Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent/Session XXV/Indulgences

by the Council of Trent

CONTINUATION OF THE SESSION,

On the fourth day of December.

DECREE CONCERNING INDULGENCES.

Whereas the power of conferring indulgences was granted by Christ to the Church; and she has, even in the most ancient times, used the said power,^[1] delivered unto her of God the sacred and holy synod teaches and enjoins, that the use of indulgences, most salutary for the Christian people, and approved of by the authority of sacred councils, is to be retained in the Church; and it condemns with anathema those who either assert that they are useless, or who deny that there is in the Church the power of granting them. In granting them, however, it desires that, according to the ancient and approved custom in the Church, moderation be observed, lest, by excessive facility, ecclesiastical discipline be enervated. And desiring that the abuses which have crept into these matters, and by occasion of which this excellent name of indulgences is blasphemed by heretics, be amended and corrected, it ordains generally by this decree, that all evil gains for the obtaining thereof, whence a most abundant cause of abuses amongst the Christian people has been derived, be entirely abolished. But as regards the other [abuses], which have proceeded from superstition, ignorance, irreverence, or from what other source soever, since, by reason of the manifold corruptions in the places and provinces where the said abuses are committed, they cannot conveniently be specially prohibited; it commands all bishops, that they, each in his own church, diligently collect all abuses of this nature, and report them in the first provincial synod; that, after the opinions of the other bishops have also been ascertained, they may forthwith be referred to the Sovereign Roman Pontiff, by whose authority and prudence that which may be expedient for the universal Church will be ordained; that thus the gift of holy indulgences may be dispensed to all the faithful, piously, holily, and incorruptly.

 

1. See Matt. xvi. ID; John xx. 23,