Indulgences: Plenary and Partial - Do You Believe In Them?

Yes, I believe in indulgences ( and not just in the sense of having an extra scoop of ice cream!) An indulgence does not actually remove or forgive any of your sins...what it does (under the usual conditions) is take care of some of the temporal punishment that is due them. A Plenary indulgence will clean the slate of any temporal punishments that are due. Indulgences were not sold. They could not be. Blessings become null and void if they are bought or sold. It is a sin by the name of Simony to partake in such. Although I do not deny that there were some very wicked persons who did attempt such - there is also many false report of it. People could receive an indulgence by the sacrifice of almsgiving. This practice while in itself is not wicked could certainly hold the potential for abuse or if not abuse it could cause a scandal and this is why the practice was discontinued.. There is much that was not taught in CCD in the 70s and later. Remember this was the era that the new mass was introduced and many changes took place with a lot of protestant influences. In fact my memory of CCD was that I thought it stood for "Chocolate Covered Donuts" because that is what we seemed to do each week during class. Eat donuts and sing songs. I did not start truly learning the beautiful and rich faith of our fathers until I was in my mid 20s. We must be careful to not fall into the trap of modernism which teaches "We know better now than they did back then" if indulgences were true then, they are true today.