With origin in the Latin indulgentia , the word indulgence describes or symbolizes the facility or predisposition to forgive eventual faults or grant a grace. The concept is also used in the religious framework to name the remission before the Supreme Being or divinity of the temporal penalties corresponding to the sins that have already been forgiven after the intervention of the Church.
According to Catholic theology, therefore, the temporary punishment imposed after a sin can be benefited through indulgence or remission under certain conditions and according to the concessions or criteria of certain exponents of the Church.
Unlike penance or reconciliation, indulgence does not forgive sins, but offers an exemption from temporary penalty (either on earth or after death, in purgatory). The Pope, the bishops and the cardinals are the ones who can grant indulgence in exchange for various actions or rituals.
Although indulgence is not a sacrament, it is a very important aspect of Catholic doctrine. Experts say that one of the reasons that led Martin Luther to rise up against the Catholic Church to promote the Protestant reform, was his disagreement with the indulgences traffic.
Today, indulgences still remain as part of Catholic doctrine, although they have lost importance due to the change in historical context.
Beyond religion, indulgence is linked to the inclination to forgive and hide mistakes. For example: "I know he was wrong but in my opinion you should be more lenient with your brother" , "Do not think that I am going to show indulgence: the only thing that interests me is that they fulfill what they promised" .
Natural Parenting and indulgence
Contrary to the system of rules and principles massively adopted when raising a person, there is an older procedure, based on meeting the real needs of children. It is called Natural Parenting, and it proposes a balanced and (in the best of cases) fair treatment, which seeks to educate without imposing, focusing on the particular characteristics of each individual, instead of blindly taking the advice spread by the supposed experts.Its defenders claim that this is the way in which children were raised in the past, trying to combat derogatory labels that reduce it to a mere whim that seeks to oppose without reason to the customs adopted by the majority. In fact, the basis of Natural Breeding is freedom, diversity.
Very often this methodology is confused with indulgence, and a judgment could not be made further from reality. There are different types of demands that children make, ranging from asking for a hug to a sweet. At these extremes there is a clear difference between what is wanted and what is needed. Natural Parenting focuses on this last point, which makes the task of parents difficult, demanding much greater attention from their children and denying them the possibility of calming a cry with a candy .
On the other hand, in a typical family, indulgence extends far beyond childhood, and is the protagonist of great injustices that mark the lives of many people. Just as when defining this concept it is almost impossible not to name religion, the same happens with machismo; male children tend to be forgiven much more easily and frequently than females, even when speaking of equivalent errors. On the other hand, perhaps the most worrying aspect is that there is a tendency to forgive to avoid facing problems, which camouflages the indulgence of openness or empathy.