1 INDULGENCIAS

For the Pope, through letters and edicts, is constantly setting up the official role of the one and unified Catholic Church in the surrounding unfaithful world. However, judging by the ambivalent history of the Church in its dealings with their secular counterparts, in the many battles, bans, boycotts, burnings, and brew-ha-ha of councils, the official position is becoming more and more convoluted as different needs and necessity of purpose arise. One of the more shady and difficult doctrinal facets embedded in Catholic Church history is that of use of indulgences as an economic force to back and support certain particular societal, national, and ecclesiastical developments: mainly, Church treasury needs, Crusading incentive, and the doctrine of Purgatory. To begin this overview of the sale of indulgences, it might be beneficial to examine what they are, when exactly they originated, and where they come from. In the words of Pope Paul VI, An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the church which, as a minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints. (Pope Paul VI, 1) Before the Crusades, the people of a particular parish or province would be given to prayer and fasting for each other's salvation and continued perseverance in the order of the saints on earth. But beginning with Pope Urban II, and roughly the start of the first Crusade (Ekelurd, 70), the local clerical authority could offer up indulgences either for sale or attainment through deed in order to dispense with the need to do penance, either for self or others. Clearly, its coming into prolific use due to an economic crisis (namely, the war between the Christians in the west and the Moslems in the east) is a large factor in determining its main uses in the following centuries. The use of indulgences in the funding of the general Church treasury takes the primary utility in its use from its pragmatic externalities. Though rooted in spiritual truth and necessity, a great factor in determining the details of indulgences, was monetary. And with good reason, one might say. What institution if not the Catholic Church, held more land than any other institution in Europe during the middle ages? With such great spiritual claims, land holdings and, consequently, tenants of the land, raiment, rituals, and general splendor of their Cathedrals, there were many expenses to be considered (both of a material and spiritual nature).(Cook) As Lea is quoted in The Sacred Trust as saying, "the struggling Church would have had slender chance of securing converts if it had disclaimed all power to succor the dead." (Ekelurd, 165n) More of this will be said in the part concerning purgatory, but this 'power to succor the dead' is stressed at the time in the form of indulgences. So as a result of these holdings, both physical and spiritual, came increased and heightened opportunities of revenue. As asserted in The Sacred Trust, The Church controlled enormous wealth. Its sources of revenue included tithes, land rents, donations, bequests, fees charged for judicial services, proceeds from the sale of indulgences, and income derived from monastic production and market of agricultural produce. (Ekelurd, 31) (Italics mine)

2
With the exception of donations, bequests, and indulgences, all the other income-inducing elements are founded in the pragmatic aspects of daily life and travail (land, labor, and capital). Indulgences are the only item among those listed that directly prescribes physical means to attain spiritual goals. Arguably donations (charity) could serve that end, but not of necessity; indulgences can serve no other end but the attainment of a spiritual good. Also, the Catholic Church found indulgences aiding in the prevention of the corrupt clerical practice of "malfeasance." (Ekelurd, 70) The era of the Crusades continue the idea of indulgences used as economic incentive to attain and sustain spiritual goals set by the Catholic Church. To fund this massive excursion in the land of the Moslem hordes, which would accordingly lead to more wealth and plunder (Ekelurd, 142), there needed to be an agreement of interests between the Catholic Church and the common parishioner

This collusion came in the form of the granting of indulgences. By invoking the fear of the loss of salvation and the prospect of gold and glory, the Church could complete its duties of insuring mankind the ability to receive grace and accept the monetary externalities from that ability. Promising that the indulgence purchased would exempt you from penance, which is "usually a period of sacrifice and sometimes public humiliation imposed by a priest," (Ekelurd, 145) made the proffered element very attractive to soldiers preparing to fight for the cause in Jerusalem. Other saints not endeavoring in this epic journey of right versus wrong, west versus east, and Christian versus Moslem directly benefit these knights and commoners who are going out to battle. In effect, by purchasing this beneficial trinket or holy knick-knack, the grace of God is spread out more evenly, coming down from the stronger saints unto you, the common soldier who has done the purchasing. For many who made the marginal analysis of cost versus benefit, in wartime, the cost of heavenly aid cannot ever outweigh its benefit. And thus, indulgences were widely introduced into the Catholic economy. The final avenue that brings collusion of the Catholic spiritual economy with that of its real money economy is its doctrine, most notably, on purgatory. In the Catholic catechism, it states that "All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven." (Liveria Editrice Vaticana 1994, Article 12, III: 1030) This idea of a stopping place between heaven and hell "emerged in the middle ages and became a part of the Catholic Church's penitential system." (Ekelurd, 152) Of course, having this sort of thought that mankind could be stuck in a state of limbo could not survive without a means to extricate these souls from limbo and back into the loving fellowship of Heaven. Enter Indulgences. This facet of the Catholic canon allowed its many principal agents assert a far greater power over the pocketbooks of the people as they prayed for loved ones and were preyed upon by this undisputed dogma. As can be gathered from the evidence, the use of indulgences in the doctrine of purgatory enables the Church "to extend its power over the faithful into the world beyond death." (Ekelurd, 153) Humans attempting to do this should use extreme caution, for matters of afterlife and eternity do not frolic about like nursery rhymes, but demand earnest and humble contemplation.

3
Looked upon negatively by many commentators, the role of indulgences forced upon the layman by clerks and officials of the Church was finely tuned in the late 1960's, giving it a much more spiritual foundation, bearing, and goal than its counterpart. Rather than being steeped in money matters and revenue increase, the purpose of indulgences went back to the original necessity for the Catholic Church at all: to provide spiritual and moral counsel in a world that is busy with material concerns. For a good many centuries it was argued that the Catholic Church got its wires crossed, portraying itself in worldly garbs and motives. But that is neither here nor there, rather, for another scholastically inclined soul in pursuit of knowledge. Works Cited Cook, William A., The Destructive Power of Myth. New York University, September 22, 2003. Ekelurd, Robert Jr in Robert F. Hebert, et. al. The Sacred Trust. (New York: Oxford University Press) Pope Paul VI. Apostolic Constitution: Indulgentiarum Doctrina The Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Livreria Editrice Vaticana, 1994).