As to Indulgences:
· = The power to forgive sins necessarily included the power to remit the eternal punishment due to them.
= But there remains
temporal punishment.
= But besides the power to
forgive sins and their eternal punishment Christ also gave his Church the power
to remit temporal punishment for sins.
In the remission of temporal punishment, that is, in
indulgences, it
is not a matter of regaining the state of grace, or of the essential
goods of the supernatural order which we receive in the sacraments and through
the objective effects of the sacraments ex opere operato (i.e. independently of
one's own or the Church's merits but solely by the power of Christ working in
the sacramental signs), but
of a lessening of the punishments still due for sin. This remission comes about on
the basis of the value as satisfaction of the works and sufferings of Christ
and of all who can accomplish such works in the grace of Christ, i.e. of all
persons in a state of grace. The application of this
satisfying value, however, is not attached to any sacramental sign in itself
but to certain actions which can be prescribed by the Church. Thus, the twofold
basis of the doctrine of indulgences is: first, the satisfying and
supernaturally meritorious value of all works done in a state of grace, and
second, the community of saints, of all, that is, who have been redeemed by
Christ and live and work in his grace, in communion with Christ and with one
another.
Since
the gaining of indulgences is related to certain actions, great abuses and
scandals have been possible. The in part very abusive practice in matter of
indulgences at the end of the Middle Ages served the Reformers as a symbol of a
mechanistic organization of supernatural life, of the worldly character and
avarice of the Church who touted holy things in the market-place. Against the,
the Church declared her power to grant indulgences, and their value for the
faithful, but at the same time she pull all her force into the campaign against
abuses.
THE CHURCH THUS TEACHES:
The
Church, then, teaches she has received from Christ, on the basis of the
treasury of his merits, the power to grant to the faithful on certain
conditions indulgences i.e. the remission of temporal punishment due to sin.
Indulgences may be applied to the dead. Abuses are to be avoided. The
use of indulgences is salutary for the people of Christ.
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