In case you thought the Catholic Church could’t get any more ridiculous than it already is, this New York Times article will disabuse you of that notion. The RCC is now allowing indulgences again, after a few decades during which this absurd idea kind of went away.
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.
The fact that many Catholics under 50 have never sought one, and never heard of indulgences except in high school European history (Martin Luther denounced the selling of them in 1517 while igniting the Protestant Reformation), simply makes their reintroduction more urgent among church leaders bent on restoring fading traditions of penance in what they see as a self-satisfied world.
“Why are we bringing it back?” asked Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who has embraced the move. “Because there is sin in the world.” …
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, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day.
That last line is my favorite. One plenary indulgence per day — for a limited time only, not valid in some states, call now! What’s next, get out of hell free cards?
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kenbo
May 2, 2012 at 11:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder how much money I could make scalping indulgences?
Are public witch burnings are just around the corner…Inquisition 2.0 style?
Kenbo
imrryr
May 2, 2012 at 11:37 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pope: Hey, God? Is it cool if we bring back indulgences?
God: …
Pope: I’ll take that as a yes.
Makoto
May 2, 2012 at 11:38 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’d love to see how many days of purgatory per 2012 dollar (or per oz of gold, or something) set up as a chart starting at the onset of indulgences through today. Are sins worth more or less today, accounting for inflation?
Do they also have specials for people with terminal illnesses? What if they have too many sins to get indulgences for them all before they die? Can they pay double or something to get out of more sins?
MikeMa
May 2, 2012 at 11:40 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
C’mon Bill Donohue, explain how this follows jebus’ teaching. The RCC is a racket, a cult to extract money and power from the ignorant. I wonder what charities are included on the approved lists? Boston home for pedo priests?
Chiroptera
May 2, 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
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.
Even from a non-religious perspective, it isn’t really a bad thing to ask someone who has done something wrong to prove that their apology is sincere through some sort of sacrifice.
But I’m thinking something more along the lines of, “spend your free time helping to build houses for poor people for a year.” Not, “here, carry these big rocks around everywhere you go for a day.”
Michael Heath
May 2, 2012 at 11:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That’s just flat-out funny. Consider the idiocy of the rubes who swallow this swill.
I’d love to observe a Catholic official explain how the church determines the promised/predicted result for a particular paid-up indulgence. Let’s hope South Park does a show on this.
dave
May 2, 2012 at 11:45 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Bring back indulgences is an absurd move on the part of the RCC.
On the otherhand, did you realize that this article is over three years old?
Zinc Avenger
May 2, 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So, can I buy indulgences in advance? I fancy some fornication tonight and I just want to make sure I’m covered.
robb
May 2, 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
do you get a certificate that is suitable for framing?
jolo5309
May 2, 2012 at 11:53 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What’s next, get out of hell free cards?
Get out of Hell Free Cards are available here
http://www.getoutofhellfree.com/
bahrfeldt
May 2, 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Why are we bringing it back?” asked Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who has embraced the move. “Because there is sin in the world.” …
Ahh Brooklyn, where everyone is trying to sell you a stairway to heaven. Even those who lie about believing in heaven and those whose claimed religions do not believe in it.
slc1
May 2, 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder how many indulgences are being offered to pedophile priests in the Raping Children Church.
michaellatiolais
May 2, 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As much as I love crapping on the Catholic church, I do have to correct something. Indulgences were never phased out. There are various indulgences attached to all sorts of things, like certain papal blessings, reciting prayers on a certain pattern of days, etc, and they’ve been allowed for centuries. The only thing banned was the explicit sale of indulgences. In addition, the Marian cult also had beliefs like the idea that those wearing a brown scapular would be ferried to Heaven by Mary herself. So, yes, this goofy, irrational nonsense has been going on the whole time. It’s just that most Catholics ignore it.
Reginald Selkirk
May 2, 2012 at 11:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Pope Benedict announced a reinstitution of indulgences in 2007; I guess this is a more widespread deployment. In 2007, the Holy Roman Catholic Church made it clear that indulgences could not be bought for money (that would be corrupt), but could be granted to those who made pilgrimages to religious sites.
.
Also in 2007, The Vatican started up its own airlines to fly pilgrims to religious sites.
lofgren
May 2, 2012 at 11:57 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I hate Vancian casting. When is the church going to update to a more modern system like spell points or recharge segments?
raven
May 2, 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The RCC has also reemphasized exorcisms and IIRC, were going to hire and train more exorcists.
It looks a lot like the Catholic church considers what we call the Dark Ages to be the good old days.
Forbidden Snowflake
May 2, 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Free? No.
Reginald Selkirk
May 2, 2012 at 12:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They’ve got this covered. Jesus to Peter:
According to the Holy Roman Catholic Church, that power also extends to Peter’s successors, the bishops of Rome, aka the popes.
Area Man
May 2, 2012 at 12:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
And the name of that sin is avarice.
Jeremy Shaffer
May 2, 2012 at 12:09 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“And sin’s easy to see too!” Bishop DiMarzio continued. “It looks like rectangular sheets of green paper. They have numerical indicators on their corners and pictures of dead guys. We like to think of the Church as a repository for all this sin in the world until we can get the containment grid working.”
When DiMarzio was asked when we could expect to see this containment grid, he simply cursed something about Bill Murray not returning his phone calls.
rowanvt
May 2, 2012 at 12:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So now instead of just praying the gay away, they can also pay the gay away?
The Lorax
May 2, 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So they are not allowed to sell them, but they can give them if they receive a monetary donation of sufficient value.
*clap… clap… clap…*
Oh, good. My slow clap processor made it into this thing. So we have that.
Also, “According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional …, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven.” Let’s do some math:
Heaven == eternal
Punishment prior to heaven == not eternal
Therefore
Amount of time spent in heaven = infinitely greater than the amount of time spent being punished
And knowing this, he expects us to give a shit.
*clap… clap… clap…*
Good, that’s still working.
Randomfactor
May 2, 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Because there is sin in the world.” …
And two to take ‘em.
bbgunn
May 2, 2012 at 12:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I see a new bid item at some churches’ silent auctions.
dingojack
May 2, 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Indulgences? – Isn’t this one of the major factors that lead to Protestantism?
I’m sure it’ll work out just fine this time. It’s not repeating idiocies of the past in the expectation of different outcome, nosiree! Nothing to see here – move along please!
@@
Dingo
d cwilson
May 2, 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why does Catholic doctrine always sound like something a Sunday school teacher thought up on the fly when asked a question by an eight year old?
Child: What if a person does some really bad things, but goes to confession right before he dies, but a really good person yells at his father, but dies before getting to confession, does the bad person go to Heaven and the good person go to Hell?
SST: Well, we have this thing called Purgatory, where you have to work off all of your sins before you get into Heaven.
Child: My cousin’s baby died before her baptism, did she go to Hell?
SST: Um, no. She went to Limbo, which is a place that’s not as bad as Hell but not as good as Heaven.
Child: If my leg is amputated, will it be waiting for me in Heaven?
SST: Go see if Father O’Malley needs help in the rectory!
Raging Bee
May 2, 2012 at 12:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Why does Catholic doctrine always sound like something a Sunday school teacher thought up on the fly when asked a question by an eight year old?
Probably because the entirety of Catholic doctrine was made up, from day one, of “answers” thought up on the fly to questions asked by illiterate pagans trying to sift through all the Church’s smoke and disinformation.
Chiroptera
May 2, 2012 at 1:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Raging Bee, #27: Probably because the entirety of Catholic doctrine was made up, from day one, of “answers” thought up on the fly to questions asked by illiterate pagans trying to sift through all the Church’s smoke and disinformation.
Heh. Maybe so. But my impression (not necessarily an accurate one) is that a lot of dogma (especially the garbled nonsense about the Trinity) is the result of political infighting among the different factions of the early Church.
These different factions would declare their opponents’ beliefs as heretical and anathema, and then would actually make their opinions law if and when they came to power as an excuse to liquidate their opponents.
Then after several hundred years, someone realized what a garbled and contradictory mess these unsystematic pronouncements had created. And, voila, the deep Mystery that is the Trinity!
Gregory in Seattle
May 2, 2012 at 1:34 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“Because donations are down, and we need to do something to reinvigorate our tax-free revenue stream. Selling indulgences worked successfully for centuries; what’s the worst that could happen?”
feralboy12
May 2, 2012 at 1:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
But that’s not all! Order now and get this free set of steak knives…
shouldbeworking
May 2, 2012 at 1:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I could have used a get out of hell free card. I would have applied it to that thermodynamics course in second year univerity. Oh the suffering….
birdy
May 2, 2012 at 3:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Makoto raised an interesting issue: The case of Terminal Illness
Most people experiencing terminal illness run up big medical bills, so making a large charitable donation during a terminal illness can be challenging. Could this become part of our health insurance plan? That way we could make the requisite donation to Catholic Charities–backdated to the time of our death–and get a plenary indulgence on the last day of our lives.
jerthebarbarian
May 2, 2012 at 4:30 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
lofgren @15
I hate Vancian casting. When is the church going to update to a more modern system like spell points or recharge segments?
You sir owe me a keyboard. Mine is now full of coffee.
(Catholic spells are all so useless in a dungeon crawl anyway. “Turn Bread Into Flesh”? “Wine To Blood”? I suppose they might be useful if you need to distract a rabid cave bear or something, but a Cure Light Wounds spell would be far more useful, I’d think.)
Doug Little
May 2, 2012 at 4:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
There that’s what his inside voice actually meant.
natewoods
May 2, 2012 at 11:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Offer limited to one per sinner per day. Not valid in all states. For confessions lasting more than four hours, consult your theologian immediately.
gratch
May 3, 2012 at 3:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If you “donated” a large cheque then died the next day would the angels make you wait in Purgatory until it cleared?
left0ver1under
May 3, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The only difference between catholic “indulgences” and protestant view of “pray and be forgiven for anything” is when the cults get the money. The protestants take it before the act, the catholics after.
Both cults are selling “salvation” to the rich, to excuse any act and to profit from it. They’re actually encouraging wall street and warmongers with this, in much the same way catholic cardinals in South America gave clean bills of health to fascists like Pinochet in exchange for power and influence.
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