Already in Ezekiel 46:17 the Jubilee of the messianic times was called "Year of Remission". In such a sense, the entire life of Jesus was presented clearly by the Gospels as a "Jubilee Year". It was in this light that Jesus announced in his manifesto discourse in the Synagogue of Nazareth:

"And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up; and he went to the synagogue, as his custom was, on the sabbath day. And he stood up to read; and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah. He opened the book and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." >(Luke 4:16-21)

Jesus is said to be sent to fulfill the liberation of humanity with clear reference to the liberation of the Jubilee. This is marked by the joyful announcement to the poor, liberty to slaves, prisoners and oppressed. Added to these is the liberation from sickness, especially blindness, which holds back the affected person by removing one's autonomy. Thus Jesus underlined the principle scope of his activities: the preaching and announcing of the Good News; affirming moreover that his coming is the announcement of the year of the grace of the Lord, that is the Jubilee, the Holy Year.

From this announcement, the synoptic gospels distribute all the activities of Jesus symbolically in an arch of one year. This does not mean a solar year because John informs us in his gospel that the public activities of Christ lasted for 3 years. What the synoptic gospels were describing was a sort of liturgical Jubilee year whereby the new type of liberation worked by God is concentrated. It involves:

2.1 The Announcement of Conversion

By conversion Jesus intended to mean a separation from the mentality and the mode of behaviour of the world, according to the directives of the Sermon on the Mount, that is, the love of God above all other things; the separation from money as the only value in life; the patient acceptance of suffering; the meekness in encountering a neighbour; the convinced search for justice and honesty; the compassion and love for a neighbour, especially an enemy; a search for harmony and peace with all; the acceptance of persecution with a consistant faith; the unconditional confidence in God as Father.

2.2 The Faith in the Kingdom of God here on Earth

The Kingdom of God is the sovereignty and lordship of God in the history of the world. It manifests itself especially in the healing of sickness and in the resurrection of the dead as recounted in the gospels (Mt 8-9), in the liberation from sin with the pardon accorded to all (Mk 2:1-12), in the liberation from the Devil (Mk 5:1-20), in the restitution of dignity to the despised and marginalised (lepers, publicans, women, pagans), in the liberation from ignorance by the announcement of the Good News to be accepted in faith (Mt 5-7 = the Discourse on the Mountain), in the founding of a new society which is the Church, founded on Peter (Mt 16:17-20; Jn 10:1-18; 21:15-17).

2.3 The Salvific Power of the Passover

By his passion, death and resurrection, Jesus destroyed the sin of the world and gave to all the dignity of the sons of God, inheritors of heaven which is the house of the Father (Lk 22:19-20; Jn 14:1-4). This power of spiritual liberation Jesus gave to the Church so that humanity throughout the ages may benefit from it (Mt 16:17-20; 18:18; 28:18-20). This is actualised through the sacraments, preaching, the liturgy, personal and community prayer, works of charity, penance, the Jubilee. Hence all time is considered a Jubilee by the Church.

2.4 Penance in the Church

Jesus paid for the spiritual debts of all humanity by his death and resurrection, meriting an eternal redemption. But it can only become one's own salvation through the freedom of personal choice made before God. The means which God places at the disposal of the Church are:

2.4.1 Public and Private Penance

The sacraments are means and efficacious signs for the transmission of the grace merited by Jesus for all humanity. The first grace which everyone has need of is the forgiveness of sins. For this work of purification the Church posseses two sacraments: Baptism which cancels all sins and makes children of God in the fullest sense. It is the entrance into the Church, an indispensible condition for receiving all the other sacraments; and Penance which removes sins committed after baptism.

In the first six christian centuries, Penance was above all public and was very severe for public sins that were deemed the most serious: homicide, adultery, apostasy. It required a long period of awaiting and physical and spiritual mortification. Often it was administered only once after baptism.

Classes of penitents can be differentiated: the bewailers (flentes) who stayed at the door of the church and implored with tears the faithful to pray for them; the hearers (audientes) who were present only at the liturgy of the Word afterwhich they would have to leave; the kneelers (substrati) whom the bishop laid hands upon before dismissing them with the hearers; the beholders (consistentes) who remained in the church throughout the liturgy but could not receive communion. These various stages of penitance lasted for many years and were concluded with the absolution given by the bishop usually on Holy Thursday before the Mass of the Last Supper in order to allow reception of the Eucharist.

Private penance for the many other sins deemed less serious and less public was linked to personal repentence, the Eucharist, works of charity, mortification and in some cases sacramental confession. Private confession was widespread only from the 9th century.

One perceives therefore the distinction between the forgiveness of sins, that is fault which merits hell, and the remission of the punishment, that is the destructive consequence of sin which merits purgatory. To the fault is linked eternal punishment or the condemnation to hell as distance and detachment from God; to the moral consequence of the fault is linked temporal punishment or limited punishment in time which could be discounted by either penance on earth or in purgatory in the afterlife.

The distinction between fault and punishment could be likened to the distinction between mortal illness and convalescence. With confession one is healed from the mortal illness of sin, and with sacramental penance strength is restored and the scars of sin are healed. Just as a period of care and convalecence is necessary after the recovery from an illness, so also the forgiveness of sins requires a treatment constituting the penance imposed by the confessor.

In the first 6 centuries of the Church, penitants who wanted to annul completely the punishemtn resulting from sin, began to fill the deserts, in order to purify even more their hearts. Many made pilgrimages to the Holyland and often stayed back there to do penance. There were anchorites and cenobites in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Greece (Mt Athos), in every part of the world. Monasteries florished since the earliest times with S. Anthony, St Paul (3rd century), Pachomius, Basil, Benedict, Cassian....

The Church never stopped offering forgiveness of sins and punishment due to sins, through absolution and penance. This was practised in all the churches and sanctuaries in the world from the moment of their establishment; and even before this, in the catacombs and private houses where the cult was celebrated.

But in the first centuries of the Church, sins commited were remitted only after a long period of public penance. The punishment for sins was first carried out, and then the fault was remitted through the absolution of the bishop.

With the introduction of private confession, the procedure was reversed. First absolution for the sin was given, then the penance was imposed. The penance imposed was proportionate to the gravity of the sin and hence it was called "rated/priced" (un the penitential books, every sin had its own corrisponding penance). It treated of bodily mortification, such as fasting, abstinence from some food and drink, imposition of hairshirts or other penitential garb, separation from the sacraments.

This lasted from a period of 40 days to some years, as seen in the public penance mentioned above.

These bodily penance were often deemed very severe, therefore they were commuted to less demanding works such as almsgiving, pilgrimages, prayer, works of charity. This change from bodily penance to more spiritual works came to be called "indulgences" or "absolution". It was a change and a lightening of the punishment deemed too severe and impractical with a less demanding and more humane work, at least even socially useful such as almsgiving.

God is Love

2.4.2 Indulgences

Up to the beginning of the 13th century, indulgences or absolutions of temporal punishment were linked to sacramental confession and was viewed as deserved penance imposed by the confessor. It was the penitent himself who had to pay the debt incurred by sin through means of penance or good works. From the 13th century onwards, there was a change in perspective: the remission of temporal punishment incurred by sin was detached from the sacrament of confession. It was now freely given by the authority of the Church; not only to expiate confessed mortal sins, but also for self-purification in the case of venial sins and the weaknesses which each one suffers in life.

It was the scholastic theologians in 1200 that provided a theological system to indulgences granted by the Church in a gratuitous manner. Among them may be named Alexander of Hales, William of Auvergne, Albert the Great, Bonaventure of Bagnoreggio, Thomas Aquinas. In studying and debating this problem, they thought that the Church could grant indulgences because it had the authority to draw from the infinite "treasures" of the merits of Jesus Christ, Our Lady and the saints. By his life, passion, death and resurrection, Jesus accumulated an infinite treasure of graces which constituted an inexhaustible fund at the disposition of the Church. It was a type of immense account in a bank to be used whenever there was a need and when it was required for the good of anyone of the faithful in order to pay to God the debts incurred.

Of this treasure, the Church has "the keys" and hence the absolute power to dispose, from the moment Jesus assured Peter "I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and all that you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and all that you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven' (Mt 16:19). It was repeated to the apostles "All that you bind on earth will be bound even in heaven, and all that you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Mt 18:18). The Church then could loose (liberate) humanity from any punishment merited by sin.

The transfer of the merits of Jesus, Mary and the saints essential to this spiritual working is enabled and aided by the reality of the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is like a living organism, a body in which Christ is the head and the believers are the members (Eph 1:22-23; 4:15-16). What belongs to the head is also at the disposition of the members, what is useful to a member is useful to all the members; through the law of organic solidarity which in the Church is properly called the communion of saints. This is a right requiring an exchange and reciprocal sharing of all the goods present in the body of Christ. It is a vital communion which unites all in good and in bad, such that a good done by one member turns to become an advantage to all; and an evil done rebounds in some way on everyone else. St Paul formulates this law as "If one member suffers, all the members suffer together; and if one member is honoured, all the members rejoice with him" (1Cor 12:26).

If things are just as it is above, then the Church can place at the disposal of the faithful the salvation earned by the Paschal Mystery of Christ and the sacrifices of the saints. They are graces capable of removing both sins and punishments incurred by sins. From this, the "indulgences" are "the remission of temporal punishment required by divine justice for sins committed; and is a form of commuting canonical and purgatorial punishment, operating in virtue of the merits common to the entire Church, and which the head of the Church can dispose".

Paul VI in his Apostolic Constitution "Indulgentiarum Doctrina" of Jan 1st 1967 explained the indulgence as "In the indulgence, the Church makes use of her authority of the ministry of Jesus Christ, not only praying, but with authoritative intervention, dispensing to the faithful the treasure of the satisfaction made by Christ and the saints in order for the remission of temporal punishment" (VI, 8).

Here is the definition of the Pope regarding the indulgence: "The indulgence is the remission before God of temporal punishment for sins already committed by whoever at fault; that the faithful, duly disposed and under determined conditions, acquire through the intervention of the Church, that which, as a ministry of redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasure of the satisfaction made by Christ and the saints" (Norms, 1).

The indulgence is therefore the remission of punishment which each one had to expiate for sins committed. Already in antiquity, even before the name was assumed, it was granted ordinarily in a partial manner, through the exhortation of the martyrs, and served to shorten the period of public penance by the penitents. In the Middle Ages, it was linked to works of charity, ascetism and devotion. Pilgrimages to the Holyland, to the tombs of martyrs and saints in various sanctuaries throughout the world occupied a particular place in these devotions. The sanctuaries most frequented for acquiring indulgences were right from the beginning the places in the Holyland where Jesus lived and died. Crowds of faithful and kings undertook great discomfort and dangerous journeys on foot or by sea which lasted years. There were even those who remained for good in those places to pray and do penance. Also well frequented were the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul in Rome. St Francis of Assisi himself made many such penitential pilgrimages. St James of Compostella and St Michael of Gargano were also visited.

The plenary indulgence is that which removes all punishments due to sins. It was granted by the Popes only to the Crusaders who went to reconquer the sanctuaries in Palestine from muslims who placed many obstacles to pilgrims. A unique exception was the indulgence of the Portiuncula granted to St Francis of Assisi by Pope Honorius III (1216), without a written document, perhaps in order not to push things too far and undermine the Crusades. Celestine V also granted the plenary indulgence called "The Pardon" to the Church of S. Maria di Collemaggio in Aquila where he was consecrated Pope on August 29th 1294. This indulgence was annulled by Boniface VIII.

After the fall of St John of Akko (1291) in the Holyland and the end of the Crusades, the plenary indulgence found its place in the Jubilee.

Throughout the centuries, and it comes as no surprise, there were some abuses regarding the indulgences, especially when these were linked to monetary offerings to works of charity or for the construction of sacred buildings. Some preachers exceeded the guarantee to the extent of liberating the souls from hell of relatives of those who made a sumptous offering. Kings and catholic princes who took from funds were promised indulgences if it a part was given for the Crusades or for the building of St Peter's Basilica.

It became automatic in some places to earn indulgences even without piety. Some destitute preachers taught that indulgences bore magic powers: pouring out alms could earn one automatically a place in heaven. A saying began circulating "As soon as a coin falls into the box, a soul pops out of purgatory". In the time of Luther, the prince of Saxony-Wurtenburg collected in the church in Wittenberg many relics with indulgences attached for anyone who visited it and gave an offering. In 1517 on the occassion of the display of such relics, Martin Luther nailed on the door of the church the 95 theses contesting the question of indulgences and the Church in general. hus commenced the Protestant Schism.