indulgentia

Latin indulgentia meant kindness, tenderness, remission. From indulgere (to be kind, to grant, to yield). In Roman law, an indulgence was a general pardon. The Church adopted the word for a specific theological transaction: the remission of temporal punishment for sin — punishment in Purgatory — granted by church authority. The sin was forgiven in confession. The indulgence reduced the time spent suffering for it afterward. The kindness was conditional.

Indulgences began as acts of piety — a pilgrimage, a prayer, a charitable donation. The Church's treasury of merit — the accumulated good works of Christ and the saints — could be distributed to reduce a penitent's time in Purgatory. The theology was complex. The practice was simple: perform an act, receive a reduction. By the fifteenth century, indulgences could be purchased for cash. The donation became a fee. The fee became a price. The price corrupted the kindness.

Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar, sold indulgences in Germany in 1517 with the reported slogan: 'As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from Purgatory springs.' Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517 — many of them attacking the sale of indulgences. The Reformation followed. The word indulgence, which meant kindness, became associated with corruption, greed, and the fracturing of Western Christianity.

The Catholic Church reformed indulgences at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) and abolished the sale of indulgences. But indulgences themselves were not abolished. The Catholic Church still grants indulgences — plenary indulgences (full remission) and partial indulgences. Pope Francis has granted indulgences for specific occasions. The word remains in active theological use, five centuries after it split the Church.