Asking EWTN Indulgence Qs (April 25')

Called to Communion - April 23rd, 2025 - with Dr. David Anders

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16:30- 23:20

Quick question: so on indulgences, I was trying to explain indulgences and I’ve heard you explain it before online. Uh, I was asked by someone who seemed protestant to me that how is this different from working your way to salvation and how does grace fit in? And I didn’t really have an answer from that. I know about the repository of Jesus and all the Saints have put up that we can sort of take a withdraw from.

The other questions are, just briefly, I know that Paul the 6^th sort of cleaned the slate with a document and redid all the indulgences with the Enchiridion. I’ve been walking around Rome and other cities, you often see above the door it says, you know, ‘plenary indulgences available for the living and the dead, forever’. Um, and I just wonder, is that still… that’s one thing about inscriptions is, it’s like, you know, forever. So I just wonder if those are all invalid now? Or if those are still valid?

And then lastly, I just wondered, how difficult is it to achieve that last difficult prerequisite on plenary indulgences, no attachment to venial sin, is it almost next to impossible or is it a little mora achievable then that? Thank you.

Yah, thanks, I appreciate the question. So, nice resume on indulgences by the way I mean you did a fantastic job.

Yah

And I mean the underlying logic of indulgences is connected to the doctrine of penance. And in scripture we fine that Jesus says: it is the pure in heart who will see God. The Psalmist says: it is he who has clean hands and a pure heart that can ascend the Lord’s mountains. So purity of heart and then the biblical teaching that one must do penance for even one’s forgiven sins which we find in particular in the Book of 2 Samuel, chapter 12 through 24. And then the recognition that that process of purification and penance could carry on into the next life which is inferred from the prayers for the dead that we find in 2^nd Maccabees as well as the Paulin Epistles and from 2000 years of church practice so that’s kind of the basic metaphysics, if you will, of purgatory and its rational and its connection to penance. And then indulgences are basically a way of enlisting the merits of the saints on our behalf to help us in this process and it’s a practice that goes back to at least the mid-3rd century when we find mar... well not martyrs, but confessors, so those about to be martyred and confessors who are languishing in prison who were willing to offer up their suffering and their penances, as it were, on behalf of those that were doing… serving disciplinary sentences within the church and the church recognized that was a valid exchange and approved it as long as the bishop was in control. So hence, the practice of indulgences. Very long, long ago in antiquity and contrary to a lot of, sort of, protestant stereotypes is not something the church made up to make money. It’s actually something that the faithful themselves proposed and the church approved after the fact, so it’s a popular spirituality.

To the question… um… you know, if you’re walking around the city of Rome and you find an inscription from 1782 or something that says there’s a plenary indulgence attached to a devotion at this particular shrine… is that indulgence still recognized in the Enchiridion of indulgences or by the apostolic penitentiary? I have absolutely no idea. Right? I have no idea. But the truth of the matter is that the list of things that can be potentially preformed as plenary indulgences is sufficiently long and accessible that one is certainly not limited to, you know, devotion at Roman shrines.

Right, right.

There’s an awful lot of, I mean I think reading.... Isn’t reading scripture piously for a half an hour qualify, I think, as a plenary indulgence?

I believe so.

There’s certain recitations of the rosary I mean they’re just not that hard to come by. So you’re not limited. And also, for that matter, I mean... How can you go wrong if you go pray at the shire of a saint in Rome? You’re not waisting your time.

Right, Right.

I mean, I have no idea the legal status of those indulgences, but my guess is they still pertain. But that’s not an area of the law that I’m expert in

Alright

Finally, how difficult is it to attain non-attachment to venial sin. So I think it’s easy to illustrate this by... you know, on a case-by-case bases, and in catholic moral theology we can distinguish between, for example, the virtue of temperance and the habit of continence. So you take somebody who is neither temperate, nor continent and so they have the practice of habitually giving in to their passions at least in one area of life. Let’s say somebody who just can’t keep themselves from drink, for example. And they’re not continent and they’re not temperate, um and then they white-knuckle it for a while. Right. And they grit their teeth and go “I’ve got to get through this.” And so they will power their way to 30 days of sobriety. Right? They get the first chip at their AA meeting. They’re not temperate yet.

No.

Right. The habit of refraining from alcohol is not second nature to them, it’s not easy for them. It’s very difficult for them, but they are continent meaning they are not in fact indulging, but it ain’t easy. Right?

No.

But as time goes on they begin to develop the habit of temperance and it grows into a virtue. And they know themselves well enough and we all know the trick with addictions is that you could be sober for 30 years and you take one drink and you’re right back to where you were 30 years ago, the nero-pathways are laid down and you just have to live with that. Never the less you can get to the point where, even though you’re not…. You’re never going to be able to go back and drink again... You have to maintain sobriety… It’s become easy for you...

Sure

Right? Because... so many other values in your life have come to fill that void with so much more meaning that the thought of going back to where you were before is just hateful to you. Where as in the first 30 days there’s almost nothing you wanted more then to go back to where you were before, you were just white-knuckling it. Now it’s quite easy. That’s temperance. That’s the habit of temperance. And, was that impossible? No! I don’t think so. I think it’s quite possible and you can talk to people in 12-step groups and it happens all the time. People who have been sober for, you know, 30, 40 years. They still go to the meetings but they’ve got that thing licked, they got it beat more or less as long as they stay on the program they’re clean and they can keep with it, and they don’t really wanna go back. They talk about, you know, they don’t ever want to go back! That was a terrible life, I don’t want that. It's not impossible! You just apply that logic to other areas of habitual weakness in your life. Alright? Is it easy to kick the habit of sin and have no attachment to it? No. Is it possible? Yah!

Absolutely.

Topics Discussed

2:50 – Free Will of A.I.

13:10 – Rejection of ‘Theosis’

16:30 – Indulgence Qs

23:30 – Why the Pope Canonizes

29:25 - Cleopas and Clopas

30:15 – Jewish Afterlife

33:15 – Limit of Forgiveness

36:45 – Scriptural ‘Holiness’

40:00 – Early Papal Influence

45:25 – Pets and Euthanasia

46:15 – Women seeking Annulments