The apostolic blessing at death is an overlooked plenary indulgence

There is one thing for certain besides taxes, and that is death. The Covid-19 pandemic enhances this reality. The tragedy of the pandemic is that for many at death’s door, access to the sacraments was denied. Therefore, every person should be prepared to meet our God.

Some readers have similar experiences as I had with my mother, who read the obituary pages as religiously as she said her daily rosary. We call it the “Irish sports page.” She then would call me or one of my five brothers to suggest there was a wake for us to attend. But as her vision (but not her mind) was failing at 98 years of age, my brother Joe’s gift to her was to read the obituaries to her almost daily, doing so even the night before she died. And her two clergy sons saw to her Anointing and beautiful funeral Mass.

The obituary pages tell remarkable stories. But one thing increasingly is obvious: persons whose life stories would seem to dictate a Catholic funeral Mass only are provided services at the funeral parlor or graveside even before the complications of the pandemic. It raises the question of whether these loved ones were provided the sacraments when they no longer were able to request them (or was such access denied due to the pandemic)?

The Church is a generous Mother, especially as persons are completing their journey toward eternity. She offers the gift of the “last rites.” We are used to hearing of deathbed Confessions, Anointing of the Sick, and Viaticum (Holy Eucharist as food “for the journey”). But the most generous gift, which sanctifies the soul as it was at the moment of one’s Baptism, is the apostolic pardon.

The apostolic pardon is a plenary indulgence offered when death is imminent, meaning that it remits all temporal punishment for sins already forgiven under certain conditions defined by the Church. All the baptized who are in communion with the Church and in the state of grace may receive this indulgence. It usually is administered to a conscious or unconscious person after the Anointing of the Sick, which imparts absolution from sin. To gain the indulgence, the person must have at least the general intention of acquiring it and must fulfill three specific conditions: sacramental Confession, eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the Holy Father’s intentions. Herein rests the wisdom of including a request for the sacraments of the Church and a funeral Mass in one’s advanced directives.

Again, the Church is a generous Mother. The Manual of Indulgences states: “If a priest is unavailable, Holy Mother Church benevolently grants to the Christian faithful, who are duly disposed, a plenary indulgence to be acquired at the point of death, provided they have been in the habit of reciting some prayers during their lifetime; in such a case, the Church supplies for the three conditions ordinarily required for a plenary indulgence” (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Manual of Indulgences, 12).

Thus, at the time of impending death and in the absence of an available priest, the family or health care worker should help the patient to both make a perfect Act of Contrition and to pray for a full pardon and remission of all sins, even if it is unclear whether the person is conscious enough to do so. Our generous Church grants this plenary indulgence to persons who are properly disposed and who have been in the habit of reciting some prayers during their lifetime as a substitute for the three usual conditions.

Who, at the moment of death, would pass up this opportunity for themselves or for their loved one for this “Get out of Purgatory Free Card?”

MARIE T. HILLIARD, M.S., M.A., J.C.L., PH.D., R.N., D.M., is a senior fellow at the National Catholic Bioethics Center based in Philadelphia, PA (www.ncbcenter.org).