ct in exchange for money. These indulgences freed souls from all or part of the time they would spend in Purgatory; the money collected by Pardoners, who always claimed to be (and sometimes were) agents of Rome, were intended to finance the church's "good works." Too often the Pardoners simply pocketed the money themselves. Whether they did or not, the implication that those with more disposable income could hasten therewith their union with God violated the tradition of apostolic poverty. The point was conceded in effect by the sixteenth century counter-reformation Council of Trent, which altogether abolished the office of Pardoner. The second abuse, a less obviously sinister one, is based, in fact, on one of the most cherished, most orthodox, and most universally accepted of Christian beliefs, the Pauline metaphor of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ. From the notion that all members of the Church who have ever lived, those on Earth, those in Purgatory, and those in Heaven, all form a single organism, the medieval church drew some characteristic conclusions. Souls in heaven can be prayed to for assistance (some groups of Protestants have considered Catholics quasi-pagan for their saints' cults), and they can in turn help souls in the other two realms. We may recall that Dante himself benefits from such intercession in cantos 1-2 of Inferno. Analogously, those on earth can offer prayers to help hasten the delivery from Purgatory of the souls who are suffering there. You will find that throughout Purgatorio souls solicit prayers from Dante and, through him, from their still living friends and relatives. The abuse of this selfless-seeming doctrine came in the late Middle Ages with a great increase in the practice of selling Masses to deliver souls from Purgatory. Worse than this, some religious houses took to selling "Trentals," collections of thirty Masses said for a particular intention and piously believed to have great interc...
