Any church, shrine, or chapel currently entrusted to the Dominican Order can meet the requirements for the pilgrimage.
According to a decree from the Vatican’s Apostolic Penitentiary, the plenary indulgence is available to “the truly penitent and charitable faithful” under the usual conditions.
The usual conditions for a plenary indulgence require the individual to be in a state of grace, have complete detachment from sin, and pray for the pope’s intentions.
The person must also sacramentally confess his or her sins and receive Communion up to about 20 days before or after the prayers for the indulgence.
The Apostolic Penitentiary said that the indulgence can also be applied “to the souls of the faithful departed still in purgatory.”
An indulgence is defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church as “a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven.”
The elderly, the sick, and those unable to leave their homes for any serious reason can also obtain the plenary indulgence “if, despising all their sins and with the intention of fulfilling the three usual conditions as soon as possible, they spiritually join in the Jubilee celebrations in front of an image of St. Thomas Aquinas, offering to the merciful God their prayers as well as the sorrows and ills of their lives.”
The indulgence can be obtained up until St. Thomas Aquinas’ jubilee ends on Jan. 28, 2025.
“May our celebration of the double jubilee in the life of St. Thomas propel us to serve God and the Church with great dedication and profound humility,” wrote Father Gerard Francisco Timoner III, the master of the Dominican Order.
The Dominican master recalled how Aquinas told Brother Reginald “to seek no reward in this world except to be with God — Domine, non nisi Te, ‘Lord, nothing but you.’”
