© Alinari Archives / CorbisThe Meeting Between Dante and Beatrice in Purgatory by Alinari. Through the Catholic doctrine of Indulgence, minimize souls spend in Purgatory before proceeding to Heaven.
It sounds too good to be true. Now, for a limited time - the year of St. Paul, to be specific, which ends in June - say a prayer, pop by a designated church and qualify for an indulgence that deducts time from your scorching sojourn in the cleansing fires of purgatory.
Indulgences (no relation here to bubble baths or truffles) have been part of Catholic doctrine since the Crusades. When the Church offered them for sale in the 1500's - call it mercy for money - religious reformer Martin Luther protested. These days, they can't be bought. "How does that MasterCard ad go?" muses Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "Some things are priceless."
The pardons have fallen by the wayside in the past few decades, but they're being revived in conjunction with a new emphasis on the importance of charity in Christian life. Catholicism, with 67 million followers in the U.S., is big on formulaic repetition of the Hail Mary and Our Father variety. But the Vatican is starting to move away from that and toward, according to the church's Manual of Indulgences, a "greater zeal for the exercise of charity."
It's no longer enough to repeat a prescribed number of prayers; you also have to do good such as volunteer at a soup kitchen, help resettle refugees or donate to a worthy cause. Much like many high schoolers have to fulfill a community service requirement, Catholics too are being urged to become do-gooders. "The church's teaching has evolved," Walsh says. "Part of indulgences is not just saying special prayers, but also doing good works."
At the core of indulgences is sin, which can lead to either eternal punishment, i.e., hell, or time spent in purgatory, a place of suffering where imperfections are scrubbed away in preparation for entering heaven. Confession erases eternal punishment, but temporal punishment remains. Plenary, or full, indulgences are the equivalent of a get-out-of-purgatory-free card. Partial indulgences simply shorten your stay.