What is an Indulgence? | Gregg R. Allison | The Church

The Catholic Doctrine of Indulgences

An indulgence is a temporal remission of sin, a sin that has already been forgiven. So there's no guilt associated with this sin, but there's still a taint of sin. There's still this infection that adheres to the soul of one of the Catholic faithful.

And so indulgence is a remission of that sin. There are two types of indulgences. There are plenary and partial. Plenary indulgences, right, that's a removal of the temporal punishment for all sins. Temporary or partial indulgences is the remission of sins for some sins committed.

So the Catholic faithful, by engaging in certain prescribed activities involving prayer, sacraments, pilgrimages, are able to obtain either plenary indulgences or partial indulgences, either for themselves or if they don't need them, for loved ones, friends, and things like that.

So indulgences, right, can help relieve the quantity of punishment that a soul in purgatory has to undergo.