Pilgrims may earn plenary indulgences

Those who journey to any of the diocese’s five pilgrimage sites or undertake any other pilgrimage may be granted a plenary indulgence, according to the Decree on the Granting of Indulgence during the Ordinary Jubilee Year 2025 called by Pope Francis on May 13, 2024.

A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove the temporal punishment due to sin.

“An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints,” states the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1471, quoting Pope Paul VI’s apostolic constitution Indulgentiarum doctrina).

It adds, “An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.”

Indulgences may be applied to the living or the dead.

To receive the indulgence as part of the pilgrimage, the faithful must visit sacred places (“any distinguished collegiate church or sanctuary designated by the diocesan bishop or Eparchy for the benefit of the faithful”) according to the Decree on the Granting of Indulgence, or participate in missions, spiritual exercises, or formation activities on the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. They also must undertake the usual conditions for an indulgence: be detached from all sin, receive the Sacrament of Confession and the Eucharist within 20 days of the pilgrimage, and pray for the intentions of the pope.

Those who are unable to participate in any of these activities because of infirmity, illness or incarceration may be granted the indulgence if they recite the Our Father, the Profession of Faith or “other prayers in conformity with the objectives of the Holy Year, in their homes or wherever they are confined offering up their sufferings or the hardships of their lives,” states the Decree on the Granting of Indulgence.