Plenary indulgence: what it is and how to get one

What is a plenary indulgence?

A plenary indulgence is “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven” (CCC 1471). The Church grants it from the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints, to a member of the faithful who is rightly disposed and fulfils certain conditions. An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes part or all of that temporal punishment (CCC 1471).

Notice what an indulgence is not: it is not forgiveness of sin. Sin and its guilt are forgiven first — by God, ordinarily through the Sacrament of Penance. Only then does an indulgence address what remains: the temporal consequences of sin. To understand that, it helps to see that sin wounds us in two ways.

Why does punishment remain after sins are forgiven?

Every sin has a double consequence (CCC 1472). Grave sin cuts us off from God, a loss the Church calls the eternal punishment of sin; forgiveness removes that. But every sin, even venial, also leaves an unhealthy attachment to created things, which must be purified either here on earth or after death in purgatory. This is the temporal punishment of sin. Neither punishment is vengeance imposed by God from outside; both follow from the very nature of sin (CCC 1472).

So a forgiven sinner can still have healing to do. The Catechism teaches that we work at this purification by prayer, penance and works of mercy (CCC 1473). An indulgence is the Church’s help in that work, drawn from what the Catechism calls the treasury of the Church — the infinite value of Christ’s merits, together with the prayers and good works of our Lady and all the saints (CCC 1476–1477). Opening that treasury, the Church “intervenes in favour of individual Christians” (CCC 1478).

Plenary indulgence requirements

To gain a plenary indulgence you must do the work to which the indulgence is attached and fulfil three conditions, and you must be free from all attachment to sin, even venial sin (Paul VI, “Indulgentiarum Doctrina”; Manual of Indulgences). If any one of these is missing, the indulgence you gain is partial rather than plenary.

1. The indulgenced work itself — for example, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for half an hour (see below).
2. Sacramental confession.
3. Eucharistic Communion.
4. Prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff (the Pope).
5. Complete detachment from all sin, even venial — that is, no sin you are unwilling to give up.

How to get a plenary indulgence: works you can do

Some works carry a plenary indulgence on any day of the year, provided you meet the conditions above. The Manual of Indulgences, issued by the Apostolic Penitentiary, lists them. Here are four of the most accessible, with what each asks.

Other works are tied to particular days. On Divine Mercy Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, a plenary indulgence is granted for taking part in Divine Mercy devotions. In the first days of November the faithful can gain indulgences for the dead by visiting a cemetery or a church. Great feasts and jubilee years carry their own grants, which the Apostolic Penitentiary announces.

Confession, Communion and prayer for the Pope, explained

A single sacramental confession suffices for several plenary indulgences, so you need not confess separately for each. But you must receive Holy Communion and say the prayer for the Pope’s intentions for each indulgence you intend to gain. The prayer for the Pope is fully satisfied by one Our Father and one Hail Mary, though you are free to add any prayer you like. Normally you can gain one plenary indulgence a day — except that, at the moment of death, one may be gained even if another was already gained that day.

The conditions do not all have to fall on the same day as the work. They may be fulfilled in the days before or after it — the Apostolic Penitentiary indicates roughly twenty days either side — though it is fitting to receive Communion and pray for the Pope on the day of the work itself. If you are rightly disposed but cannot quite shake every small attachment, or a condition is left unmet, your effort is not wasted: you gain a partial indulgence instead.

Indulgences for the souls in purgatory

An indulgence can be applied to yourself or to the souls in purgatory, but not to another living person (CCC 1471, 1479). The faithful departed who are being purified are members of the same communion of saints, and one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that their temporal punishment may be remitted (CCC 1032, 1479). Those in purgatory die in God’s grace and are sure of heaven, but are not yet fully purified (CCC 1030–1031).

Common misunderstandings about indulgences

The first misunderstanding is that indulgences are bought. They are not, and never may be. The medieval abuse of selling them helped spark the Reformation, and the Church ended it: St Pius V forbade any fee in the sixteenth century, and St Paul VI reformed the whole practice in 1967, attaching indulgences to prayer, charity and penance rather than to money. An indulgence is a grace, freely given.

The second is that an indulgence forgives sin, or lets you sin freely. It does neither. Sins are forgiven only by God’s mercy, received through contrition and the Sacrament of Penance — our guide on how to go to Confession walks through it. An indulgence touches only the temporal punishment that remains after forgiveness. Because even venial sin leaves that mark, indulgences remain a gentle help on the way to holiness.

Sources

Cited by paragraph and verse, so you can read them in full. In the end, your priest has the final word.

• –Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1471–1479
• –Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030–1032
• –Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1498
• –2 Maccabees 12:43–46
• –Paul VI, Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina (1967)
• –Apostolic Penitentiary, Manual of Indulgences (Enchiridion Indulgentiarum), norms
• –Code of Canon Law, canons 992–997

Confession Compass is an independent educational tool, not an official body of the Catholic Church. It never absolves sins: only a priest, in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, can absolve.