People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1895 — Catholic Notes. [ARTICLE]

Catholic Notes.

Next Sunday at 10 a. m. the members of Catholic Order of Foresters will attend divine services in body at St. Augustine’s Church. The sermon will be preached on “St. Patrick the Apostle of Ireland.” Every Friday evening lenten service at 7:30. Those attending and devoutly meditating on the “Way of the Cross” are entitled to a “plenary indulgence” provided they have the proper disposition. One of the reasons of the popular misapprehension of an indulgence may be ascribed to the change which the meaning of that term has gradually undergone. The word indulgence originally signified favor, remission, or forgivness. Now, it is commonly used in the sense of unlawful gratification, and of free scope to the passions. Hence when some persons hear of the Church granting an indulgence, the idea of license to sin is at once presented to their minds. An indulgence is simply a remission in whole or in part, through the supeiabundant merits of Jesus Christ, of the temporal punishment due to God on account of sin, after the guilt and eternal punishment have been remitted. In the Sacred Volume we find that God often required temporal punishment to be suffered by those whose sins he had forgiven. We read in the Book of Genesis that when V God pardoned Adam his sin of disobedience, it was on condition that he should do penance for it by the labor to which his maker condemned-him: “Cursed is the earth in thy .work; with labor and toil sh&lt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.” Gen., 3. 17. Nathan, the prophet, announced to David that his crimes were forgiven, but that he should suffer many chastisements from the hand of God. (Kings 2. 12). §Vi >a iii e xercised this power of

granting indulgence in behalf of incestuous Corinthian whom he had condemned to a severe penance proportioned to his guilt, “that his spirit might be saved in the days of the Lord.” And having learned afterwards of the Corinthian’s fervent contrition, the Apostle absolves him from the penance wnich he had imposed: “To him, that is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient, which is given by many; so that contrariwise you should rather pardon and comfort him, lest, perhaps, such a one be swollowed up with over-much sorrow * * And to whom you have pardoned anything, I also. For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned anything, for your sakes I have done it, in the person of Christ.” Here we have all the elements that constitutes an indulgence. 1. A penance, or temporal punishment proportioned to the gravity of the offence, is im posed on the transgressor. 2. The penitent is truly contrite for his crime. 3. This determines the Apostle to remit the penalty. 4. The Apostle considers the relaxation of the penance ratified by Christ, in whose name it is imparted. We find the Bishops of the Church, after the Apostle, wielding the same pow Ter, which they claimed from the very first ages, of inflicting canonical penance on grevious criminals, who were subjected to long fasts, severe abstinences, and other mortifications for a period extending from a few days to five or ten years, and even a lifetime, according to the ’gravity of the offence. These penalties were, in several instances, mitigated or cancelled by the Church, according to her discretion. For, a society which can inflict a punishment can also remit it. And our Lord gave the Church power not only to bind, but also to loose. The general

council of Nice, and other synods. authorize Bishops to mitigate, or even to remit altogether the* public penances, whenever, in their judgement, the penitent, manifested special marks of repentance. Now, in relaxing the canonical penance, or. in substituting ior them a milder satisfaction, the Bishops granted what we call an indulgence. And although the Church imposes canonical penances no longer, God never ceases to inflict temporal punishment for sin. Hence indulgences continue to be necessary now, if not as a substitute for canonical penances, at least as a mild and merciful payment of the temporal debt due to God. From what has been said, you may judge yourself what to think of the assertion that an indulgence is the remission of past sins, or a license to commit sin granted by the Pope as a spiritual compensation to the faithful for pecuniary offerings made to him. An indulgence is neither the one or the other. It is not a remission of sin, since no one can gain an indulgence until he is already free from sin. It is still less a license to commit sin; for every child knows that neither Priest, nor Bishop, nor Pope, nor even Gird Himself—with all reverence be it said—can give any license to commit the smallest sin.