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By Karl Keating

This Rock Volume 5, Number 11   November 1994     Up Front By Karl Keating   Letters   Dragnet   A PRIMER ON INDULGENCES By JAMES AKIN   Sidebar Catechism of the Catholic Church on Indulgences   Sidebar Myths About Indulgences   Sidebar Can We Expiate Our Sins – And What Does "Expiate" Mean Anyway?   Sidebar How To Gain An Indulgence   THE PICKLE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT By MARK P. SHEA   Classic Apologetics My Mind as a Catholic: Part I By John Henry Newman   New Testament Guide Mark By Antonio Fuentes   Fathers Know Best Who Can Be Saved?   Heresy of the Month Modernism By Patrick Madrid   Sidebar Modernist Errors (As Taken From Lamentabili)   Quick Questions    Subscribe    Permissions

IN this issue we offer an extended article about indulgences. Everyone has heard of the term, but for most Catholics indulgences seem to be a matter of nostalgia, not of current interest. Most haven't heard the word "indulgences" from the pulpit since--well, who can remember? (If they have heard the word at all, it's probably been in a questions from a non-Catholic or in a snide comment from a Catholic who wants to demonstrate that he has "grown.")

The neglect of indulgences is most conspicuous in the pulpit. Priests do not preach about them any longer, perhaps on the false supposition that indulgences are pass. That's not likely to go over well with the souls in purgatory. There's little reason to think that they think indulgences are pass--but what do they know, right?

I compose these words on All Souls Day. Most Catholics don't know that one of the liturgical colors that may be used on this feast is--black. Do you recall when priests vested in black once a year, asked that we pray for the faithful departed, and explained how we could help our deceased relatives with indulgences? (The last time I saw a priest vested in black, I had to be in Japan to see it.)

In this country, on All Souls Day, not to mention at funerals, the accent seems to be solely on the positive. But this can be a disservice, because there are negatives connected with death, such as purgatorial cleansing--or worse. Have we swung too far to the optimistic side? The good news for the "Church suffering" is that pendulums swing both ways.