Since the gaining of indulgences is related to certain actions, great abuses and scandals have been possible. The in part very abusive practice in matter of indulgences at the end of the Middle Ages served the Reformers as a symbol of a mechanistic organization of supernatural life, of the worldly character and avarice of the Church who touted holy things in the market-place. Against the, the Church declared her power to grant indulgences, and their value for the faithful, but at the same time she pull all her force into the campaign against abuses. The Church, then, teaches she has received from Christ, on the basis of the treasury of his merits, the power to grant to the faithful on certain conditions indulgences i.e. the remission of temporal punishment due to sin. Indulgences may be applied to the dead.
Abuses are to be avoided.
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