been made righteous by the gift of God’s sanctifying grace that his or her prayer is rendered efficacious.
When the members of the Body of Christ who are in a state of grace perform meritorious actions (actions that please God and therefore “merit”—in a qualified sense—an increase in grace), those merits can be applied to other members of the Body. As St. Thomas Aquinas notes, “Charity avails more before God than before man. Now before man, one can pay another’s debt for love of him. Much more, therefore, can this be done before the judgment seat of God.” He sees this reflected in the principle behind Galatians 6:2: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Sin breeds disorder in our souls—our minds and our wills.
The Angelic Doctor is careful to point out that this applies to temporal punishment. He writes, “One man does not merit the essential reward for another, unless his merit has infinite efficacy, as the merit of Christ [and of Christ alone, one should say]. . . . On the other hand, the temporal punishment due to sin after the guilt has been forgiven is not measured according to the disposition of the man to whom it is due. . . . Consequently one man can merit for another as regards release from [temporal] punishment, and one man’s act becomes another’s, by means of charity whereby we are ‘all one in Christ’ (Galatians 3:28).”
Applying these principles to the question of indulgences, Aquinas notes, considering the saints throughout history, that
many have patiently borne unjust tribulations whereby a multitude of [temporal] punishments would have been paid, had they been incurred. So great is the quantity of such merits that it exceeds the entire debt of [temporal] punishment due to those who are living at this moment. . . . Now one man can satisfy for another, as we have explained above. . . . And the saints in whom this super-abundance of satisfactions is found, did not perform their good works for this or that particular person, who needs the remission of his punishment . . . but they performed them for the whole Church in general, even as the Apostle declares that he fills up ‘those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ . . . for his body, which is the Church’ to whom he wrote (Colossians 1:24). These merits, then, are the common property of the whole Church. Now those things which are the common property of a number are distributed to the various individuals according to the judgment of him who rules them all. Hence, just as one man would obtain the remission of his punishment if another were to satisfy for him, so would he too if another’s satisfactions be applied to him by one who has the power to do so.
This power to apply such merits, Aquinas argues, belongs to the “privilege granted to Peter, to whom it was said (Matthew 16:19) that whatsoever he should loose on earth should be loosed also in heaven. Wherefore whatever remission is granted in the court of the Church holds good in the court of God.” This is precisely what the quote from Pope St. Paul VI given earlier is saying.
From this perspective, it is proper for the Holy Father to attach indulgences to particular actions, which—when done in a state of grace—can merit the remission of the temporal punishment due to sin. The Jubilee Year fittingly reminds the faithful of these principles and offers a positive encouragement to engage in prayers, almsgiving, and fasting so that the disordered attachment to sin can be remitted.
Of course, indulgences do have to meet certain conditions. In addition to “the performance of certain prescribed work . . . it is necessary that the faithful be in the state of grace,” as noted before. In order for an indulgence to be plenary (full) and not only partial, one must “have the interior disposition of complete detachment from sin, even venial sin; have sacramentally confessed their sins; receive the Holy Eucharist . . . [and] pray for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff.” The condition that one be free from all detachment to sin for a plenary indulgence makes sense, given that temporal punishment is associated with disordered attachment to sin.
Recognizing that a comprehensive treatment, defense, and explanation of the practice of indulgences has not been given here, I nevertheless hope this article helps the reader perceive some of the core principles underlying the practice. What is more, I hope it encourages all of us to avail ourselves of this pious practice in general and, in particular, during this Jubilee Year.