United States Conference of Catholic Bishops - Manual of Indulgences (EPUB, MOBI, PDF)

Foreword

“For it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth ‘the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church’” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 5). Through the merits of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, the whole of his body, the Church, benefits from the redemption which he has won for all. Intimately connected with the Sacrament of Penance, indulgences are given by the Church from her spiritual treasury to remit temporal punishment for sin. Thus, this Manual of Indulgences opens a special door to this treasury for all the faithful.

Indulgences are, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “the expression of the Church’s full confidence of being heard by the Father when—in view of Christ’s merits and, by his gift, those of Our Lady and the saints—she asks him to mitigate or cancel the painful aspect of punishment by fostering its medicinal aspect through other channels of grace” (Pope John Paul II, General Audience, September 29, 1999).

At the request of His Eminence, Cardinal William Wakefield Baum, then-Major Penitentiary of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the USCCB Secretariat for the Liturgy has produced this English language translation in collaboration with the Holy See. Just as with the previous edition of the Manual of Indulgences, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has gladly responded to the Holy See’s request for assistance in providing an English-language edition of the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum to the English-speaking world.

May this present volume serve as an encouragement to all the faithful who stand in need of God’s mercy.

Bishop William S. Skylstad
Bishop of Spokane
President,
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

April 23, 2006
The Second Sunday of Easter
Divine Mercy Sunday