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Church Teaching

Introduction To Canon Law

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Canon law has been in the news quite a bit recently. Normally, canon law isn’t in the spotlight; however, it effects every Catholic whether they know it or not. Some…

Canon law has been in the news quite a bit recently. Normally, canon law isn’t in the spotlight; however, it effects every Catholic whether they know it or not.

Some comments about canon law can be rather negative. Unfortunately, the law is seen by many as being opposed to mercy. This is actually not the case. Justice and mercy are always hand in hand. We need both.

The Purpose of Law

So what is canon law all about? Put simply, canon law is how the Church organizes and governs herself. The word “canon” basically means rule. There are about 1.3 billion Catholics in the world, and the Church administrates a large collection of institutions. Therefore, the Church needs an organizational structure to carry out its office of governance and its saving mission. Every society needs laws — and so does the Church. There is an old saying: ubi societas ibi lex (“where there is a society there is law”). Imagine driving on the highway where there are no rules of the road? It would ultimately lead to disaster.

Canon law deals with all the issues that any legal system does — for example, rights, property issues, procedures, administration, personnel, crimes and trials. It also does some things that civil law cannot, such as laws regarding sacraments, sacred places and magisterial teachings.

The Church’s laws have developed greatly over its 2,000-year history. Beginning in the New Testament, we see that there are procedures for replacing an apostle (see Acts 1:15-26); also, what to do when there are disputes in the Church (Mt 18:15-20). As time went on there were various councils that legislated on issues of concern. Popes would issue decretals to settle disputes or enforce discipline. Courts were established to hear cases and issue decisions. In addition, they used procedures adapted from Roman law.

Eventually, these disparate laws and decretals were collected into what became known as canon law. In 1917, there was a major reform and the law was codified, published as the first Code of Canon Law. After the Second Vatican Council there was a revision, and the 1983 Code of Canon Law was issued for Latin-rite (often referenced as Roman-rite) Catholics by Pope St. John Paul II. Later, in 1990, a separate code was issued for the Eastern Catholic Churches. While not all of the Church’s laws are in the code, it is the place to start.

Since it affects most Catholics in America, let us consider the Roman-rite code. It is organized into seven books. A brief survey of the code will provide a general idea of what it covers.

A Walk Through the Code

There are several Books in the code as follows:

Book I is called General Norms and is the backbone of the code. While it might not seem exciting, it informs the rest of the code, which cannot be understood without it. Book I deals with the various kinds of laws in the Church, how they are issued, who they pertain to, and how they are enforced. There are canons regarding juridic persons — things like your diocese or parish. Also there are canons on the officers who serve the Church. Some of these canons may seem like minor details, but the code is a complex thing. If one part of your car’s engine fails, even if it is just a small screw, it can cause the whole thing to malfunction. It is the same with the Code of Canon Law.

Book II is about the People of God. It sets out the obligations and rights of the lay faithful and clergy. If you want to know what rights you have in the Church, this is the book where you will find them. In addition, it contains the hierarchical constitution of the Church including the Pope, dioceses and religious orders. It shows how they are to be organized and governed.

Book III is on The Teaching Function of the Church. This book covers preaching, catechesis, missions and education. This book tells us what levels of authority there are for Church teachings. It also has rules for educational institutions, including Catholic universities.

Book IV is about The Sanctifying Function of the Church. This pertains to the sacraments. It tells us who can receive them, administer them and what is required for their validity. The section on matrimony is of particular interest since the recent synods on the family. It defines marriage and its valid celebration, and gives the legal reasons why a marriage may be ruled invalid in an annulment process. This book also covers other liturgical acts such as funerals. In addition, it contains regulations for churches, shrines and other places of worship.

Book V covers The Temporal Goods of the Church. This is basically the Church’s property law. It gives regulations on how to properly administer the Church’s property and finances. Also, it includes rules on contracts and wills.

Book VI is on Sanctions in the Church. This is the Church’s criminal law. It sets out the authority the Church has to punish crimes, who can be punished, what crimes may be punished, and what the penalties are for those crimes. It may surprise many people to find this in the Code of Canon Law, but every institution has disciplinary regulations. However, in our law, the goals are to repair scandal, restore justice and reform the offender. So there is more to it than simply punishing crime.

Book VII is about Processes. This book covers trials, their procedures, officers of the court, how to organize courts, the rights of the parties and appeals. Those who watch “Law & Order” on television would find Church trials not nearly as exciting. Normally, cases are handled in a documentary way. Rarely do the parties meet each other in an open court. This may strike us as odd, but, in fact, it is the norm in many judicial systems influenced by Roman law in other parts of the world.

In total, there are 1,752 canons in the code, so to cover them all would require a lengthy commentary. In fact, there are a variety of commentaries and other books that are helpful in understanding canon law.

Canon law includes both divine law and ecclesiastical law. Divine law is unchangeable and is applicable to every human being — for example, the law against murder. Ecclesiastical law is rooted in Church law and is not infallible, although it is authoritative — for example, the laws regarding fast and abstinence. Our system of law is human and not perfect.

Justice and Mercy

As mentioned earlier, often in our minds we think of law and mercy as being opposed. Even some priests do not see the law as being “pastoral.” However, the law is about order and justice. These are necessary if there is to be mercy.

Justice is defined as giving and receiving one’s due. If we are wronged, we desire justice. If someone hits your car in the parking lot, you will want their insurance to pay for the accident. Justice involves moral obligations and responsibilities.

The law is concerned with the common good. Of course, there are disputes about what the common good is, and that is where the law comes in, to settle the issue fairly. The Church is concerned with spiritual realities, but these are lived out in the material world. We are not divorced from this world. This is where we must live out the demands of the Gospel. These include justice for the poor, oppressed and others who cannot defend their own rights. Therefore, mercy, in fact, includes justice rather than opposing it.

For us to show mercy to others means ensuring that their rights are respected and upheld. It also means that they have the right to the true teachings of the Church, that the sacraments will be validly administered, that the finances will be handled properly, that those who injure others will be restrained and punished and that everyone will receive the due process of law. All of these things are part of our canon law. They are concrete ways in which mercy is accomplished in the Church.

In the bull of indiction by which he opened the Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis said: “It would not be out of place at this point to recall the relationship between justice and mercy. These are not two contradictory realities, but two dimensions of a single reality that unfolds progressively until it culminates in the fullness of love” (No. 20). He added, a little bit later: “Mercy is not opposed to justice but rather expresses God’s way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to look at himself, convert and believe.… God’s justice is His mercy given to everyone as a grace that flows from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus the Cross of Christ is God’s judgment on all of us and on the whole world, because through it He offers us the certitude of love and new life” (No. 21). Pope Francis points out that Jesus Christ is to be at the center of all that canon law aims to accomplish.

Ultimately, canon law is at the service of the Church. It exists to assist the Church in its mission to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the world. The last canon in the code states clearly that the purpose of the law — indeed, the highest law — is the salvation of souls. That makes canon law a true work of mercy.

The Very Rev. James Goodwin, J.C.L., is a graduate of The Catholic University of America and judicial vicar of the Diocese of Fargo, North Dakota.

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3 min read
Bioethics

Catholics and Vaccinations

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The moral principles are clear: everyone is obliged to take care of his health, and parents also have the duty of caring for their children’s health. That is part of…

The moral principles are clear: everyone is obliged to take care of his health, and parents also have the duty of caring for their children’s health. That is part of the Fifth Commandment.

When it comes to vaccinations there are many opinions, some based on fact and others based on fear or a mix of the two, and good parents look for guidance and wonder who they can trust. Clearly, vaccinations against measles and polio have saved countless lives and improved the health and living conditions of many millions over the past 50 years. That is an undisputed fact. However, when I was a child, kids my age received only a couple of vaccines. Today, it is standard to receive many vaccines.

With the reality of the unexplained genesis of autism, some parents worry that vaccinations might be part of the cause, even though this has not been scientifically proven. Additionally, it is well documented that the origin of some standard vaccines currently in use can be traced to cells of aborted children, and that in itself is repugnant. However, expert bioethicists accredited to the Vatican have studied these issues in depth and have stated that a Catholic in good conscience can receive a vaccination of this kind.

Perhaps the most useful statement on this issue can be found at the National Catholic Bioethics Committee website (www.ncbcenter.org), copied here, in part:

“FAQ on the Use of Vaccines

“What is the Church’s teaching about the use of certain vaccines that have a distant historical association with abortion?

“There are a number of vaccines that are made in descendent cells of aborted fetuses. Abortion is a grave crime against innocent human life. We should always ask our physician whether the product he proposes for our use has an historical association with abortion. We should use an alternative vaccine if one is available.

“Are there any vaccines for which there are no alternatives?

“Unfortunately, at present there are no alternative vaccines available in the United States against rubella (German measles), varicella (chickenpox), and hepatitis A. All of these are grown in the cell lines WI-38 and/or MRC-5. (See note #7 of the statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life for a listing of vaccines and their source).

“What do I do if there is no alternative to a vaccine produced from these cell lines?

“One is morally free to use the vaccine regardless of its historical association with abortion. The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine. This is especially important for parents, who have a moral obligation to protect the life and health of their children and those around them.

“What support is there in Church teaching for this position?

“A statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life issued in 2005 holds that one may use these products, despite their distant association with abortion, at least until such time as new vaccines become available.

“Am I free to refuse to vaccinate myself or my children on the grounds of conscience?

“One must follow a certain conscience even if it errs, but there is a responsibility to inform one’s conscience properly. There would seem to be no proper grounds for refusing immunization against dangerous contagious disease, for example, rubella, especially in light of the concern that we should all have for the health of our children, public health, and the common good.”

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6 min read
Church Teaching

Why Is Canon Law Needed?

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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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Church Teaching

Christology 101: Why Christology Matters

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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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6 min read
Church Teaching

Excommunication

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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…

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 the Second Vatican Council. But this assumption is wrong.

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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Church Teaching

What are Indulgences?

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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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