Can Catholic works of ‘satisfaction’ (prayer, fasting, etc.) for the removal of temporal punishments of venial sin be credited to others still alive?

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Accepted answer

The Catechism says:

"An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin." The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.

CCC 1471

and I think that answers it. Every time you bless yourself with holy water, you have a partial indulgence. A plenary indulgence also requires complete detachment from sin, which in my opinion seems very difficult. Those indulgences can go towards your own sorry life or someone else who is dead, even if they're in Heaven those prayers won't be wasted as prayers are never wasted.

Unless of course you're praying that your delinquent nephew won't be given a just punishment for skinning cats. In this case you'd want to pray that God gives your nephew the actual grace that you would be given for a meritorious act. This is what your Catholic mother calls "offering it up".


Also, I'd slightly modify the first sentence if it wouldn't subvert the question.

  • Catholics believe in something called Reconciliation

and

  • c) promise to do penance

I was surprised about the use of the term satisfaction here in the Catholic encyclopedia. It's in the Catechism quite a bit too but I've never seen it defined in my Catechetical instructional materials when covering the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

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