Tag: Church Teaching

6 min read

Church Teaching

Why Is Canon Law Needed?

Edward Peters

January 31, 2023 8:00 am January 31, 2023

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6 min read

Growing up American means growing up aware of how deeply society is influenced by laws. We know, without even having to think about it, that law has something to say…

Growing up American means growing up aware of how deeply society is influenced by laws. We know, without even having to think about it, that law has something to say about almost everything we do.

As children we’re taught about the various branches of government — legislative, executive, judicial — that pass, enforce and interpret the laws at various levels — federal, state and local. So we recognize how important it is to understand the different rules and regulations that affect so many daily activities.

Most of the time, of course, we carry on our activities without consciously thinking about how many laws impact us. We can do this, in part, because most of the civil laws we live under make sense and contribute to the smooth operation of society.

But in the back of our mind, especially when something goes significantly wrong, we are aware that, to one degree or another, civil law might have something to say. And we have at least a basic idea of where to turn for help in learning more about legal issues.

The Law of the Church

Growing up Catholic, on the other hand, means growing up with almost no appreciation of how extensively canon law, the internal legal system of the Catholic Church, affects our daily life of faith. It means not knowing that canon law lies behind many things that we as Catholics take for granted. And it means not knowing that, in too many cases, important ecclesiastical rights and obligations might be going unrecognized in our lives.

Occasionally a canon law issue comes directly into our personal world, as might happen, say, in an annulment case. Or canon law may gain our attention when it makes the headlines, as might happen, say, when a public figure is excommunicated.

But even then, most Catholics don’t realize that what they see is only a small part of a complete legal system, a legal system that goes back to the ancient Church — in short, a legal system about which they might want to, and need to, know more.

Like every large and complex society, the Catholic Church long ago discovered that reasonable, written rules were important for the smooth functioning of the disparate people and projects being under-taken in so many different lands and conditions. Over the centuries, the accumulated pastoral and administrative wisdom of Church leaders was recorded, organized, tested and commented upon by legal experts.

Over time, however, these collections of regulations and “canons,” as they were called to distinguish them from civil laws, became increasingly hard to use. (The word canon comes from a Greek term meaning “a rule.”) Rules that made sense in one context were sometimes mistakenly applied in other contexts. Norms that worked at one time in history might be misapplied in other historical periods.

Integrated Codes

To remedy these problems, in 1917 the Catholic Church published its first integrated Code of Canon Law. At last, in one place, clear provisions on the work of priests and bishops, administration of Church property, celebration of sacraments, issues in education and so on were set forth (albeit in Latin!) for the consultation of anyone in the Church.

This Pio-Benedictine Code (so-called because of the two pontiffs, Popes Pius X and Benedict XV, involved in its creation and promulgation) was immediately hailed as a juridical and pastoral work of genius.

But while Roman (Latin-rite) Catholics benefited enormously by having a single Code of Canon Law, Eastern Catholics still did not have their own code (although work toward one had been going on for several decades).

Moreover, as the 20th century unfolded, it became increasingly clear that many of the canons in the 1917 code would need updating. This became quite apparent after the Second Vatican Council, which helped the Church confront better an increasingly secular civil society.

After a long, worldwide consultation process, Pope John Paul II promulgated, in 1983, a revised Code of Canon Law for the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1990 he issued the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. These two documents, both of which are available in modern language translations, represent the primary current legislation of the Catholic Church.

Looking only at the 1983 code, its 1,752 canons are spread over seven chapters, or “books.” Book I offers general canonical definitions and sets out the ground rules for applying law in the Church. Book II presents the basic rights and obligations of various persons in the Church.

Book III contains the norms that apply to the Church’s teaching ministry. Book IV gives the most important rules on sacraments (though there are not as many rules on liturgy in the code as some might think).

Book V regulates Church property. Book VI deals with ecclesiastical offenses and penalties. And, finally, Book VII is a procedural book with rules for canonical trials.

Yes, you read that last line correctly: The Catholic Church conducts legal trials in courts (called tribunals), which in turn play an important role in the canonical system. For that matter, canon law has lawyers (called advocates), law schools to train its specialists (called pontifical faculties), law reviews and commentaries, and indeed, in one way or another, just about everything that we might expect to find in a modern legal system.

Civil Law vs. Canon Law

There are, however, some important differences between canon law and civil law. For starters, canon law does not take its “marching orders” from secular or political concerns, but rather from the theological principles of the Catholic Church.

Canon law, moreover, approaches many technical legal issues in a way that more resembles the “continental law” or “civil law” legal tradition. This approach differs in many ways from the “common law” process with which Americans and people in other nations legally influenced by England are familiar.

Also, there are far fewer canon lawyers than there are civil lawyers. So finding answers to canonical questions, whether they are simple or complex, can take a bit longer than some might wish.

More and more, though, dioceses and seminaries are offering survey courses in canon law to the wider public. Websites dedicated to canon law are beginning to appear, and affordable commentaries — that is, private explanations by experts — on canon law are available through Catholic and secular booksellers.

Best of all, the 1983 Code of Canon Law is available online and in hard copy. While canon law is, to be sure, a technical discipline, it was nevertheless meant to be read and applied by the faithful at all levels in the Church. There is no better way to begin acquiring some familiarity with our fascinating Catholic legal system than by simply picking up and reading passages of the current Code of Canon Law.

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6 min read

Church Teaching

Excommunication

Edward Peters

January 19, 2023 7:59 am January 19, 2023

6 min read

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6 min read

Most Catholics know that excommunication has played an important role in ecclesiastical life since ancient times. Many also assume that this controversial procedure was relegated to the history books after…

Excommunication remains an important part of canon law. In fact, there are signs that in the years to come it will play a larger role in Church life than we’ve been accustomed to seeing. To understand why, let’s look at three key questions frequently raised about excommunication.

Is excommunication the most severe penalty that the Church can apply, or is it a medicinal remedy intended to bring about personal repentance and conversion?

Is excommunication imposed in response to certain serious violations of canon law, or is it a consequence of mortal sins as determined by moral theology?

Is there a master list of actions for which one can be excommunicated, or is each bishop or priest allowed to formulate his own?

The answers to these three questions can help us understand better what excommunication means today and what it might mean tomorrow. Let’s see how.

A Medicinal Remedy

Admittedly the first question is sort of a trick question. The answer to whether excommunication is the most severe penalty the Church has, or whether it is a medicinal response intended to bring about personal repentance, is that excommunication is both. But because this double character of excommunication is precisely what so many people misunderstand about it, let’s talk more about it.

On the one hand, anyone who is excommunicated has ruptured the bonds of communion that should bind each believer to the community of the faithful. Excommunication blocks a person’s right to receive the sacraments and sacramentals, and it prohibits him or her from exercising leadership roles in the Church. Despite the bravado with which some excommunicated persons express their disdain for the penalty, there’s nothing pleasant about these kinds of consequences, and excommunicated people know that. History knows it, too.

At the same time, though, the Catholic Church makes it clear that excommunication is imposed with the express goal of motivating the person to cease the behavior that resulted in the excommunication in the first place.

Put another way, the Church is as loathe to impose excommunication as she is eager to lift it. Indeed, once an excommunicated person has a change of heart (known canonically as “withdrawal from contumacy”), he or she has the right to a prompt reconciliation with the Church and a speedy readmission to her sacramental life.

And why not? The excommunication fulfilled its purpose; it brought an errant sheep back to the fold. If someone remains in a state of excommunication for a long time, you can be sure it is because he or she, sadly, wants it that way, and not because Church officials are being vindictive.

Violation of Law or Immorality?

The question about whether excommunication should be viewed as a penalty for violating canon law or as a consequence of immoral behavior is not tricky, it’s downright tough. This is because excommunication operates precisely where law and morality come into the closest contact.

It’s a well-established principle that not every immoral action can or even should be made a crime. Therefore (notwithstanding some odd cases we might find in the yellowing pages of Church history), excommunication today is imposed only for actions that are, first, seriously sinful in themselves and, second, unable to be adequately addressed in any other way.

Before the canonical penalty of excommunication will be imposed, it must be clear that a person has offended against an important moral and doctrinal value. That explains why today we usually hear about excommunication only in regard to major public issues such as, say, heresy, abortion or faking the sacraments.

Even so, besides the requirement that the action itself must be seriously wrong for excommunication to be possible, the offense must also be one for which the Church sees no other adequate response except a canonical penalty.

Thus, even though, for example, embezzlement of Church property or adultery are serious wrongs (and need to be brought promptly to sacramental confession), the Church has other ways of responding publicly to them. For example, she may call in civil authorities for embezzlement cases or reiterate Church teaching on matrimonial morals and adultery. She does not resort first to the penalty of excommunication when faced with these sorts of serious wrongs. This makes good sense.

Unfortunately, though, some people point to the lack of excommunications for, say, anti-papal diatribes or even clergy sexual abuse of children and conclude that the Church does not take such offenses seriously. Such an accusation is unfair.

If the Church thinks that the most effective response to these wrongs is excommunication, she will take the steps necessary to impose it. But if there seems to be another way of dealing with them, she will try that first.

Experience, as always, is a good guide here, and certainly the list of excommunicable offenses has changed over time. Thus the list could change again, but as that point really brings us to our last question, let’s turn to it now.

A Master List?

For the first decade after the current Code of Canon Law took effect, the answer to our last question was rather clear: All excommunications could be found listed in the Code of Canon Law. It was, moreover, a rather short list.

But beginning in the 1990s, a few diocesan bishops began turning to excommunication as one way, among others, to respond to what they saw as serious affronts to the Faith in their dioceses.

Pope John Paul II enacted a special excommunication outside of the Code of Canon Law against those who would violate the secrecy of a papal conclave. And in just the last few years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith used its authority to apply legitimately an excommunication in some cases of attempted women’s “ordinations,” even though that penalty for the simulated conferral of holy orders is not expressly contained in the 1983 Code.

We can see, of course, that these more recent excommunications have been implemented only by those at the highest levels of diocesan or universal Church leadership. Thus if we hear of a parish priest threatening or imposing excommunications on his own authority, something somewhere is wrong.

Moreover, even though these examples seem few in number, they are enough to indicate that excommunication is an evolving institution that can and will be used in response to more serious threats against the teachings, life and mission of the Church.

The distinctions highlighted in answering these three questions should go a long way toward minimizing the current confusion about excommunication.

Dr. Edward Peters teaches canon law at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. He is the author of “Excommunication and the Catholic Church”(Ascension Press, 2006). Dr. Peters’ canon law website and blog can be accessed at www.canonlaw.info.

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4 min read

Church Teaching

Introduction to Ecclesiology

Father Harrison Ayre

January 18, 2023 12:00 pm January 18, 2023

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4 min read

One of the more contemporary fields of theological study in the last century has been the discipline of ecclesiology, which studies the Church. This is a vital area of study…

One of the more contemporary fields of theological study in the last century has been the discipline of ecclesiology, which studies the Church. This is a vital area of study because if Jesus intended to found a Church, then we must look to revelation to understand what this Church looks like and what Christ intended.

Ecclesiology, therefore, begins with the basic question: Did Jesus intend to found a Church? The New Testament, as well as early Church history, makes this abundantly clear, and it is relatively well-accepted among both Protestants, Catholics (and other Christians, like the Orthodox, for that matter) that Jesus did, in fact, establish a Church as a body of believers called to gather around his teachings and live them out as a manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

That is where Protestants and Catholics agree. But what the Church looks like — i.e. her external features — is where major disagreement begins. For Catholics, there are essentially two aspects that are necessary for a Church to be a Church. First, it must have a hierarchical structure, centered upon the bishops and pope; second, it must have the sacraments. These are the two essential features for an ecclesial structure to be called a Church.

The hierarchical structure is vital to the Church because without the bishops, there is no Church. The bishop of each diocese is the symbol of unity in his local diocese. Communion among the bishops comes from unity with the pope, as the one who holds the Church’s unity together in communion. The pope is the guarantee that we are all part of the same Church that Christ instituted. The bishops, then, exist as ministers of the Church’s unity. Through them we have apostolic succession, which means that their office is traced back all the way back to Jesus’ apostles. As presiders over the Church’s unity, the bishops oversee things such as the sacraments, which are at the core of the Church’s life. Without the bishops, there are no sacraments, and without both, there is no Church.

The Church’s hierarchy exists to facilitate the unity of the Church, which exists as a communion.This is to say that each member exists and lives for all the other members of the Church. Each of us has a mission in the life of the Church, called to be in service to one another. Episcopal leadership being solely defined by power has no place, since the power attached to the bishop’s office is only given to achieve and guarantee the Church’s unity.

There are other aspects of ecclesiology equally vital: What does it mean to say the Church is “one, holy, catholic,” too? How do we understand, for example, that the Church is holy when sinful at the same time? The Church’s holiness is possible only because her head, Jesus Christ, our Lord, is holy, and we are the members of his body. As sinners, clergy and laity can become holy through Christ alone.

The Church is first and foremost a sacrament — that is, a visible sign that makes effective and visible the invisible reality she signifies. The mission of the whole Church is a mission for the life of the whole world. All those who are baptized into Christ are to make Christ’s salvation not only visible but effective to all the world. This is because the Church is inherently missionary by nature, an idea reiterated time and again by Pope St. Paul VI. It is the task of every single Catholic, then, to be cooperators with Christ’s saving mission, through word and deed. The whole of our lives are to be defined by Christ. That means Christianity cannot be simply a hobby — an addition to one’s life — but a whole way of being. Because the Church is a sacrament, her members – always and everywhere — have the opportunity to be a sign by which the saving actions of Jesus are made effective in the lives of others.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more in the “Introduction to Theology” series here.

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10 min read

Church Teaching

The Development of Doctrine

Brendan Murphy

January 12, 2023 7:54 am January 12, 2023

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10 min read

Our Protestant brothers and sisters often wonder at the complexity of Catholic doctrine. In particular, they may find it difficult to reconcile what they view as the “simplicity” of Jesus’…

Our Protestant brothers and sisters often wonder at the complexity of Catholic doctrine. In particular, they may find it difficult to reconcile what they view as the “simplicity” of Jesus’ teachings with those of the Church today.

These Christians recognize — and Catholics acknowledge — that not all the Church’s teachings are explicitly found in Scripture or the preaching of the early Fathers. Some doctrines were not stated fully and clearly until much later in the life of the Church. As a result, many Protestants conclude that Catholic teaching is a corruption of the original Gospel message.

Catholics, on the other hand, see the doctrines of the Church as the necessary and logical development of the Gospel. Their growth in richness and complexity represents the change from an embryonic form into maturity. But how are we to demonstrate whether or not a particular doctrine (or body of doctrines) is a genuine development and not a corruption of the Christian faith?

One Catholic theologian who sought to provide an answer to this question was the eminent English convert Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890). Newman identified seven “notes” or characteristics of authentic developments, as opposed to doctrinal corruptions, in his famous work “Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine” (University of Notre Dame, 1989; page numbers below refer to citations from this edition). Let’s examine these characteristics one at a time.

Unity of Type

The first note of genuine development Newman calls unity of type. He considered this first criterion the most important of the seven.

What he means by type is the external expression of an idea. The unity or preservation of type refers to the continual presence of a main idea despite its changing external expression. When we see change in the teaching on a subject, can we discern nevertheless that the main idea remains unchanged? If so, we know that the change is a genuine development, not a corruption.

Newman warns that the presence of any alteration in the external expression of an idea shouldn’t lead us to conclude that it’s a corruption, instead of a development, of the essential idea. To illustrate this point, he uses the “analogy of physical growth, which is such that the parts and proportions of the developed form, however altered, correspond to those which belong to its rudiments” (p. 171).

In this sense, a full-grown bird is the development of an egg and not its corruption, even though they bear little physical resemblance to one another.

Newman offers the further caveat that many times “real perversions and corruptions are often not so unlike externally to the doctrine from which they come, as are changes which are consistent with it and true developments” (p. 176). In fact, according to Newman, a major source of religious corruption is clutching too tightly to doctrines at one stage of their development and refusing to allow their future growth.

He notes that some of the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time illustrated this problem. Christ frequently condemned them for following the letter of the law, but not its spirit — that is, its development.

Continuity of Principles

The second note of genuine development is continuity of principles.

Newman insists that for a development to be faithful, it must preserve the principle with which it started. While doctrine may grow and develop, principles are permanent.

Newman identifies the Incarnation as the fundamental truth of the Gospel. Then he goes on to identify nine principles of the Christian religion: dogma, faith, theology, sacraments, Scripture and its mystical interpretation, grace, asceticism, the harm of sin, and the potential of matter to be sanctified.

In reference to these principles, Newman says:

“While the development of doctrine in the Church has been in accordance with, or in consequence of, these immemorial principles, the various heresies, which have from time to time arisen, have in one respect or other, as might be expected, violated those principles with which she rose into existence, and which she still retains” (p. 354).

The fifth-century theological movement known as Pelagianism provides an example of teaching that contradicted one of these principles. Pelagians denied the reality of original sin and, as a consequence, denied that our salvation required any grace beyond what is already given us in human nature.

As a result, the Church recognized the movement as a heretical corruption rather than a development of the Christian faith, and so condemned its teachings.

Power of Assimilation

The third note of genuine development is power of assimilation.

In introducing this criterion, Newman notes that in the physical world living things are characterized by growth, not stagnancy, and that this growth comes about by making use of external things. For example, as human beings we grow by taking into our bodies external realities such as food, water and air.

In Newman’s terminology, then, when we make use of these re-sources we are assimilating them. The food, water and air we consume don’t change who or what we are in any meaningful way. Rather, they serve a valuable function in that they ensure our continued growth and vitality.

For Newman, a true doctrinal development is capable of assimilating external realities (such as non-Christian philosophical concepts, customs or rites) without in any way violating its principles. In fact, in the process of assimilation it’s the external realities themselves that are transformed (once they are assimilated), not the doctrine.

In Newman’s view, the more powerful, independent and vigorous the idea, the greater its power to assimilate external ideas and concepts without losing its identity.

In the ancient Church, for example, Christian theology came to make use of philosophical terms and categories from contemporary Greek culture. These forms of thought were employed to refine the precision of doctrinal formulations, helping the Church to define more clearly what she believed.

Logical Sequence

The fourth note of genuine development is logical sequence.

By this Newman means that a doctrine that’s defined and professed by the Church at a point historically distant from its original founding can be considered a development, and not a corruption, if it can be shown to be the logical outcome of the original teaching.

Newman compares this process to the growth of a tree. Someone looking at an oak tree could very easily draw the conclusion that it has nothing at all in common with an acorn. Yet the mature oak tree is the logical development of the acorn.

Over time an acorn grows roots, bursts forth from the soil, begins to soar toward the sun, develops branches and grows leaves. Each step along the way is the logical development of the previous step. Thus it is with the authentic development of doctrines as well.

One example Newman gives of a development through logical sequence is the dogma of purgatory. The original teaching of Christ and the apostles included the insistence that perfection is necessary to enter heaven and enjoy God’s immediate presence. Yet the reality is that many who die in friendship with God, though ultimately destined for heaven, are far from perfect at that point. So the need for a purging process after death, before entrance into heaven, is logically implied.

Anticipation of Its Future

The fifth note of genuine development, which could be seen as a corollary of the previous one, is anticipation of its future.

Doctrines in some way imply or allude to their later development. So authentic developments will have some logical connection to the original deposit of faith, however vague the “embryonic” form might have been in the earliest days of the Church.

For example, the Church solemnly declared at the fourth-century Council of Nicaea that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was himself truly and fully God, one in substance (or being) with the Father. Such a declaration is nowhere found explicitly in Scripture. Yet it expounded a point of doctrine that was implied by Scripture and the ancient baptismal formula of the Church.

Conservative Action

The sixth note of genuine development is conservative action upon its past.

In other words, a development is not a corruption if the doctrine proposed builds upon the doctrinal developments that precede it, often clarifying and strengthening them. A corrupt doctrine, on the other hand, is one that contradicts or reverses a preceding doctrinal development.

The differences between the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are a perfect illustration of this criterion. When we compare the two creeds we realize that, while the Nicene Creed is significantly longer, it in no way reverses the tenets of the Apostles’ Creed. In fact, the former strengthens and expounds upon the points of the latter.

Chronic Vigor

The seventh note of genuine development is chronic — that is, abiding — vigor.

As long as a doctrine maintains its life and vigor, its ongoing development is assured. However, once a corruption enters into the process, it leads, by its nature, to death and decay.

Corrupted doctrines fail to display much historical longevity and ultimately die off. As Newman says, “The course of heresies is always short; it is an intermediate state between life and death, or what is like death; or, if it does not result in death, it is resolved into some new, perhaps opposite, course of error, which lays no claim to be connected with it” (p. 204).

In other words, once the original burst of apparent vitality wears itself out, many times the only thing left of a heresy is its external form. This form, however, is more like a corpse than a living thing. To take Pelagianism once more as an example, this heresy thrived only briefly, quickly dying off within 150 years.

A final observation: In general, the seven notes are best applied to the entire process of doctrinal growth in the Church, though it’s certainly possible to apply some of the criteria to individual doctrines.

Necessary Change

When we talk with our Protestant friends about the development of doctrine, we should point out that nearly every Christian tradition accepts this reality in some form or another. For example, the Nicene Creed’s profession of the Blessed Trinity doesn’t appear explicitly in Scripture; instead, it’s a development of truths found in Scripture. Yet most Protestant denominations affirm this doctrine.

Newman’s seven criteria help us see that some kinds of doctrinal change, resulting in greater complexity, are not only legitimate but also necessary. To borrow Newman’s analogy: An acorn that somehow changed into a walnut would be a mutation. But an acorn that never developed into an oak would be lifeless.

So it is with the “acorn” of the Gospel.

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4 min read

Church Teaching

Christology 101: Why Christology Matters

Father Harrison Ayre

December 15, 2022 7:13 am December 15, 2022

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4 min read

Many often question the practicability of doctrine. What does our belief in the Trinity really mean when considering how I live my life? Does the idea that Jesus is fully…

Many often question the practicability of doctrine. What does our belief in the Trinity really mean when considering how I live my life? Does the idea that Jesus is fully God and fully man make any practical difference? Is our ecclesiology meaningful in how I live?

These are all important questions. Doctrine influences life in a multitude of ways. It is not simply a set of abstract truths to be assented to. Truth is more than a proposition. Truth, in the Catholic understanding, is ultimately a Person — “I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6) — and therefore is something that is both relational and personal for us, too. Truth is something lived, it seeps into the mind to influence our actions, our habits, our way of being.

This is part of the reason the Fathers of the Church fought so vigorously for orthodoxy. It wasn’t just about truth, but also about a way of living. If, for example, Jesus didn’t have a full humanity like ours, then it effects the structures of grace, the possibility of our redemption, and the ability to live the teachings of the Gospel. Fights against heterodoxy were simply the root problem: heterodoxy would seep into lived Christian life.

Adopted sons and daughters

So, how does Christology positively influence our spiritual lives as Christians? Because Jesus has a humanity like ours in all things but sin, it means that he has now entered our human condition and imbued it with the presence of God, what we call grace. Christian virtue, then, is not so much an effort of personally willing it — as Pelagius attempted to teach us — but rather a participation in Christ. This is the heart of Christian living: that we are adopted sons and daughters of God in Christ. Thus our whole existence and being is a participation in his life, thereby enabling us to become saints.

The fact that Jesus takes on our humanity also reveals something about how God wants to speak and reveal himself to us. It is the Incarnation that is at the heart of the Catholic sacramental vision. By virtue of God taking on our whole humanity, it becomes not only an affirmation of our creatureliness, but even our materiality. As the saying goes: matter matters. God communicates to us in a mode and manner that we can understand. He does it through physical things because our bodily nature is essential to being human, and our humanity is essential to the Incarnation. It thereby lifts up our view of the dignity of the body and of the material world and sees it fundamentally as a gift from God.

Apprehending the spiritual reality

Finally, in our prayer life, contemplation on spiritual things is important, but so too are physical things. This is because we are a creatures comprised of both body and soul. This is why Catholics love physical and tangible objects in prayer. Prayer is not simply contemplating some abstraction we cannot possibly envision, thereby making prayer fruitless. Rather, prayer by reading the Scriptures, participating in liturgy, praying the rosary, looking at icons, and a whole host of other ways is the means by which we come to apprehend the spiritual reality. Just as by seeing the face of Jesus we see the face of the Father (see Jn 14:9), so too through created, material things, do we have access to the divine reality of God. But it is always through and never neglectful of our created reality.

These are just some of ways the Incarnation can affect our spiritual lives. At the heart of it, we see the basis of our whole sacramental system by which we participate in the very life of God, are divinized in Christ, and thereby attain our salvation through the work of His grace. The truths about Christology are the essential underpinnings of a healthy Christian life.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison.

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7 min read

Church Teaching

What are Indulgences?

Edward Peters

November 30, 2022 7:05 am November 30, 2022

7 min read

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7 min read

Indulgences are making a welcome reappearance in the spiritual life of Catholics. After centuries of slow decline in their use, punctuated by decades of almost complete neglect after the Second…

Indulgences are making a welcome reappearance in the spiritual life of Catholics. After centuries of slow decline in their use, punctuated by decades of almost complete neglect after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the power of indulgences to enliven a sense of charity and to sharpen a healthy sorrow for sin is finally being rediscovered.

Three popes have led the way.

In 1968, Pope Paul VI (1962-1978) laid the foundations for this renewal by simplifying the rules on indulgences and redrafting the list of designated works and prayers. The pope’s aim was to help Catholics see indulgences not as some sort of special projects to be performed apart from their daily life, but rather as ways to foster charity and a sense of repentance throughout an ordinary day.

Pope Paul’s reorganization of indulgences left in place some of the older and more ambitious forms of indulgences, such as pilgrimages to shrines and participation in Eucharistic Congresses. But he also made it possible to share more deeply in the Church’s “treasury of merit” by doing simple things such as bearing patiently the inconveniences of daily life in reparation for sin.

Pope Paul reminded us that, because God works through the little things in our lives as well as the great, something as trivial as being stuck in rush-hour traffic can become an opportunity to move closer to God if we offer it up for love of Him.

During his pontificate, Pope John Paul II (1978-2005) oversaw two revisions of the “Enchiridion of Indulgences” and frequently extended indulgences to Catholics participating in special events in their local area.

In 1991 the Polish pope recognized the Akathist hymn of Eastern Catholics as an indulgenced prayer on par with the Marian Rosary prayed by Roman Catholics. Then, in 1998 he withstood strong criticism from some Protestant leaders when he announced that participation in millennial celebrations of the Catholic Church would be enriched by a plenary indulgence.

Finally, Pope Benedict XVI made several references to indulgences in his informal addresses. He granted a plenary indulgence to those participating in person or in spirit in the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Marian apparitions at Lourdes.

There seems, in short, little doubt that today indulgences are emerging from the pall under which they have labored since the Protestant reformer Martin Luther repudiated them early in the 16th century. As a better understanding of indulgences spreads among Catholics and other Christians, they seem set once again to contribute to the welfare of the whole Church.

An Ancient Practice

We can say “once again” because indulgences are, in fact, quite an ancient part of Christian life. The actual word “indulgence” was first used in its modern sense in the 11th century, when they were offered as a spiritual reward for soldiers volunteering to join the efforts to free the Holy Land from Muslim invaders. But the actual practice of indulgences, if not the name, can be traced back much earlier in Church history, indeed, back to the times of the ancient Roman persecutions.

In those dark days, a practice grew up in which Christians suffering in prisons for the faith would sometimes send a letter to a bishop on behalf of a given penitent. The letter would ask the bishop, in recognition of the willingly accepted tribulations of the letter writer, to lighten the penance of a confessed and sorrowful sinner.

These requests, known as libelli pacis, were a beautiful example of the faithful putting into practice one of St. Paul’s most famous admonitions: to share one another’s burdens (see Gal 6:2).

The context in which such letters were written and rewarded underscored the close connection the Church has always sensed between the sacrament of confession and indulgences. To this day, both the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Nos. 1471-1479) and the Code of Canon Law (Canons 992-997) explain indulgences immediately in the context of the Sacrament of Confession.

It’s ironic, then, that because the practice of sacramental confession evolved over the centuries, while the theology of indulgences was lagging, the disconnection between penances for sins and indulgences grew over time to the point where confusion set in. Here’s one example.

“Seven Years Indulgence”?

Older Catholics likely recall when the description of each indulgence in the Raccolta (forerunner of today’s Enchiridion) was followed by a specific indication of time, for example, “300 days indulgence” or “seven years indulgence.”

The problem was (and Pope Paul VI saw this) that no one could say for sure what those time periods meant. All sorts of theories grew up about them, but most folks guessed that the time period of an indulgence must indicate time off from purgatory.

This was not an unreasonable guess. If nothing else, it honored the real connection between indulgences and reparation for sin.

But it assumed much more detail about how purgatory works than the Church has ever declared. (Purgatory is probably not an experience in time, but even if it were somehow associated with time, we don’t know how time might be measured in the next life.)

The suggestion, then, that a given indulgence might free one from, say, 300 days in purgatory was never correct.

As it happened, the time designations associated with indulgences were originally based on the lengthy periods of penance that were imposed after sacramental confession many centuries ago. But as those very long penances disappeared, the reckoning of indulgences as some sort of equivalents to what would have been offered up during such lengthy penances made less and less sense, and, eventually, the connections were lost.

Today, indulgences are grouped into only two types, partial and plenary. The category depends on whether the indulgence in question applies to some or all of the punishment a given member of the faithful owes for sin.

Other Misconceptions

While the connection between indulgences and post-sacramental penances no longer applies, the fact that indulgences apply only to the punishment for sin, and not to the forgiveness of sin itself, should not be overlooked.

Indulgences are not, and never have been, ways to seek forgiveness for sins. Much less are they ways to get “permission” to sin in advance! The Church has never taught anything so ridiculous.

To tell the truth, however, some of the popular explanations of indulgences lent themselves to just these sorts of misunderstandings. By the late Middle Ages, the stage was set for indulgences themselves to be attacked by the Protestant reformers because of some faulty explanations of what they really were.

Today, however, the Church’s constant teaching should be clear: Indulgences can be applied only to the punishment that is due for sins already forgiven, either in sacramental confession (in the case of mortal or venial sins) or by personal expressions of sorrow (in the case of venial sins only).

Further study of the Church’s carefully developed doctrine on indulgences can be rewarding and should be encouraged. But we shouldn’t leave the impression that only those with a thorough understanding of indulgences can make use of them.

Any Christian who, in a spirit of penitence for sins, asks God for the deeper share in the infinite merits of Jesus Christ that indulgences offer can use them to move ever closer to God — who wants nothing else than for us to be happy with Him forever.

Edward N. Peters, J.C.D., holds the Edmund Cardinal Szoka Chair at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, in Detroit, Mich. His book, “A Practical Guide to Indulgences,” is available from Liturgy Training Publications; call 800-933-1800.

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