This decree states that plenary indulgences for the faithful departed will be extended for the entire month of November, with a series of modifications in the usual way of obtaining this indulgence in order to safeguard the security measures of the faithful at all times.
A large number of requests
The Decree alludes to the numerous requests from priests and pastors to the Apostolic Penitentiary that this year, because of the "covid-19" epidemic, pious works be commuted in order to obtain the plenary indulgences applicable to the souls in purgatory.
For this reason, the Apostolic Penitentiary, by special mandate of His Holiness Pope Francis, has established a series of facilities to obtain these indulgences and avoid crowds in cemeteries and other places of worship:
- Plenary indulgence for those who visit a cemetery and pray for the deceased even if only mentally, established as a rule only on specific days from November 1 to 8, may be moved to other days of the same month until the end of the month.. These days, freely chosen by the faithful, can also be independent of each other.
- The plenary indulgence of November 2, established on the occasion of the commemoration of All the Faithful Departed for those who piously visit a church or oratory and recite there the "Our Father" and the "Creed", can be transferred not only to the preceding or following Sunday or to the day of the Solemnity of All Saints, but also to another day of the month of November, freely chosen by each of the faithful.
Spiritual union for those who cannot leave
The elderly, the sick and all those who for serious reasons cannot leave their homefor example because of restrictions imposed by the competent authority for the time of the pandemic, may obtain the plenary indulgence provided they are spiritually united with all the other faithful, completely detached from sin and with the intention of fulfilling as soon as possible the three usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer according to the intentions of the Holy Father), before an image of Jesus or of the Blessed Virgin Mary, say the following prayers The pious prayers for the deceased, for example, lauds and vespers of the Office of the Dead, the Marian rosary, the crown of Divine Mercy, other prayers for the deceased that are dearer to the faithful, or the devote themselves to a meditative reading of one of the Gospel passages proposed by the liturgy of the dead, or perform a work of mercy by offering to God the pains and difficulties of their own lives.
Facilitate Confession and Holy Mass
The decree further calls on priests with appropriate faculties to "to offer themselves with particular generosity to the celebration of the sacrament of Penance and to administer Holy Communion to the sick and recalls that with regard to the spiritual conditions for the full attainment of the indulgence it is necessary to have recourse to the indications already given in the note "On the sacrament of penance in the current pandemic situation", issued by the Apostolic Penitentiary on March 19, 2020″.
Finally, the document signed on October 22, 2020, the memorial of St. John Paul II, is noteworthy "since the souls in Purgatory are helped by the suffrages of the faithful and especially by the sacrifice of the altar pleasing to God (cf. Conc. Tr. Sess. XXV, Decr. De Purgatorio), all priests are earnestly invited to celebrate Holy Mass three times on the day of the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, in accordance with the Apostolic Constitution "Incruentum Altaris", promulgated by Pope Benedict XV, of venerable memory, on August 10, 1915″.
