Tomorrow, December 8, is the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation in the Roman Catholic Church (and a public holiday in many Catholic countries) and an optional, but controversial, "minor feast" in the Anglican Communion. This year's observance is unusually important for active and lapsed Catholics, because the new pope is granting a plenary indulgence to all Catholics who go to Mass tomorrow, remitting their time in purgatory for all the sins they have committed in their entire life up to this point.This brings up a number of religious issues for consideration and discussion, and, as always, the professor in me can't keep from explaining to my readers and to the public the historical background and the issues involved, which include:Let's start by explaining what is being celebrated tomorrow.
Immaculate Conception
Most non-liturgical Protestants I know have no clue what the Immaculation Conception observance is; most high church Anglicans and Episcopalians I know have a misconception as to exactly what is being celebrated on Immaculate Conception Day, thinking that this is the day when the Church commemorates when Mary was impregnated with the Baby Jesus and the idea of the Virgin Birth. This is not correct; they are confusing this feast with the Feast of the Incarnation, more commonly known today as the Feast of the Annunciation, generally celebrated on March 25. What this day commemorates is not the day of Jesus's conception, but the day of Mary's conception. Further, over the last millennium, the Catholic Church has developed the tradition that when Mary was conceived, by a miracle of God, she was born without Original Sin (that church doctrine dealing with Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and their sin "staining" all humans thereafter) and her soul was "kept immaculate" by God.
Needless to say, a lot of the more "puritan" Protestants have a lot of trouble with this doctrine, attributing it to just more of the "Mariolatry" of "those Catholics," who they say aren't "real" Christians and who worship Mary as equal to God Himself. Of course, that opinion is just another example of Fundamentalist ignorance and propaganda, however well intended, since I don't know a single Catholic who worships Mary or thinks of her as co-equivalent to God or Jesus; Catholics like Mary because she is a fostering mother figure they can turn to for maternal consolation and to ask her to talk to her heavenly buddies Jesus and Yahweh on their behalf when they have special needs or problems.
Even amongst Catholics, though, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has been controversial throughout history, largely because, as the Protestants are quick to point out, there is no direct, overt, Biblical authority for the idea. Catholic scholars have stretched a bit and found what they believe is a biblical basis for the doctrine, but even in 1483 when Pope Sixtus IV created the holy day, he said that Catholics were free to believe or not believe that Mary was subject to Original Sin; that optional theology was reaffirmed by the 1545-1563 Council of Trent. In 1854, though, Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, exercising his papal powers of infallibility, and now the Immaculate Conception is a required belief in the Catholic Church.
Papal Infallibility
So, what's this "papal infallibility" thing? Now, if you ask well-informed Protestant laymen to explain the difference between Protestants and Catholics, usually one of the first things they put in their litany is a statement that Protestants don't believe in the infallibility of the pope/Bishop of Rome, and I have the distinct impression that they think popes walk around the Vatican followed by a legion of scribes who write down the Pope's every infallible word. Well, not every thing a pope says carries the weight of "infallibility." FIrst of all, such statements are limited to matters of faith or morals, and it has to be pretty clear that the pope is speaking offiicially and "ex cathedra" as pope and pastor of the universal Church.
"Infallible" statements actually happen quite rarely. For example, the recent controversial policy guidance on homosexual seminarians and priests does not carry the weight of an infallible papal statement. In fact, religious scholars can only agree that the doctrine of papal infallibility has been used twice: once for Immaculate Conception in 1854 and once in 1950 for the Assumption of Mary (the idea that Mary did not die but was bodily assumed straight into Heaven). Other groups of scholars, including the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faithful formerly headed by the present pope, have suggested that infallible statements have occurred an additional five times, and possibly more.
The whole concept of papal infallibility comes from the biblical authority of Jesus when he told his disciple Peter that Peter is the rock on which Jesus would build His Church. Peter became the first pope, and Peter's successors have assumed the same power and authority. The concept then evolved over the next two thousand years until the First Vatican Council of 1870, when it was formally defined as dogma. Not all Catholics accepted the new 1870 rule, and that was when the group now known as the "Old Catholic Church" split from Rome. Similarly, Protestants have disagreed with the doctrine. The doctrine's limited use to date, though, makes this all a tempest in a teapot.
Indulgences and Purgatory
A recent statement from the Vatican reads:
Pope Benedict XVI will grant the faithful a Plenary Indulgence for the forthcoming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8, 2005). A plenary indulgence is the full remission of all temporal punishment (time spent in purgatory) due to sin in one's entire lifetime up to that point.....The Holy Father "has kindly granted the gift of Plenary Indulgence which may be obtained under the usual conditions (sacramental Confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer in keeping with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff), with the soul completely removed from attachment to any form of sin, on the forthcoming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, by the faithful if they participate in a sacred function in honor of the Virgin, or at least offer open testimony of Marian devotion before an image of Mary Immaculate exposed for public veneration, adding the recitation of the Our Father and of the Creed, and some invocation to the Virgin."What in the world are they talking about?
Well, the Catholic Church over the centuries has developed the idea that sins have to be punished, purged, or purified before a person can enter into the glories of Heaven, and they do this in a place called Purgatory. Protestants reject this idea; in fact, Martin Luther forbade his followers to pray for the dead and the Church of England in 1571 published its "Thirty-Nine Articles," which stated in Article 22 that: "The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God." Tied in with all of this is the difference between rules for Eternal Salvation between Protestants, who believe that Man is "saved" by Faith alone, and Catholics, who believe that both Faith and Good Works are required.
The whole thing is still rather controversial. Let me pose an example. Imagine that instead of committing suicide, Adolf Hitler was stricken with a sudden, quick, mortal illness. A devout Christian (let's not pick a denomination) cares for Hitler during his illness and convinces him to convert to Christianity. With a fully contrite heart, Hitler admits his sins and asks for God's forgiveness, genuinely accepts the Christian faith, is baptized by a clergyman, and then immediately dies. Does Hitler go to Heaven? Or does he have to spend time in Purgatory?
Now, if you are a Protestant, you must accept that he is there in Heaven, waiting for you when you get there, because Jesus died for our sins, and Hitler genuinely became a Christian. All of Hitler's sins, including the murder of all those ten million-plus Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, and dissidents, have been washed clean by Jesus's blood. If you are Catholic, because Hitler confessed his sins, accepted the faith, was baptized, and died before he could commit any more sins, he cannot go to Hell, so he will be in Purgatory, where his shortcomings will be purged and purified, although the volume of Hitler's sins may mean he spends a little longer in Purgatory than, say, your saintly great-grandmother. If you want, you can even say prayers or ask a priest to say a Mass for Hitler's soul and use those indulgences to shorten his time in Purgatory.
Interesting dilemma of faith, eh? But it brings up another interesting concept, that of indulgences.
Indulgences certainly have not been without their controversy; in fact, indulgences were one of the primary problems with the Catholic Church cited by Martin Luther in 1517 in sparking the Protestant Reformation when he wrote his "95 Theses," also titled by him the Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences. Now, giving indulgences for prayers and Masses really wasn't that big of a deal, but in the late medieval/early Renaissance Church, indulgences had become one of the primary fund raising techniques of the Church to pay for Crusades, cathedral construction, and other such costs; it allowed the rich to buy their way into Heaven.
Officially, though, an indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment due to God for sin, and it should be clarified that indulgences do not "forgive" sins; the Catholic must first go to confession and be absolved by the priest. Indulgences merely use the merits and good works of the saints stored up in the Church's treasury to remove or remit all or part of the "penalty" for sins, thus eliminating or shortening the time a soul must spend in Purgatory. We can see similar parallels in modern criminal jurisprudence when a criminal confesses his crime and shows remorse before trial, in exchange for which a prosecutor agrees to a deferred sentence or a plea-bargained lesser charge and to the payment of a fine or a minimal jail term: the criminal is forgiven, but must still pay a penalty.
So, the papal decree for Immaculate Conception Day 2005 says go to confession, go to Mass tomorrow, and all of your Purgatory time for everything you have done up until tomorrow will be wiped away.
I find that interesting. Is this a chink in the purgatorial armor? After all, one of the quieter changes in the Church right now is that they are getting ready to announce the end of their doctrine of Limbo—that state between Heaven and Hell—for unbaptized babies and aborted fetuses, letting them all go to Heaven. But that's a topic for another post.
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