According to crapolic teaching, even after you are forgiven during confession and absolution, you are still punished for your sins after death. You have to spend time in Purgatory before entering Heaven. Of course this crap is absolute rubbish, with absolutely no basis in scripture. Like most crapolic dogma, it is made up out of the fantasies of a pope's mind. Remember, he's infallible. He's the voice of God on Earth. If he told everyone to go jump off a bridge, they would have to comply.
Enter the indulgence. It's kind of a "get out of jail free" card for the afterlife. With an indulgence, the punishment for the sin for which you've already been forgiven is wiped away. That reduces your time in Purgatory, but doesn't eliminate it. Because one indulgence only works for one sin. In order to completely avoid Purgatory, you would need an indulgence for every single sin you've ever committed, and that would be hard to come by.
There's plenty of room for abuse of indulgences. Back in the day, priests used to sell indulgences, and made a lot of money doing so. Let's say you're planning on killing someone. Hey, you just go buy an indulgence before the act and you're home free. This abuse is what prompted Martin Luther to nail his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg and set off the firestorm of Reformation.
Indulgences fell out of favor over the years. Selling them was banned by the church in the 1500's. Instead of payment, someone seeking an indulgence must perform some act like community service, etc. The practice was pretty much eliminated by the Vatican Council in the early 60's. You know, the same council where they decided to hold mass in a language the congregants could actually understand, instead of Latin.
Now, Pope Bendurdick is bringing them back. Mr. Nasty ex-Nazi has decided that indulgences are a good thing. The underlying motive, of course, is power. Because if you're actually stupid enough to think that the crapolic church can mitigate your time in Purgatory (a place that doesn't exist), then you're going to do everything you can to stay in their good graces.
And these people teamed up with the morons from Utah to take away my rights in California? God that pisses me off.
1 comments:
Thanks for this reminder of why I left the Catholic church......... and eventually all religion. It's all a myth. Like modern day religions now call the ancient Norse, Greek, Roman and Celtic religious practices myth. It's just a good story cooked up to keep the ignorant in line.
I remember way back in cat licker school that the nuns used to sell us kids special cards that we could give to our folks that were for indulgences. Sure they only cost a quarter. I guess technically it was sell cards and not indulgences. Where there are the willing, there is a way. Got to keep the Pope in fine dresses you know.
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