“For their sakes you must make sure that they understand and believe that Christ left the inexhaustible treasury of his merits to the Church, that this treasure was enriched with the merits of the Blessed Virgin and all the saints, and that the distribution of these riches to men is in the hands of Him whom Christ make the visible head for Himself of the invisible Church. Accordingly it is left to the Pope to apply these merits now more amply, now less amply, to the living in the form of absolution, to the departed after the manner of suffrage. In the former case, He may apply the merits if they have purged their sins in the sacrament of penance and have been absolved of the eternal punishment, and in the latter if they have departed this life joined to God by love.” Pope Leo XII, Charitate Christi