Sir,—I am not in the habit of writing letters to learned journals, being only too aware of my own limitations in the realms of higher learning. I have, however, had the good fortune to have had an elementary education at the hands of the Irish Christian Brothers, which included a grounding in the teaching of the Catholic Church, summarised for us in the old Penny Catechism of Catholic doctrine and its later 3d. version. Perhaps none of your staff had the same good fortune.
In ‘On This Day’ for 31 October 1517 (HI 31.5, Sept./Oct. 2023), John Gibney defines ‘indulgences’ in brackets as ‘remission of sins’. This is just not true. This is careless journalism, just the repetition of other people’s prejudice without making any effort to establish the truth. Even my English dictionary defines indulgences correctly as ‘A remission of the (temporal) punishment still due to sin after sacramental absolution’.
Indulgences cannot be sold. The idea is just ridiculous. Any attempt to do so would be the serious sin of simony, and this was known to German Catholics in the time of Luther. The sin being so serious and so well known, I doubt whether the official church would even attempt such a thing. If there were freelance simoniacs in Germany at the time, they deserved to be exposed and condemned. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.—Yours etc.,
DAN TRACEY
Belfast