CENTRO PRO UNIONE N. 79 - Spring 2011 ISSN: 1122-0384 semi-annual Bulletin In this issue: Letter from the Director....................................................p. 2 Indulgences as Ecumenical Barometer: Penitence and Unity in the Christian Life Michael Root...................................................... p. 3 A Bibliography of Interchurch and Interconfessional Theological Dialogues Twenty-sixth Supplement (2011)........................................ p. 10 Centro Pro Unione - Via S. Maria dell'Anima, 30 - 00186 Rome, Italy A Center conducted by the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement www.prounione.urbe.it Director's Desk As is the custom of the Centro Pro Unione, in the Spring issue of the Bulletin, we are pleased to present the up-to-date bibliography supplement of the various theological inter-confessional ecumenical dialogues. In addition, our readers may always find the full bibliography on-line at http://www.prounione.urbe.it by going to library and selecting the ‘dia’ library. This on-line library is up-dated daily so you may be sure to find the latest on each of the catalogued dialogues. During this past year the Centro has organized a number of very interesting lectures. In this issue we include one of these by Dr. Michael Root on delicate ecumenical questions. Due to lack of space, we will save the others for our Fall issue. In addition the postal rates have doubled for the mailing of the Bulletin which means we will need to control carefully the weight. As you all are well aware the Centro offers the Bulletin as a service at no cost to our readers who are interested in ecumenical and interreligious topics. Your donations for covering the cost of mailing and shipping are always welcomed. Since the beginning of the year we have had the pleasure to welcome the Secretary General of the World Council of Churches, Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit who spoke on the “Renewed Mission of the World Council of Churches in the Search for Christian Unity”. He spoke to a full house during our annual celebration of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. This event is jointly celebrated and sponsored with the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas. Rabbi Jack Bemporad, who is Director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding, Englewood, New Jersey USA offered a lecture entitled “A New Look at the Book of Job”. The insights of the speaker sparked some very good and lively discussion on preconceived concepts of good and evil. Even though the Rabbi said his was not the “common” opinion about the essentials of the book of Job, he nevertheless presented a very stimulating exposé that was also very convincing about his new interpretation of Job. Those of you who have visited the Centro recently will have observed a lot of work taking place. The whole building is in the process of being renovated. We want to assure our patrons that we will remain open during this extensive work. We are working on several projects during the Fall. One is the revision of the second volume of the Corso breve dealing with the various denominations. In addition we are in the planning stages of the celebration of the Second Vatican Council. Many know that during the Council the lecture hall of the Centro was a place where much of the dialogue went on outside of the official sessions. Many lectures by the periti at the Council were hosted here as well as by the observers from the Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant churches. It is our hope that we will begin this series by the Wattson/White lecture in December commemorating the 50 anniversary of the foundation of the Pontifical Council forth the Promotion of Christian Unity. Check our web site for up to date information on the Centro’s activities and realtime information on the theological dialogues. All of our staff wish you all a very pleasant Summer. This Bulletin is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database, published by the American Theological Library Association, 250 S. Wacker Drive, 16 Floor, Chicago, IL 60606 ( th http://www.atla.com). James F. Puglisi, sa DirectorCentro Conferences CCCC Indulgences as Ecumenical Barometer: Penitence and Unity in the Christian Life Prof. Michael Root. Professor of Systematic Theology at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, South Carolina USA Member of several ecumenical dialogues over the last 25 years (Conference given at the Centro Pro Unione, Thursday, 13 May 2010) An odd thing happened on the way to the Jubilee Year of 2000. The Vatican, quite laudably, conceived of the year ecumenically. Non-Catholic churches and communities were invited to participate in a Jubilee Ecumenical Commission. These welcome gestures were all made in the pleasant sunshine of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) about-to-be-signed by the Vatican and the churches of the Lutheran World Federation. Confusion thus abounded when, in the midst of the ecumeni- cal publicity surrounding the JDDJ, the papal bull Incarnationis mysterium proclaiming the Jubilee year gave a significant place to the indulgence attached to the Jubilee. This bull was soon1 followed by a new edition of the Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, the official handbook of indulgences. (Ironic in light of the 2 following ecumenical brouhaha, the Enchiridion includes a new plenary indulgence relating to participation in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.) Protestants asked, if Catholics agree that the justified are accepted by God through Christ’s grace alone, then how can the Vatican proclaim an indulgence, attached to various “good works” related to the Jubilee. For Lutheran critics of the JDDJ, the indulgence was a sign that they were right after all. Although the Lutheran church leadership did not allow the indulgence issue to become a major problem, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches withdrew their represen- tative to the Ecumenical Commission for the Jubilee after a civil, but testy exchange of letters with the Vatican.3 To its credit, the Vatican did not ignore or just brush aside the Protestant concerns prompted by the Jubilee indulgence. The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity sponsored a brief theological consultation on indulgences in Rome in 2001, with participation by Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed repre- sentatives. The goal was not an agreement on indulgences, but rather a clearer understanding both of indulgences themselves and of the varying Lutheran and Reformed objections to indulgences. The papers from this consultation (to my mind unfortunately more historical than systematic) have, however, never been published. This skirmish over indulgences in the Jubilee year was not entirely an isolated event. Early in 2010, the New York Times ran a story on a perceived revival of interest in promoting indulgences by American Catholic bishops (a perception supported only by anecdotal evidence). More significantly, we4 are approaching the 500th anniversary of what is often consid- ered as the beginning of the Reformation: Luther’s posting of the 95 Theses against indulgences on Oct 31, 1517. Lutheran and5 Catholic ecumenical institutes in Europe are already at work on an ecumenical commentary on Luther’s 95 Theses. We can expect, I believe, indulgences to be in the ecumenical news. If 2017 seems far off, one should realize that the celebration of a Luther-decade leading up to 2017 has already begun in Ger- many. Such celebrations have a great anti-ecumenical potential6 and need to be carefully thought through. The Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) has already been using the phrase Kirche der Freiheit (Church of Freedom) as a slogan for their “Reform decade.” Especially in light of the recent emphasis in7 the EKD on a ‘profile ecumenism’ that emphasizes what John Paul II, “Incarnationis Mysterium” (1998): 1 http//www.vatican.va/jubilee_2000/docs/documents/hf_jp- ii_doc_30111998_bolla-jubilee_en.html, hereafter, IM. Enchiridion Indulgentiarum: Normae et Concessiones, 4 ed. 2th (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1999), hereafter, EI. Documented in “The Ecumenical Problem of Indulgences,” 3 PCPCU Information Service 102 (1999/IV) 241-245. P. VITELLO, “For Catholics, A Door to Absolution Is 4 Reopened,” New York Times, 9 February 2010. Whether Luther posted the theses by nailing them to the door of 5 the Castle Church in Wittenberg, as traditionally pictured, or merely ‘posted’ them on that day by sending a copy to his bishop is debated. See E. ISERLOH, The Theses Were Not Posted: Luther Between Reform and Reformation, trans. Jared Wicks (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). See the website for the decade: 6 http://www.luther2017.de/. See http://www.kirche-im-aufbruch.ekd.de/images/kirche-der- 7 freiheit.pdf N. 78 / Fall 2010Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 3distinguishes Protestants from Catholics, one wonders if a not-to- subtle contrast with an implied “Church of Unfreedom” is intended. The new round of the Catholic-Lutheran international dialogue is working to produce some guidelines for an ecumeni- cal commemoration (rather than celebration) of 2017. This booklet of interest in indulgences might seem odd. My sense is that indulgences do not play a major role in the piety of many Catholics, especially in Western Europe and North America. Indulgences are not a part of the universal tradition shared by East and West, but a specifically Western develop- ment. In addition, I believe that the majority of Luther scholars today agree that when Luther posted the 95 Theses on indul- gences in Oct 1517, his understanding of the doctrine of justifica- tion had not yet taken its distinctive later form. Theologically, he was not yet a Lutheran. Luther’s objections to indulgences in 1517 had little directly to do with what would become by his own estimation the decisive issue of the Reformation: that the sinner is justified by the reception in faith of Christ’s righteous- ness and not by the transformative effects of that righteousness, even though faith does in fact have profound transformative effects. As a theological and practical issue, indulgences are, in themselves, thus not all that significant. Indulgences and their theology might point, however, to some important theological and ecumenical issues, which I wish here briefly to explore. What are Indulgences? The first question to be asked is, what are indulgences and what is the Catholic understanding of them? This question is less simple than one might think. The theology and practice of indulgences have gone through a significant evolution over the last century. (Peter Neuner, Catholic professor of theology at Munich, titled a 1999 article on the Jubilee indulgence “Is This Still an Indulgence?”) Many of the abuses that surrounded8 indulgences in the early Reformation era (e.g., attaching an indulgence to the good work of a financial contribution, which looked like the sale of indulgences) were banned already by the Council of Trent and the reforms of the Catholic Reformation. The early twentieth century saw massive historical investigations into the origin of indulgences by Nikolaus Paulus and Bernhard Poschmann. These studies showed both the roots of indul-9 gences in the solidarity of the church with persons carrying out the sometimes severe (but relatively infrequent) public penances required by the early church and also the way indulgences evolved as penance itself changed with the rise of frequent private confession. Indulgences were not, as Protestant polemic asserted, the invention of cynical church princes to bilk the credulous, but an institution invented by no one, the creation of a series of incremental changes which occurred over centuries, often at the instigation of the laity. 10 This historical scholarship provided the background for a series of theological and doctrinal statements that have recast the theological understanding of indulgences. Karl Rahner’s articles on indulgences from the 1950s and 1960s have had a far- reaching influence. Paul VI’s 1967 Apostolic Constitution on11 indulgences, Indulgentiarum doctrina, did not endorse Rah-12 ner’s interpretation, but Rahner insisted that the constitution did not reject his interpretation. (Indulgences were not on the13 official agenda of Vatican II, but there was a brief public discussion of a draft of what became ID, during which the received interpretation of indulgences was strongly criticized). 14 Vatican statements on indulgences produced in relation to the 2000 Jubilee have moved closer to Rahner’s interpretation, especially in a papal catechesis on indulgences given in Septem- ber 1999 by John Paul II. 15 Let me try to summarize what I understand to be present Catholic teaching about indulgences, based particularly on Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution (ID), the bull of indiction for the Jubilee indulgence (IM), and John Paul II’s 1999 catechesis on indulgences (IEGM). Indulgentiarum doctrina gives a definition of indulgences which has been repeated in other official docu- P. NEUNER, “Ist das noch ‘Ablaß’?” Zeichen der 8 Zeit/Lutherische Monatshefte 38, 9 (1999) 22–23. The historiography of indulgences, from the immediate post- 9 Reformation work of Chemnitz and Bellarmine through recent studies, is surveyed in R.W. SHAFFERN, The Penitent’s Treasury: Indulgences in Latin Christianity 1175–1375 (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2007) 1–33. Shaffern concludes: “Like many other, more celebrated events 10 in medieval Christendom, the fervor of the laity generated most indulgences.” R.W. SHAFFERN, Penitent’s Treasury..., op. cit., 211. The three important essays are: K. RAHNER, “Remarks on the 11 Theology of Indulgences,” in Theological Investigations, Vol. 2 (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1963) 175-201; K. RAHNER, “A Brief Theological Study on Indulgence,” in Theological Investigations, Vol. 10 (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1973) 150-165; K. RAHNER, “On the Official Teaching of the Church Today on the Subject of Indulgences,” in Theological Investigations, Vol. 10 (London: Darton, Longman, & Todd, 1973) 166-198. Latin: PAUL VI, “Constitutio Apostolica Sacrarum 12 Indulgentiarum recognitio promulgatur,” Acta Apostolicae Sedis 59 (1967) 5–24; English: PAUL VI, “Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences [Indulgentiarum Doctrina],” in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post-Conciliar Documents, vol. 1, ed. Austin Flannery, Vatican Collection (Northport, NY: Costello, 1975) 62–79, hereafter, ID. Rahner seeks to show the compatibility of his understanding of 13 indulgences with ID in K. RAHNER, “Official Teaching on Indulgences...”, op. cit. For a survey of the conciliar discussion that strongly shares this 14 criticism, see G. ALBERIGO and J.A. KOMONCHAK, eds., History of Vatican II: Vol. 5, The Council and the Transition: The Fourth Period and the End of the Council, September 1965 - December 1965. (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2006) 379–386. JOHN PAUL II, “Indulgences Are Expression of God’s 15 Mercy,” L’Osservatore Romano English Edition, 6 October 1999, 15, hereafter, IEGM. 4 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 78 / Fall 2010ments: “an indulgence is a remission before God of the 16 temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain defined conditions through the Church’s help when, as minister of redemption, she dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints” (ID, norm 1) This definition makes clear that indul- gences relate to sins which have already been forgiven and to persons who are duly [apte] disposed. They relate to persons “who, although reconciled with God, are still marked by those ‘remains’ of sin which do not leave them totally open to grace” (IEGM, §3). As reconciled with God, such persons are justified. Justification does not mean, however, that all results of sin in the person are wiped away. “Reconciliation with God does not mean that there are no enduring consequences of sin from which we must be purified” (IM, §9). Sin does damage to the self and others which is not simply erased by divine forgiveness. “The person must be gradually ‘healed’ of the negative effects which sin has caused in him (what the theological tradition calls the ‘punishments’ and ‘remains’ of sin)” (IEGM, §2). In this 17 process of healing, the justified person is not thrown only upon his or her own resources. In the communion with Christ and all the saints in Christ, there is a “supernatural solidarity” (ID, §4). “The life of each individual son of God is joined in Christ and through Christ by a wonderful link to the life of all his other Christian brethren. Together they form the supernatural unity of Christ’s Mystical Body so that, as it were, a single mystical person is formed” (ID, §5). Within this mystical unity, the body can come to the aid of individuals as they are being purified from the consequences of sin. “To pray in order to gain the indulgence means to enter into this spiritual communion and therefore to open oneself totally to others” (IM, §10; note in John Paul’s words a less juridical, more personal and integrative language.) The church can “dispense and apply” its “treasury,” i.e., the infinite value of the merit of Christ, united with the works of all who are in him, most notably, his Mother. “Recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.”18 Despite unclarity in some medieval statements, indulgences have never provided forgiveness, salvation, or justification. 19 They are aids in the struggle with the consequences of sin that forgiveness does not remove, the effects of sin on the self and others. An indulgence is thus an expression of the solidarity of the wider church (which includes Christ, the saints, and Mary) with the person who is willing to undertake special efforts in penitentially addressing those effects of sin. If we truly believe that “the prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective” (James 5:16), then can that solidarity be without result? I have tried to summarize Catholic teaching in a way that is both true to the normative documents and as open as possible to Protestant affirmation. It is interesting that the young Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Sanctorum communio suggested ideas that he recognized as similar: “Our actions are the actions of members of the body of Christ, that is, they possess the power of the love of Christ, through which each may and ought to become a Christ to the other. . . . Only because the church lives one life in Christ, as it were [gleichsam], can the Christian say that the chastity of others helps him when tempted by desire, that the fasting of others benefits him, and that the prayer of the neighbor is offered for him” Bonhoeffer explicitly notes that he is coming “suspi- ciously close” to a Catholic doctrine of the treasury of the church, but adds he is doing so consciously. “With Luther we want to be sure that the sound core, which is in danger of being lost, is preserved in Protestant theology.”20 (Protestants especially might be surprised that the doctrine of indulgences can be discussed without direct reference to the application of indulgences to persons in purgatory. The practice and, to a significant degree, the theology of indulgences were already well developed before the question of their application to those in purgatory was raised. Both conceptually and ecumeni- cally, I believe that understanding is furthered by keeping these topics distinct. When the separate topics of indulgences and purgatory have been addressed, the distinct question whether and how indulgences might be applied to those in purgatory can be taken up.)21 Even put in this, I hope, accurate but more attractive way, at least two theological-doctrinal issues arise about indulgences for Code of Canon Law (canon 992); the Catechism of the Catholic 16 Church 2 ed (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2000) (§1471); nd and EI, Norms, 1. An important interpretive question is whether the ‘scare quotes’ 17 around such words as ‘remains’ and ‘punishments’ implies only that these are technical terms used in earlier authoritative documents, or also that they are in some sense analogous. Catechism of the Catholic Church,, §1475. Note here the 18 mixture of semantic fields: one is ‘purified’ of a ‘punishment.’ Shaffern argues that, despite potentially confusing language of 19 plenary indulgences releasing from both poena et culpa, the requirement that only a person in a state of grace could receive an indulgence was uniformly stressed and thus the limitation of indulgences to the relief from temporal punishments was always clear. R.W. SHAFFERN, Penitent’s Treasury..., op. cit.,147-150. D. BONHOEFFER, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological 20 Study of the Sociology of the Church, ed. C.J. Green, trans. R. Krauss and N. Lukens, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998) 183. On purgatory and, briefly, on the application of indulgences to 21 persons in purgatory, see the forthcoming statement from the USA Catholic-Lutheran dialogue: “The Hope of Eternal Life.” http://www.usccb.org/seia/The-Hope-of-Eternal-Life.pdf N. 78 / Fall 2010Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 5Lutheran and more broadly Protestant theologians: the concept of temporal punishments not removed by forgiveness, and the question of the authority by which the church administers indulgences.22 Temporal Punishments Lutherans and Catholics (and probably all other Christians) agree that the justified person is still plagued by the conse- quences of sin within his or her own person. The justified “are constantly exposed to the power of sin still pressing its attacks (cf. Rom 6:12-14) and are not exempt from a lifelong struggle against the contradiction to God within the selfish desires of the old Adam (cf. Gal 5:16; Rom 7:7-10)” (JDDJ, §28). The self disordered by sin is not immediately returned to a right order in all aspects of the self by baptism and justification. Here there is no ecumenical disagreement or difficulty.23 In what sense, however, can these consequences of sin be called punishments? Recent official statements have empha- sized that the punishments do not follow the sin in a merely conventional way established only by God’s retribution, but rather follow “from the very nature of sin.” They are “negative effects which sin has caused in” the person, from which “the person must be gradually ‘healed’,” e.g., the disordering of the self and its aims and desires which forgiveness does not immedi- ately rectify (IEGM, §2). These effects can at least analogously be called punishments because their rectification is often painful. Ongoing conversion to God involves a painful struggle with the old person who remains within the justified. These punishments are addressed by indulgences. Such an understanding of temporal punishments as the natural consequence of sin makes the assertion of such punish- ments more plausible and indicates why they are not simply taken away in forgiveness. Crucial here is the move to supple- ment the juridical language of punishment (which inevitably raises the question why Jesus’ death and resurrection do not remove that punishment) with the language of healing, or of purifying, or of the integration of the self around the new center of life in Christ and the Spirit, language that does not seem to undercut the sufficiency of Christ’s work. 24 Nevertheless, problems remain. If the punishments are painful aspects of the recovery from the effects of sin, then is a dispensation from this pain also a dispensation from the very process of the ongoing struggle? That indulgences might undercut the seriousness of penance was a worry already expressed by the Fourth Lateran Council. If, as the Catechism 25 of the Catholic Church says, “the temporal punishment itself serves as ‘medicine’ to the extent that the person allows it to challenge him to undertake his own profound conversion,”26 then does an indulgence release a person from that ongoing conversion? Do indulgences undercut the painful process of ongoing repentance? 27 An understanding of indulgences as an expression of the solidarity of Christ and the saints with the sinner as he or she struggles with the consequences of sin, a solidarity that may make that struggle less painful, goes a significant way toward answering this question. An indulgence is then a corporate act 28 of renewed conversion undertaken by the church (in unity with its head, Christ) in which the authoritative prayers of the church on earth and in heaven, in and through Christ, come to the aid of those who individually take part in the corporate act. The aid strengthens the individual in his or her conversion and thus makes that conversion less painful, i.e., the aid “mitigates the painful aspect of the punishment.” The pain, not the conversion, is replaced by “other channels of grace.” Nevertheless, this interpretation seems rather far from the language of “remitting temporal punishments.” Even John Paul II, in the statement quoted, slips away from talk about remitting the punishment and speaks instead of mitigating “the painful aspect of the punishment” (IEGM, §4). Earlier, the statement speaks of “what the theological tradition calls the ‘punishments’ and ‘remains’ of sin” (IEGM, §2; italics added). The Catechism refers to “what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin” (§1472; italics added). The question can be asked whether ‘punishment’ in the context of indulgences is coming to be understood more analogously. Nevertheless, a problem still attaches to the interpretation of temporal punishments as the ongoing struggle with the effects of sin: it accords with forgiveness within confession, which remits eternal, but not temporal punishment, but it does not fit well with baptism, which remits both eternal and temporal punishments, although baptism clearly does not eliminate the ongoing painful struggle with certain temporal consequences of sin. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and such frailties inherent in life as weaknesses of In this presentation, I will mostly discuss Lutheran objections 22 to indulgences, simply because they are the ones I know best. The question whether these remains in the form of 23 concupiscence are themselves sin, which is the subject of section 4.4 of the JDDJ, makes no difference for the subject at hand. On the subject of ‘temporal punishments,’ see the USA 24 Catholic-Lutheran dialogue “The Hope of Eternal Life,” op. cit., §§167-212. See canon 62 from the council (Denz 819); N.P. TANNER, ed., 25 Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (London: Sheed & Ward, 1990) 264. John Paul II, “Indulgences,” para. 3. 26 This criticism was pressed by Luther: “It is very difficult, even 27 for the most learned theologians, at one and the same time to commend to the people the bounty of indulgences and the need of true contrition” (Thesis 39 of the 95 Theses; in Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, American ed. [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1955–86] Vol. 31, p. 29). See, along this line, IEGM, paras. 4-5. Quotations in the 28 following sentences are from this source. 6 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 78 / Fall 2010character, and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that Tradition calls concupiscence . . .” (§1264). Some distinction will need to be made between the consequences of sin that are not removed by baptism (and thus are not temporal punishments) and those consequences that remain after sacramental confession, are called temporal punishments, and can be addressed by indul- gences.29 In the background lies a question about the interpretation of dogma: How far can or should Catholic theology distance itself from the juridical conceptuality within which the idea of tempo- ral punishments finds a place? Do the categories of healing, purification, and integration only supplement juridical categories, or can they replace juridical categories? This move away from purely juridical categories is attractive to non-Catholics. The question becomes whether doctrines framed in juridical catego- ries can be entirely separated from that scheme, and, if so, whether they should be—does the juridical category of ‘punish- ment’ capture something important about the self as a morally accountable agent which should not be lost? Sanative and reparative images might significantly supplement juridical categories, but juridical categories still might have an important and necessary place in understanding the consequences of sin and the nature of ongoing penitence. Authority The second and, I believe, more ecumenically difficult theological-doctrinal issue related to indulgences concerns the authority by which the church determines and dispenses indul- gences. The 1967 Apostolic Constitution states in its first norm, cited above, that the church “as minister [or servant, ministra] of redemption, . . . dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints.” What is the nature of this authority? The precise character of the church’s act in dispensing indulgences has been a matter of debate within Catholic theol- ogy. Does the church dispense and apply as a jurisdictional act and, if so, what is the nature of that jurisdictional act? Rahner has argued that the church’s action in an indulgence is that of a prayer to the Father by the totus Christus, Christ and his body, the church. This prayer, on the basis of the treasury of Christ and the saints, we can be confident the Father answers. While 30 ID states that in an indulgence the church not “only prays,” but also acts “with its authority” (ID, §8; to which Rahner responded that indulgences were prayers with an authoritative capacity, a potestas auctoritativa), recent official statements have tended, 31 in fact, to view the church’s action in an indulgence as a prayer. Thus, John Paul II said: “This ‘distribution’ [in an indulgence] should not be understood as a sort of automatic transfer, as if we were speaking of ‘things’. It is instead 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 [the church] asks him to mitigate or cancel the painful aspect of punishment” (IEGM, para. 4). Such a view of the dispensing and applying as a form of authoritative prayer still must answer the question: What is the basis of the assertion that an indulgence is an authoritative prayer that we can be morally certain is heard and acted upon by God in the way we expect? The Apostolic Constitution does not specify this basis, saying only that indulgences “are supported in divine revelation as on a solid foundation” (ID, §1; translation altered), citing Trent’s Decree on Indulgences and adding “cf. Mt. 28:18”. Trent says only that “the power of granting indul- gences was given by Christ to the church and this divinely given power has been in use from the most ancient times,” without specifying where and when this power was given by Christ to the church. Matthew 28:18, cited by ID, is the statement of the32 risen Christ that: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” This statement certainly establishes that Christ could have instituted indulgences had he wished to do so, but does not imply that he did so. The Catechism states that the church intervenes in favor of individual Christians in indulgences “by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus” (§1478). 33 This statement implies that the power to remit temporal punish- ments is implicit in the power to bind and loose. The advantage of this approach is that it can address the obvious objection that indulgences in the modern form existed no earlier than the early Middle Ages. The power to grant indulgences, one might argue, is an implicit power of which the church only became conscious in the evolution of penitential practice over the centuries. Karl Rahner, however, called attention to the difficulties of deriving indulgences from the power to bind and loose. First, if the power to remit all temporal punishments is implicit in the power to bind and loose (i.e., the power the church exercises in sacramental confession), then why doesn’t the church use this power within the context of sacramental confession? Second, 34 if indulgences derive from the power to bind and loose received from Christ, then the role ascribed to the treasury of the church is superfluous. The church would need to appeal to this treasury no more in indulgences than it does in confession. Rahner35 argues that the absence in the Apostolic Constitution of a citation This problem is alluded to but not elaborated in K. RAHNER, 29 “A Brief Theological Study on Indulgence...,” op. cit., 154. K. RAHNER, “A Brief Theological Study on Indulgence...,” 30 op. cit., 162f. K. RAHNER, “Official Teaching on Indulgences...,” op. cit., 31 178f. Denz. 1835 inserts a reference to Mt 16:19 and 18.18, but this 32 reference is not found in the actual text of Trent; see N.P. TANNER, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 796. Similarly, EI, Decree. 33 K. RAHNER, “Remarks on Indulgences...,” op. cit., 199f. 34 K. RAHNER, “Remarks on Indulgences...,” op. cit., 184f. 35 N. 78 / Fall 2010Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 7of Mt. 16 and 18 as the ground for the church’s authority to grant indulgences is itself significant.36 The most important Lutheran (and perhaps more generally Protestant) objection to indulgences is rooted in this question of authority. The claim to “dispense and apply” the treasury of the church which is fundamentally the merit of Christ and the saints is a significant one. In a sense, the church certainly does “dispense and apply” the merit of Christ in proclaiming the gospel and administering the sacraments. But in the practice of indulgences, the church makes decisions which attach certain applications of this treasury to specific actions on the part of the faithful. It can even decide whether this application will be plenary or partial in its potential effect (within the limits of the required disposition). The church appears to be claiming a power not only to minister this treasury, but also to administer it in a detailed manner. I believe this objection points to what is at the moment the decisive nexus of issues between Lutherans and Catholics. In what way is the church, meaning the church as it concretely exists in the world and history, elevated by grace to participate in not just the mediation of grace and salvation, but in shaping and determining the form and characteristics of that mediation? That the church does play a role in the mediation of grace and salvation should be beyond doubt. It is the church, after all, that proclaims the gospel and celebrates the means of grace. Luther’s Large Catechism could thus call the church “the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the Word of God.” 37 But even if the church’s role in that mediation is essentially instrumental, does it make any sort of contribution of its own to that process, e.g., applying the treasury of merit in specific ways? Pastor Salvatore Ricciardi, the Reformed member of the Jubilee Ecumenical Commission who was withdrawn because of the Jubilee indulgence, stated in a letter that the “location of our indulgence is nothing other than Christ crucified and risen; and the church cannot be an administrator to its conditions, but only a pure and simple witness.” The conceptual categories used in38 Pastor Ricciardi’s assertion may not be fully adequate, but they indicate the deeper issue that the debate over indulgences points toward, the question of the way the church participates as a free and, within the power of grace, determinative agent within the mediation of grace. Does the church dispense, under its own decisions, the treasures of the church to aid its members in their penitence, or is the church only a witness to what God is doing, using human instruments on the analogy of the carpenter using a hammer? Ecumenical issues Two further questions should be asked that relate less to the theology of indulgences than to the ecumenical significance of differences over indulgences. First, what does communion between the Catholic Church and other churches, Orthodox and Protestant, require in relation to indulgences? Similar questions can be asked about other Catholic teachings and practices related to penance which took a definitive shape only in the medieval period, e.g., those related to purgatory. The Orthodox never shared these teachings in the form they were promulgated in the West; Protestants came to disavow them. Is it sufficient for non- Catholics simply not to condemn these practices or must they positively accept them? After all, participation in indulgences is entirely voluntary for Catholics. (I have never seen it argued that the Orthodox must accept indulgences as an aspect of commu- nion with the Catholic Church, but would it be consistent with such communion for an Orthodox bishop to forbid the reception of an indulgence by those entrusted to his care?) While the practices related to indulgences are voluntary, teachings about indulgences have been binding. Would non-condemnation of such teaching by non-Catholic churches be sufficient for communion? While such a standard of non-condemnation has been suggested for at least some teachings, significant prob- 39 lems remain to be addressed in relation to this proposal, both theoretical (concerning, e.g., the relation between doctrine and truth) and practical (concerning, e.g., to which doctrines such a standard would apply). The question of diversity of binding teaching in a single communion is one that has not been, to my mind, adequately addressed, even in relation to the JDDJ. 40 Second, how do the churches deal ecumenically with historically loaded terms? It is hard to imagine Protestant churches affirming something that bears the label “indulgences.” The images of Luther hammering the theses against indulgences to the Castle Church door, regardless of their historical validity, are too deeply embedded in Protestant consciousness. How do we engage in a linguistic healing of memories? Conclusion Indulgences have rarely been seen as a major ecumenical obstacle; ecumenical dialogues have rarely discussed them. Nevertheless, the teaching and practice of indulgences, however far from the center of the faith they might be, do point to a series K. RAHNER, “Official Teaching on Indulgences...,” op. cit., 36 173. Martin LUTHER, “The Large Catechism,” (Creed, 42), in The 37 Book of Concord, ed. R. Kolb and T.J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000) 436. “The Ecumenical Problem of Indulgences,” 241. 38 Such a standard was suggested in Catholic relations with the 39 Orthodox by J. RATZINGER, Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology, trans. M.F. McCarthy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987) 199; and, more generally by H. FRIES & K. RAHNER, Unity of the Churches--an Actual Possibility, trans. R.C.L. Gritsch and E.W. Gritsch (Philadelphia/New York: Fortress Press/Paulist Press, 1985)32–41. Cardinal Avery Dulles asked whether the JDDJ means that a 40 Lutheran understanding of justification could be taught in Catholic seminaries and vice-versa. He responded: “I can hardly think so.” A. DULLES, “Justification: The Joint Declaration,” Josephinum Journal of Theology 9 (NS) (2002) 118f. 8 Bulletin / Centro Pro UnioneN. 78 / Fall 2010of theological and, more specifically, ecumenical issues that are not yet settled and need to be more closely addressed. Perhaps we need an indulgence to be offered for prayerful time spent in addressing such difficult ecumenical questions. N. 78 / Fall 2010Bulletin / Centro Pro Unione 9Next >