Apostolic Penitentiary decree of 19 February 1968
Apostleship of Prayer: five annual feasts
The membership grant includes five annual feasts, with the required promise of fidelity to the association’s statutes.
Time required Private statutory-promise renewal: about 1–5 minutes (estimate).
- When
- St Francis Xavier (3 December), Sacred Heart of Jesus, Christ the King, Immaculate Conception (8 December), and Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
- Where
- No named shrine is prescribed.
- Who
- Enrolled members of the Apostleship of Prayer; occasional prayer for papal intentions or use of a prayer-network app alone does not establish enrollment.
- Application
- Self or the departed
The prescribed work
- Be an enrolled member of the Apostleship of Prayer.
- Make or renew, at least privately, the promise faithfully to observe the association’s statutes.
- Fulfill the usual plenary conditions: sacramental confession, Communion, prayer for the Pope’s intentions, and complete detachment from every sin, including venial sin.
The work and its conditions
A plenary indulgence also requires complete detachment from every sin, sacramental confession, Holy Communion, and prayer for the Pope’s intentions, subject to the grant’s stated exceptions. The ordinary limit is one plenary indulgence per day.
Conditions common to every indulgence
The person gaining an indulgence must be baptized, not excommunicated, and in the state of grace at least when the prescribed works are completed. There must be at least a general intention to gain indulgences, and the prescribed work must be performed at the time and in the manner required by the grant.
Read the full conditions and norms. The cited grant and its specific provisions govern.
Time required
Read each branch with its own conditions. An editorial estimate is not a prescribed minimum.
Qualifying feast: private statutory-promise renewal
Editorial estimate
About 1–5 minutes for a simple private renewal (editorial estimate)
The source sets no fixed duration or compulsory timed formula. This is an editorial estimate for a simple private renewal; it does not replace any required rite or the usual conditions.
Timing sources
- Apostleship of Prayer: General Office booklet, Rome 1968 (mirror)Original General Office publication, indulgence section: decree of 19 February 1968, perpetual grant. This is a mirror of the primary publication, not an official hosting service.
- Capuchin Basilica of St Sebastian: Apostleship of Prayer28 March 2022; institutional republication of Vanderlei de Lima/Aleteia. Current corroboration of the eight occasions and private promise, not the original decree.
What the time estimate excludes
- Ordinary travel to and from the venue, and waiting outside the prescribed work
- Separate fulfillment of the usual plenary conditions, except prayers or Mass expressly included in the branch.
- Continuing Apostleship membership duties.
- Stated start
- 19 February 1968
Occasion and source notes
Dates show the customary Roman calendar; follow lawful transfers and the association’s applicable calendar. Annunciation, St Joseph and Immaculate Conception use standard Roman transfer rules where listed. The applicable local or proper calendar, lawful external solemnity and any specific indult govern the actual observance.
The 1968 decree is perpetual. Its original text is available through a mirror; the Capuchin basilica’s 2022 publication corroborates present practice. Earlier plenary privileges and historical lists of quantified partial indulgences are not imported.
Source and exact reference
- Apostleship of Prayer: General Office booklet, Rome 1968 (mirror)Original General Office publication, indulgence section: decree of 19 February 1968, perpetual grant. This is a mirror of the primary publication, not an official hosting service.
- Capuchin Basilica of St Sebastian: Apostleship of Prayer28 March 2022; institutional republication of Vanderlei de Lima/Aleteia. Current corroboration of the eight occasions and private promise, not the original decree.
Prayer texts and grants have separate source histories. Consult the grant source for the prescribed work, occasion, and conditions.