[St. Patrick Cathedral] is offering its 240,000 followers in central Pennsylvania a plenary indulgence that might reduce the time their souls spend in purgatory to be cleansed of their sins.
The Catholic Church teaches that souls of those who have died in grace must expiate their sins in purgatory before ascending to heaven. Those who receive a plenary indulgence have all temporal punishment for sin removed up to that point in their lives.
To earn a plenary indulgence, followers must visit St. Patrick Cathedral, the mother church of the Harrisburg Diocese. They also must repent their sins, take Communion, go to confession and pray for the pope's intentions on the day they visit or within several days of visiting the cathedral.
The Vatican's Apostolic Penitentiary, the office that oversees the granting of indulgences, approved the offer to mark the cathedral's 100th anniversary. The offer began March 17 and will end next March 17 -- St. Patrick's Day.
An online Catholic Encyclopedia says that an indulgence "releases the penitent...from the temporal punishment which he has incurred in the sight of God and which, without the indulgence, he would have to undergo in order to satisfy Divine justice."
And this article explains, "The Catholic Church teaches that people who have received absolution for their sins from a priest may, through an indulgence, draw on the 'treasury of merit' accumulated by Jesus, Mary and the saints to lessen or eliminate the punishment owed to God."
The view seems to be that we must satisfy justice by paying for and being purged of the unrighteousness of our sins, even after being forgiven by God. But here's what I don't understand: If a person were to receive a plenary indulgence and then immediately die, he wouldn't have to go to purgatory. Therefore, purgatory isn't really necessary--that is, even in the Catholic view, it's possible to escape purgatory based on payments made through the merits of another. So if Christ has already completely satisfied divine justice, sanctified and perfected us (once, for all time), purified and redeemed us "from every lawless deed," and cleansed us from all unrighteousness and sin through His blood, what is it the merits of the saints can do that Christ has not already done?
And if Christ's work is sufficient to satisfy all justice (as Catholics would agree, for plenary indulgences are not possible unless the treasury of the saints' and Christ's merit is sufficient to satisfy all justice), why would the Church withhold Christ's perfect merit from His people and only grant its application occasionally during events like a church's 100th anniversary celebration?
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