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One of the more shameful practices of the death-cookie cult is back. While technically, the Roman institution forbids the sale of indulgences, that prohibition now comes with a wink and a nudge. Yes, indulgences are back, and the fish heads tell you that if you do certain things, you will have your sentence in their "purgatory" reduced.
From the JYT:
Romanists will fall for any scam, no matter how transparent, won't they? There isn't the tiniest shred of evidence that when you die, you go to some "purgatory" place to have your sins burned away. When God temporarily sacrificed Himself to Himself to give Himself permission to avert His own wrath, He didn't need any help from the devil in a white dress or his minions.
Further down in the article, we read this:
So just because something is old, it must be true? Praise the Lord that we True Christians™ don't think so.
I've always wondered about the "time off" aspect, too. The dress-wearing boy-touchers never tell you how much time you have to do in their made-up almost-hell for any specific sin, but they assure you that if you say a certain prayer, you'll get a specified time period shaved off. Now, if you get 200 days for every Our Father and every Hail Mary, but refusal to submit to Father Badtouch's advances gets you a million years in purgatory, that's a lot of Our Fathers and Hail Marys.
From the JYT:
For Catholics, "Heaven" Moves a Step Closer
By PAUL VEALCUTLET
Published: February 9, 2009
The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”
In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.
* * *
According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.
There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it. You can get one for yourself, or for someone else, living or dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1857 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.
By PAUL VEALCUTLET
Published: February 9, 2009
The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”
In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.
* * *
According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.
There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it. You can get one for yourself, or for someone else, living or dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1857 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.
Further down in the article, we read this:
Still, [some randomly selected Mary-hailer] supports their reintroduction. “Anything old coming back, I’m in favor of it,” she said. “More fervor is a good thing.”
The latest indulgence offers de-emphasize the years-in-Purgatory formulations of old in favor of a less specific accounting, with more focus on ways in which people can help themselves — and one another — come to terms with sin.
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