27. For the whole year of Jubilee, penitentiary priests and others designated to hear confessions will be available in Rome. They will be given the appropriate powers to hear penitents and grant deserved absolution and dispensation, both for those who live in Rome and those who come there from other places, to enable them to obtain the spiritual riches of the Holy Year. In this period of time preachers of the word of God will be plentiful. We shall speak Ourselves and designate others to speak also, but in so doing We shall not enter on theological controversies which involve merely the disputes of the different schools. Both We Ourselves and those who speak in Our name will be concerned with explaining clearly the force and significance of the phrasing of that section of Our Bull which refers "to the faithful who are truly repentant, have confessed their sins, and been refreshed by holy communion". We shall likewise show by fact and examples how worthless and vain is the opinion of those exiles from the Catholic communion who falsely assert that repentance is lessened or even destroyed by the use of indulgences. Furthermore, to forestall the suspicion that We or those who preach by Our authority will adopt the stricter opinion, We will employ the same method which the renowned Father Bourdaloue of the Society of Jesus recommended and employed in his Sermon delivered just before the year of Jubilee (Sermonum, tome 2, p. 517ff, Paris 1709, 2nd edition).

In the time that We spent in Bologna, We repeatedly issued Our instructions to the people. These were first collected in several tomes and soon were gathered in one folio volume in a Latin translation. In one Instruction (tome 3, 12 of the Italian edition, no. 53 of the Latin), passing by the disputes of the theologians, We exhorted the entire people of Our diocese on the occasion of the Plenary Indulgence proclaimed by Our predecessor Clement XII, to add other works of piety to the works prescribed and to produce fruits worthy of repentance. We cited for them the golden statement of venerable Cardinal Bellarmine (Controversiarum In Tractatu De Indulgentiis, tome 2, bk. 1, chap. 12, sect. 3): "Wise Christians receive Papal indulgences in their zeal to produce fruits worthy of repentance, and at the same time to make satisfaction to God for their sins". But We also added the remark of Cardinal Pallavicinus in his In Historia Concilii Tridentini bk. 24, chap. 12, no. 6, that those are wrong who think that by using indulgences, Christians become lazy and distracted from making proper satisfaction to God who punishes our sins. Indeed since men are wholly uncertain that they have in reality obtained the fruit of indulgences, this is an added incitement for many to strengthen their hopes by renewing their practice of salutary works. Moreover the works prescribed for obtaining indulgences increase piety when they are put into practice, and as is daily experienced they introduce a new habit which enables its possessor to perform more readily the other works of virtue. Boniface VIII prescribed visits to the basilicas–fifteen times for visitors and thirty times for Romans–and made the obtaining of indulgences dependent on this work. But he did not for this reason pass over in silence the other works of virtue; rather in his occasional decretal Antiquorum, De Poenitentiis, et Remissionibus, which is found among his general occasional decretals, he expressly adds: "Each person, however, will merit more and will more effectively obtain an Indulgence the oftener and the more devoutly he visits the basilicas". These words agree closely with those which We emphasized above. Those advised the faithful to practice other relevant works apart from the prescribed ones. The words of the traditional formula for a solemn blessing used by Our predecessors and Ourselves express the same meaning. For when the ceremony of blessing is completed, a Plenary indulgence is granted. Then humble prayers are also made to God to confer on the people present not only "perseverance in good works, but also a continually repentant heart", that is, a heart duly prepared for new works of repentance to atone for past sins, even though hopefully the fault of past sins and their punishment has been remitted in the sacrament of penance, and the temporal punishment which remains has been washed away by the previously granted Indulgence.