Ship of Fools: The Pope and indulgences

Thread: The Pope and indulgences Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

Can some learned Catholic shed any light on what seems to this cradle version, as to why the Pope is granting indulgences to those who follow his Tweets? It's enough to make me hot foot it to Canterbury.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

Link.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

Sobald die Twitter-Meldung pingt
Die Seele in den Himmel springt

_____
(as soon as the tweet pings, a soul into heaven springs -- parody of actual medieval jingle about coins in collection-boxes getting souls out of Purgatory)

Posted by Komensky (# 8675) on :

It's lovely in Canterbury right now.

K.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

It is a little more than just "follow his tweets."

Here is a relatively clear explanation, which notes that, as usual for a plenary indulgence, one must meet the "usual conditions" of sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion, and prayer in accordance with the intentions of the Pope. And following on social media must be done with "due devotion."

So just reading the tweets gets you zip.

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

Even granting a belief in purgatory, the notion of getting a calculable number of years off seems a bit silly, though, doesn't it? I understand that the Twitter bit is really about equal access: not everyone can afford to fly and be there live, so if you follow it on TV or online you get the same benefits.

But still: does someone have access to some secret sentencing guidelines we're not aware of? Are they in John 22 or something?

Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :

I think nowadays they don't stipulate exact measures of time, merely "plenary" and "partial". If the conditions for a plenary indulgence are not exactly met then the indulgence automatically becomes partial. Still, all nonsense, of course, but they have moved away from exact periods of time.

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
I think nowadays they don't stipulate exact measures of time, merely "plenary" and "partial". If the conditions for a plenary indulgence are not exactly met then the indulgence automatically becomes partial. Still, all nonsense, of course, but they have moved away from exact periods of time.

The Guardian link Croesos posted above reads in part:

quote:
Indulgences these days are granted to those who carry out certain tasks – such as climbing the Sacred Steps, in Rome (reportedly brought from Pontius Pilate's house after Jesus scaled them before his crucifixion), a feat that earns believers seven years off purgatory.

That may well be inaccurate but I was assuming it was correct.

Posted by argona (# 14037) on :

I think Andrew Brown gets it about right here as far as tweeting is concerned. What puzzles me about "purgatory theory" is that, if it's my soul being cleansed there, how does the prayer of others, even random strangers who know nothing about me, apparently hasten the process along? Even, I'm told, prayers for someone who has in fact already made it to heaven, will be transferred to the next in line for release, who will benefit. All this from Catholic friends. Is it really the doctrine, or are my friends as off-the-wall as this sounds to me?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
But still: does someone have access to some secret sentencing guidelines we're not aware of? Are they in John 22 or something?

One minute per tweeted character read, so a maximum of 140 minutes per tweet. [Big Grin]

Of course, there are some pretty heinous ways this doctrine could potentially be abused.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
But still: does someone have access to some secret sentencing guidelines we're not aware of? Are they in John 22 or something?
One minute per tweeted character read, so a maximum of 140 minutes per tweet.

Of course, there are some pretty heinous ways this doctrine could potentially be abused.

Of course, just like many other good things can also be potentially abused:

Linda was promised good grades in return for sex, now she has a baby and is no longer in school

quote:
ZAMBEZIA, Mozambique, 2 May 2011 – Linda (not her real name) is a 16-year old girl from a city in Zambezia, who was taken advantage of sexually by her teacher, a 40-year old man, known and respected in the community.

ETA: Sorry for the tit-for-tat, but it's just frustrating that priestly abuse has to be brought up every single freeking time there's a Catholic related thread in Purgatory.

[ 17. July 2013, 18:40: Message edited by: Pancho ]

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
The Guardian ...
I was assuming it was correct.

Ah! I think I have found the problem! [Big Grin]

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

Is it possible that this is a deliberate joke?

Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :

quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Is it possible that this is a deliberate joke?

I don't think so, as the Guardian Comment points out there's no fundamental reason why learning from Twitter (the other guardian article says social media, so I think it's been caricatured) is a magic cut-off.
Given the (Roman) Pope's a catholic, it's not odd that he believes that catholic teaching would be of lasting benefit.

Personally as a prot, I've found an ill-defined purgatory has many attractions. There are far too many people I'd be uncomfortable if they waltzed into heaven, but few (depending on the day none or a worryingly large number) I'd be comfortable wishing an eternity of punishment on.

Still personally, I don't think there's a particularly good case for being certain, (probably both cause and effect)

The other thing is that cynically buying time off purgatory is definitely loopy (if doing exercise will save me an heart operation later then great I want to avoid it, but otherwise I don't pay my taxes to for the NHS not to do the operation).

Posted by Ye Olde Motherboarde (# 54) on :

Posted by Mousethief"

Sobald die Twitter-Meldung pingt
Die Seele in den Himmel springt

After JB translated it for me, this made my day. And made me think I do need to take German lessons.
I Love you Mousethief! [Axe murder]

But, back to the thread.
It sounds like we are going back to the "good old middle ages", doesn't it?

We need Martin Luther again! [Help]

And, as for this theology of Purgatory. It's NOT biblical!

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

OK, indulgences 101 (for the umpteenth time...):

Indulgences do not remit the guilt of sin, and no historical example of an indulgence issued by pope or council that claims to do so exists. Rather, they wrote edicts against such spurious indulgences from the 14thC. Baptism and sacramental confession with absolution remit the guilt of sin.
If a sin is fully pardoned (sacramental absolution, complete reparation), then an indulgence can (partly) remove the canonical requirements of the Church for penance and the temporal punishment according to Divine justice. The former makes more sense if one knows that penance used to by very harsh. It was less of saying ten Hail Mary's, and more kneeling outside the church doors for many years of Sundays. The latter means that even if a sin is forgiven fully, this does not mean that it has no more ill effects "in time" (in this world). For example, David's child dies as God's punishment even though David has been forgiven for Uriah the Hittite's murder (2 Sam 12). This, as well as venial sin, is being dealt with in purgatory after death.
The rating of indulgences by days and years was not a reference to whatever mode of time may be passing in purgatory. Rather, it was a reference to the harsh canonical penances of the Church. If you had to kneel three years before church doors, and an indulgence took away two years, then you had a year left to do, basically. It later provided a kind of "rating system" of what acts are more pleasing to God (and Church), simply by comparing the by then fairly abstract numbers. For better or worse, the modern Church has however done away with this quantification. So the Guardian is simply wrong in reporting a specific number of years.
The basic idea here is that according to Divine justice "what goes around comes around", even after the threat of hell is sacramentally removed. The key point is the claim that the Church cannot only absolve one from sin, but can also catch the karmic boomerang one has thrown before it hits one in the butt. That's an indulgence.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ye Olde Motherboarde:

And, as for this theology of Purgatory. It's NOT biblical!

Hardly a convincing argument when put like that -- isn't this what the Jews say about Christianity? With some reason, too, as Christianity wasn't biblical till Christians added the New Testament and re-interpreted Hebrew Scriptures to suit themselves.

Edit: fixed code.

[ 17. July 2013, 23:35: Message edited by: RuthW ]

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

Thank you IngoB for doing the heavy lifting. I was going to state many of the same points, but I feared my grasp of the niceties of indulgences was missing a few points. Your summary was pleasingly straightforward.

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So the Guardian is simply wrong in reporting a specific number of years.

Imagine my surprise... [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :

My mother always told me that it wasn't a plenary indulgence that I needed, but plenty of indulgences. [Razz]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I don't think my sins will fit into 140 characters.

Posted by roybart (# 17357) on :

Thank you, IngoB for your detailed recapitulation of indulgence theory.

In the late 50s and early 60s, however -- those last years before Vatican II -- we who attended catechism classes in suburban Long Island, NY, were presented with something quite unlike what you describe. In fact, what I recall vividly is precisely what you say that indulgences are NOT.

-- Partial indulgences definitely were calibrated in terms of years off in a very real place called purgatory;

-- They were conditional on carrying out penances which were overwhelmingly couched in terms of "Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Glory-be-to-the-Fathers." The number to be recited was sometimes small, sometimes large. I can't remember ever receiving any other penance. My sins at that age tended to be of the namby-pamby variety, so I may not know the whole story about that.

Was this perhaps a time when sophisticated theology was out of sync with what was being taught to, and imposed upon, the laity in the pews? Were we simply being taught some sort of folk religion that did not actually conform to orthodox Catholic teaching?

Or have Catholic teachings regarding indulgences changed since then?

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
Personally as a prot, I've found an ill-defined purgatory has many attractions. There are far too many people I'd be uncomfortable if they waltzed into heaven, but few (depending on the day none or a worryingly large number) I'd be comfortable wishing an eternity of punishment on.

Some broader idea of purgation or slow divinization after death can be held outside the framework of Purgatory per se, so don't worry about your Protestant street cred.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
In the late 50s and early 60s, however -- those last years before Vatican II -- we who attended catechism classes in suburban Long Island, NY, were presented with something quite unlike what you describe. In fact, what I recall vividly is precisely what you say that indulgences are NOT.

-- Partial indulgences definitely were calibrated in terms of years off in a very real place called purgatory;

I cannot really comment on what you were told back then. But I do believe that purgatory is "very real", and if I am fortunate enough to go to heaven, then it will be very likely that I will experience it personally...

As for the numbers of years in which indulgences were measured, it is of course correct to say that a "seven year indulgence" would wipe out "seven years of punishment" in purgatory. Just as it would wipe out "seven years of punishment" in this life if one did not immediately die upon receiving the indulgence... The problem was that the meaning of this had been corrupted to the literal, because the proper reference had disappeared.

Imagine once upon a time people paid each other with salt, which way back then was very precious. So someone receiving "three kilos of salt" would receive the equivalent worth of a nice BMW today. Now imagine that somehow this mode of speaking survived even though modernity delivered an abundance of salt. What do we mean then if we say "my partner is buying three kilos of salt at the supermarket again"? A literal interpretation would be just that, three kilos of salt are being bought (for a small price). But what was actually meant here is that enormous amount of goods were being bought, by reference to how valuable salt used to be.

The "seven years of punishment" in purgatory are also not a literal reference to seven actual years. They are a reference to the harsh this-wordly penances of the past, so this simply means "a great deal of punishment". And though this is quantitative, we cannot evaluate the equivalence, just rank it. We know that "three years of punishment" are less severe. But we do not know what precisely this would amount to in purgatory (or for that matter in this world: is business failure "equivalent" to three or seven years of punishment?).

It is precisely because people were not understanding this any longer that the Church eventually gave up on talking this way about indulgences.

quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
-- They were conditional on carrying out penances which were overwhelmingly couched in terms of "Our Fathers, Hail Marys, and Glory-be-to-the-Fathers." The number to be recited was sometimes small, sometimes large. I can't remember ever receiving any other penance. My sins at that age tended to be of the namby-pamby variety, so I may not know the whole story about that.

I wouldn't really know either, I wasn't born... But the harsh penalties I'm referring to would be practice in antiquity to the middle ages. One could perhaps say that the penances imposed were themselves becoming more indulgent after that, hence the indulgences lost their original reference frame.

quote:
Originally posted by roybart:
Was this perhaps a time when sophisticated theology was out of sync with what was being taught to, and imposed upon, the laity in the pews? Were we simply being taught some sort of folk religion that did not actually conform to orthodox Catholic teaching? Or have Catholic teachings regarding indulgences changed since then?

It is more that when the relevant Catholic practice changed drastically, but the Catholic way of talking about it didn't, one had to become "sophisticated" to know the proper meaning of what was being said. The link to direct experience disappeared. The adjustments of Vatican II were intended to remove the ensuing confusion, they were not a change of doctrine.

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The "seven years of punishment" in purgatory are also not a literal reference to seven actual years. They are a reference to the harsh this-wordly penances of the past, so this simply means "a great deal of punishment". And though this is quantitative, we cannot evaluate the equivalence, just rank it.

A good attempt at justification but I don't buy it. If the RCC never actually thought that these were literal years they were offering people but that they were just ranking punishment in a convenient nominclature then why did they choose a word for their ranking system so easily misunderstood? Years are years. You sell a peasant seven years, he thinks that means he's getting a literal seven years. Its deceitful. They should have invented some currency like Purgatory Credits for this. The reason they didn't is because they actively wanted the peasants to think they were getting literal time off from purgatory. If the peasants weren't fooled into thinking that, they would have valued the Church's vague-sounding Purgatory Credits much less highly.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
A good attempt at justification but I don't buy it. If the RCC never actually thought that these were literal years they were offering people but that they were just ranking punishment in a convenient nominclature then why did they choose a word for their ranking system so easily misunderstood? Years are years. You sell a peasant seven years, he thinks that means he's getting a literal seven years. Its deceitful. They should have invented some currency like Purgatory Credits for this. The reason they didn't is because they actively wanted the peasants to think they were getting literal time off from purgatory. If the peasants weren't fooled into thinking that, they would have valued the Church's vague-sounding Purgatory Credits much less highly.

You didn't actually bother reading my posts on this thread, did you now? Because indeed these were "real years" once upon a time, namely years of harsh penance that a penitent would have to perform before being readmitted as full member of the Church. This was so in antiquity, and to some degree up to the middle ages. However, then the penances imposed got reduced drastically ("ten Hail Mary's") whereas the old labelling system was kept but lost its original meaning. As mentioned, once upon a time an indulgence of two years would have reduced your "penance sentence" from say three years of fasting to one year. The numerical value and the time duration made just as much sense as talking today about a "four year prison sentence, reduced to two years for good conduct". Except that then the Church changed its practice but kept the labels. You can of course claim that the Church had sinister motives in keeping the old labels. That's a different issue.

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

There's a church down the road from me, RC, St Francis de Sales, a listed building, converted thatched barn, with a plenary indulgence attached to its shrine of Our Lady, during WWI. This is a thing I have not yet got my mind round.

Posted by roybart (# 17357) on :

Thank you, IngoB, for your clear, detailed answer to my questions. One of your points, especially, helps me understand what I have always seen as a dissonance (cognitive and other) between what Catholic intellectuals understand and say about these matters, and talk about among themselves, and what is offered to the less sophisticated in the pews.

quote:
It is more that when the relevant Catholic practice changed drastically, but the Catholic way of talking about it didn't, one had to become "sophisticated" to know the proper meaning of what was being said. The link to direct experience disappeared. The adjustments of Vatican II were intended to remove the ensuing confusion, they were not a change of doctrine.

Somehow I sense a problem here, one which may apply to all doctrinally-focused, legalistic churches. Over time, doctrine -- "teaching" -- becomes more and more detailed, complex, convoluted, etc. (The same process applies to rituals). When this happens, the core message of a religion may sometime become obscured or seriously confused, as it trickles down from the top.

Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Because indeed these were "real years" once upon a time, namely years of harsh penance that a penitent would have to perform before being readmitted as full member of the Church. This was so in antiquity, and to some degree up to the middle ages...

"To say that an indulgence of so many days or years is granted means that it cancels an amount of purgatorial punishment equivalent to that which would have been remitted, in the sight of God, by the performance of so many days or years of the ancient canonical penance."

link

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

Forgive my presumption, Holy Smoke, but I suspect that what you were trying to link to was this entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia:Indulgences. Which, as the section you quoted makes clear, confirms IngoB's summary of the issue.

Although, frankly, I found IngoB to be somewhat clearer in terms of an explanation as to what "ancient canonical penance" was.

Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
Forgive my presumption, Holy Smoke, but I suspect that what you were trying to link to was this entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia:Indulgences. Which, as the section you quoted makes clear, confirms IngoB's summary of the issue.

Although, frankly, I found IngoB to be somewhat clearer in terms of an explanation as to what "ancient canonical penance" was.

My understanding from the article I quoted from is that the RCC believes that, since the repentant sinner no longer undergoes temporal punishment for his sin, then he will instead have to undergo a period in purgatory in its stead. Therefore, the indulgence now serves to reduce that period in purgatory, rather than reducing the earthly punishment. Real punishment, real remission, rather than labels and karma.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

and with each 100 tweets you follow you are entered into a drawing to have a free picture taken with Jesus on judgement day.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
My understanding from the article I quoted from is that the RCC believes that, since the repentant sinner no longer undergoes temporal punishment for his sin, then he will instead have to undergo a period in purgatory in its stead. Therefore, the indulgence now serves to reduce that period in purgatory, rather than reducing the earthly punishment. Real punishment, real remission, rather than labels and karma.

You seem to think that you are contradicting me somehow, but that is not the case. Yes, temporal punishment would be transferred to purgatory, as I've said above. My point was however that an indulgence of "seven years" would not remit seven years of punishment as marked by some imaginary calendar in purgatory. Rather it would remit punishment equivalent to what seven years of ancient canonical penance in this world would have removed. And just like the equivalence to temporal punishment in this world is uncertain (for example, how many years of ancient penance is equivalent to being maimed?), so it is in purgatory. Thus a "seven year indulgence" becomes merely a quantitative label, unless we are actually doing ancient penance (in which case we can literally subtract seven years from it). Saying this does not deny a reduction of punishment in purgatory, but rather naive "time counting" thereof. Finally, my comment on "karma" was simply an attempt to illustrate more intuitively and less legalistically what aspect of Divine justice we are talking about with temporal punishment.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

And yet the Bible is quite clear that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all (every) sin. I do not need to wait until 'purgatory' for my sins to be cleansed, thank you very much. I'll accept by faith the forgiveness offered by Jesus through the cross.

Oh, and by the way, all this (false) talk of punishment in purgatory reminds me that according to Paul there is now no condemnation awaiting those who are in Christ Jesus.

Neither is there any uncertainty about going to heaven. Again according to Paul, the Holy Spirit is given as a guarantee of eternal life.

Posted by anteater (# 11435) on :

MudFrog:

quote:
Oh, and by the way, all this (false) talk of punishment in purgatory reminds me that according to Paul there is now no condemnation awaiting those who are in Christ Jesus.

So what do you do with the teaching of the NT which makes it clear that christians can still be subject to punishment? Like Hebrews:

quote:
‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves,and chastises every child whom he accepts.’
Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline?

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

This isn't a frivolous question, though since it's me, I can't resist asking it in frivolous terms -

In theory, can the Pope attach an indulgence to anything? I mean, could he say "a plenary indulgence (on the usual conditions) for wearing a goldfish in your ear for a day"?

Posted by glockenspiel (# 13645) on :

All this talk of 'remitting punishments' by some arcane formula seems a bit off to me - Surely the RCs would be on much stronger ground if they gave up any special claims in this area, and just proposed purgatory as being roughly equivalent to, say, having to hang around in a train station waiting room, for an extended period of time??

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This isn't a frivolous question, though since it's me, I can't resist asking it in frivolous terms -

In theory, can the Pope attach an indulgence to anything? I mean, could he say "a plenary indulgence (on the usual conditions) for wearing a goldfish in your ear for a day"?

I suspect the party-line answer goes something like this: Of course not. The Pope doesn't attach indulgences to anything, he instructs us about the indulgences naturally inherent in certain things. Like reading his Tweets, or, for the last pope, sending him new shoes.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by glockenspiel:
All this talk of 'remitting punishments' by some arcane formula seems a bit off to me - Surely the RCs would be on much stronger ground if they gave up any special claims in this area, and just proposed purgatory as being roughly equivalent to, say, having to hang around in a train station waiting room, for an extended period of time??

Understand that the RC Church does not pretend to know what God will do, or "how long" God will deem an appropriate period of punishment for sinful conduct. But if one accepts the concept of a Purgatory, why does it seem "a bit off" to suggest that doing acts of piety and devotion would lessen the amount of time in Purgatory? That seems perfectly reasonable to me. That is why earning an indulgence involves performing an act of piety. Quoting from the encylopedia article on indulgences that I linked to earlier:

quote:
The mere fact that the Church proclaims an indulgence does not imply that it can be gained without effort on the part of the faithful. From what has been said above, it is clear that the recipient must be free from the guilt of mortal sin. Furthermore, for plenary indulgences, confession and Communion are usually required, while for partial indulgences, though confession is not obligatory, the formula corde saltem contrito, i.e. "at least with a contrite heart", is the customary prescription.

and

quote:
Finally, from the nature of the case, it is obvious that one must perform the good works — prayers, alms deeds, visits to a church, etc. — which are prescribed in the granting of an indulgence.

And if you accept that acts of piety and devotion can lessen the period of punishment, it also seems reasonable to assume that some acts of devotion grant greater benefit in that regard than others. So, for example, praying a novena might seem to be somewhat more beneficial than making the sign of the cross when you pass by a church. The "arcane formula" was just a way of trying to rate (in the Church's opinion) the relative beneficial nature of various acts of piety.

[Edit: typo]

[ 19. July 2013, 12:54: Message edited by: Hedgehog ]

Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This isn't a frivolous question, though since it's me, I can't resist asking it in frivolous terms -

In theory, can the Pope attach an indulgence to anything? I mean, could he say "a plenary indulgence (on the usual conditions) for wearing a goldfish in your ear for a day"?
I suspect the party-line answer goes something like this: Of course not. The Pope doesn't attach indulgences to anything, he instructs us about the indulgences naturally inherent in certain things. Like reading his Tweets, or, for the last pope, sending him new shoes.

So it's more like discovering that if you wear a goldfish in your ear you'll have your punishment remitted?

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
And if you accept that acts of piety and devotion can lessen the period of punishment, it also seems reasonable to assume that some acts of devotion grant greater benefit in that regard than others. So, for example, praying a novena might seem to be somewhat more beneficial than making the sign of the cross when you pass by a church. The "arcane formula" was just a way of trying to rate (in the Church's opinion) the relative beneficial nature of various acts of piety.

A) This sounds like a belief in magic to me, frankly. If I do A, God will reduce my time in purgatory; if I do B, which the Church ranks as better, God will reduce it even more.

B) "Good works" are feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting those in prison. Saying X number of prayers, making X number of signs of the cross, going to mass X times all sound like "works of the law," to me, and I had thought those were supposed to be passé in Christianity as of, oh, Paul.

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

I've read all the replies, and it's been interesting. Some responses seem very close to the legalistic interpretations I learned at school, and which, I thought, had been swept away by VII. I have certainly never heard mention of indulgences at Mass or in any parish group for fifty odd years. I had supposed that they were part of the history of the church, appropriate to the understanding of the times when the idea developed. But that seems not to be the case according to some posters on this thread.

What I was hoping for was a response from a theologian who could explain the idea in other that mediaeval terms.

All this talk of punishment and time off sounds like a church version of a community sentence of which unpaid work is an element.

Nothing to do with loving God and your neighbour.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Nope, I'd rather trust in Christ, his cleansing blood and his saving grace which, in this life cleanses from all sin - even if he has to 'chastise' me in order to help me to grow in my Christian life.

That chastisement is not, however, condemnation for my sin, but loving discipline.

Perhaps someone could clear up a point for me. I read somewhere that the only difference between purgatory and hell was duration. Is this orthodox teaching? It seems rather harsh that God the Father would subject a soul to the fires of hell, however temporary, just to burn off excess sin.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

It looks like there already was a thread on indulgences just a few months ago. Certain shipmates above should look at this cached version first:
Indulgences(cached)

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

P.S.

quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
I have certainly never heard mention of indulgences at Mass or in any parish group for fifty odd years.

I find this very hard to believe. Indulgences have never gone away and they've been publicized a number of times in my lifetime like, for example, for the celebration of the Jubilee over 10 years ago or for the Year of St. Paul a few years ago.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
It looks like there already was a thread on indulgences just a few months ago. Certain shipmates above should look at this cached version first:
Indulgences(cached)

Thank you, Pancho. I had missed that previous thread.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
if a sin is fully pardoned (sacramental absolution, complete reparation), then an indulgence can (partly) remove the canonical requirements of the Church for penance and the temporal punishment according to Divine justice...

....even if a sin is forgiven fully, this does not mean that it has no more ill effects "in time" (in this world). For example, David's child dies as God's punishment even though David has been forgiven for Uriah the Hittite's murder (2 Sam 12).

The point I find problematic here is the concept of punishing someone after you've forgiven them.

It seems to suppose a philosophy of punishment that is no longer widely held, and needs to be argued for rather than simply taken for granted as an obvious truth.

For example, I would guess that more frequent use of the word "punish" is a marker for a right-wing authoritarian personality type.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

[Overused]

as ever Russ. I´m always surprised when a mind gets stuck with a meme past its sell by date. Which is absurd as I´m now in that state of hopefully approaching hope that comes when none of yer memes work any more. And ye´r looking for new ones ...

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

Pancho - thanks for the link.

On that other thread, IngoB explained in plain English.

What I think it amounts to is that if IngoB dies owing me £100 (whether as a literal debt or as unpaid recompense for some sin against me that he has been unwilling or unable to compensate me for) then in purgatory he will undergo £100-worth of suffering, even if I have forgiven him and do not wish him to suffer and God has forgiven him also.

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Hawk (# 14289) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
It seems rather harsh that God the Father would subject a soul to the fires of hell, however temporary, just to burn off excess sin.

Especially when it is based on a very primitive version of justice. The idea of purgatory is to improve a person sufficiently so they can get into heaven. Yet the mechanism is based on the idea that to make people more moral and holy you need to hurt or humiliate them sufficiently. The harder you hurt someone or the worse you humiliate them then the better it makes them. Such is the point of the penances imposed by the medieval church on earth and the purpose of the purgatorial experience it preaches after you die. Yet we know that this is counter productive. The worse you treat someone the more messed up and brutalised they can become rather than the opposite.

Fortunately we know that God knows us better than the medieval Roman theologians who made this all up. Purgatory is a human invention, and God will sanctify us far more effectively according to his grace, sovereignty and love.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

Indeed - and we don't forget that the thief/malafacter/bandit/terrorist on the cross never went to any 'purgatory'; he went straight to Paradise with Christ and from there to heaven.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

If you substitute the Anglican idea of the Church Expectant - or AFAIK the Orthodox notion of Paradise - for the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, the whole business of indulgences crumbles, even whilst we still posit an intermediate state between departing the relative dark-seeing of the Church Militant here in earth and arriving at the fullness of the beatific vision of perfect communion with the Triune God (the Church Triumphant). In the Church Expectant, those who have departed this life continue to grow in the love and service of God until such point that they know, love and serve Him perfectly.

In contrast to the foregoing, the more radically Protestant notion of a translation immediately into the state of Heaven upon death (or alternatively at the general resurrection) seems counter-intuitive.

The only version of the Romish notion of Purgatory that I can reasonably imagine actually falls along the more radically Protestant lines, in that Purgatory would involve the intense but cleansing pain associated with the complete but repentant realisation of our own failures, unworthiness and inadequacy when faced by the personal, individual judgement following death -- but this repentant realisation would itself be an utterly transformational thing that would bring the penitent soul into a correct state of communion with the Trinity. Hence, this wouldn't be a prolonged state of anguish, and would neither need nor be susceptible to mitigation via the mechanism of indulgences.

All this is just so much theorising, ISTM, but what I do find implausible is the specifically Romish, mediaeval ideas of Purgatory, hence also the indulgences promulgated by the Church of Rome to mitigate "time"/punishment in Purgatory (and how could you have "time" as a quality of a state that is outside of our linearly-perceived dimension of time?).

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed - and we don't forget that the thief/malafacter/bandit/terrorist on the cross never went to any 'purgatory'; he went straight to Paradise with Christ and from there to heaven.

But it could be that the Good Thief experienced his own temporal punishment as he himself seems to suggest: "And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal" (Luke 23:41).

One might speculate that the Good Thief went through his own "purgatory" on the cross next to Jesus.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

One might also speculate that the good thief joined Our Lord in Paradise - the intermediate state for which Jesus was initially bound upon his death: He descended to the dead, offering salvation to the departed. He didn't ascend to the Father for sometime thereafter, as I recall.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed - and we don't forget that the thief/malafacter/bandit/terrorist on the cross never went to any 'purgatory'; he went straight to Paradise with Christ and from there to heaven.
But it could be that the Good Thief experienced his own temporal punishment as he himself seems to suggest: "And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal" (Luke 23:41).

One might speculate that the Good Thief went through his own "purgatory" on the cross next to Jesus.

That was in this mortal life!

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed - and we don't forget that the thief/malafacter/bandit/terrorist on the cross never went to any 'purgatory'; he went straight to Paradise with Christ and from there to heaven.
But it could be that the Good Thief experienced his own temporal punishment as he himself seems to suggest: "And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal" (Luke 23:41).

One might speculate that the Good Thief went through his own "purgatory" on the cross next to Jesus.
That was in this mortal life!

And? No one ever said temporal punishment can only be remitted in Purgatory.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
One might also speculate that the good thief joined Our Lord in Paradise - the intermediate state for which Jesus was initially bound upon his death: He descended to the dead, offering salvation to the departed. He didn't ascend to the Father for sometime thereafter, as I recall.

Bot strictly true.
He descended to the place of the dead which was divided into 2 parts - Paradise or The Bosom of Abraham, and Torment (from which there is not escape).

The thief was taken to paradise which Jesus emptied on his ascension.
Jesus did not preach salvation, he announced the good news of release to the souls in Paradise.

There was no salvation for those in Torment.

Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Indeed - and we don't forget that the thief/malafacter/bandit/terrorist on the cross never went to any 'purgatory'; he went straight to Paradise with Christ and from there to heaven.
But it could be that the Good Thief experienced his own temporal punishment as he himself seems to suggest: "And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal" (Luke 23:41).

One might speculate that the Good Thief went through his own "purgatory" on the cross next to Jesus.
That was in this mortal life!
And? No one ever said temporal punishment can only be remitted in Purgatory.

Neither did I.
What I am saying is that there is NO punishment in purgatory. The man was suffering the judicial sentemce for his crimes. By Jesus talking him to paradise immediately, he was entirely forgiven of his sin before God - with no need for spiritual punishment.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
One might also speculate that the good thief joined Our Lord in Paradise - the intermediate state for which Jesus was initially bound upon his death: He descended to the dead, offering salvation to the departed. He didn't ascend to the Father for sometime thereafter, as I recall.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Are you identifying Hell (as in the Limbo of the Fathers) with Purgatory because they're both intermediate states?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by glockenspiel:
All this talk of 'remitting punishments' by some arcane formula seems a bit off to me - Surely the RCs would be on much stronger ground if they gave up any special claims in this area, and just proposed purgatory as being roughly equivalent to, say, having to hang around in a train station waiting room, for an extended period of time??

What the RCC teaches with authority in matters of faith and morals is not a proposition, but a fact. If you don't believe that, don't be RC. And purgatory is not like a waiting room, but more like hell minus eternity.

quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
So it's more like discovering that if you wear a goldfish in your ear you'll have your punishment remitted?

The papacy is an office ordered to a specific task. By no stretch of imagination would making people wear goldfish in their ear further that task. The only useful discussion that can come from your example is what the Church will do if a pope becomes mentally unfit for the office without resigning. Because providing an indulgence for wearing goldfish in one's ear is clear evidence of having lost it.

Assuming a mentally stable pope, there is a wide range of things he could possibly offer indulgences for. In practice, unless a pope for some reason develops a specific interest in developing indulgences, this is more something of a routine. It takes no great prophecy to predict that say attending Word Youth Day 20XX will grant a plenary indulgence.

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
A) This sounds like a belief in magic to me, frankly. If I do A, God will reduce my time in purgatory; if I do B, which the Church ranks as better, God will reduce it even more.

Why would that remind you of "magic"? It's no different from any other justice system that includes penalties and punishments. You can get a prison sentence reduced for good behavior. You can pay someone's fines for them. Etc.

quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
B) "Good works" are feeding the hungry, healing the sick, visiting those in prison. Saying X number of prayers, making X number of signs of the cross, going to mass X times all sound like "works of the law," to me, and I had thought those were supposed to be passé in Christianity as of, oh, Paul.

It's funny how many Protestants either forget Christ's First Commandment entirely, or pretend it is the Second. But loving your neighbour as yourself actually comes second to loving God with all your heart, soul and mind. Likewise in the OT's Ten Commandments it is those about God first, then those about man. Consequently, acts of religion do not play a secondary, or worse, negligible role in pleasing God. (To be fair, most Protestants put great stake in their personal prayers to God. So it is not really that they've forgotten worship over practical charity. Rather the only acts of religion they value are their own, and it is those of others, in particular those "typical" of Catholics, which they dismiss as worthless.)

quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
Some responses seem very close to the legalistic interpretations I learned at school, and which, I thought, had been swept away by VII.

Swept away by what of Vatican II, precisely? I've read the documents of Vatican II, have you? You can read the Catechism on indulgences, if you like. In particular:

quote:
1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the "eternal punishment" of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the "temporal punishment" of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain. (CIC, can. 994. 84 Cf. Council of Trent (1551): DS 1712-1713; (1563): 1820)

quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
What I was hoping for was a response from a theologian who could explain the idea in other that mediaeval terms.

I assume "mediaeval" is here code for "sin and punishment", neither of which is much believed in by "Spirit of Vatican II Catholics".

quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
Nothing to do with loving God and your neighbour.

Yeah...

If you are perfect in your love of God and neighbour, then indeed none of this concerns you personally. However, you probably are not perfect, at least not all the time. Then what?

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Perhaps someone could clear up a point for me. I read somewhere that the only difference between purgatory and hell was duration. Is this orthodox teaching? It seems rather harsh that God the Father would subject a soul to the fires of hell, however temporary, just to burn off excess sin.

First, I doubt that there is any authoritative teaching on what purgatory will be like exactly (not sure though, and my books are packed away at the moment). It is traditionally conceived of as a "purifying fire", which provides an obvious similarity to hell. Second, the pain of the damned is traditionally considered to come in two kinds: pain of the senses (poena sensus) and pain of damnation (poena damni). The latter - full awareness of the loss of God for all eternity - is by far the worse of the two. Both in and by itself, and by making the pain experienced by the senses hopeless: never to be overcome, and leading nowhere.

Now, if one says that the only difference between purgatory and hell is the duration, then one is in fact removing the pain of damnation (poena damni). Because those in purgatory will see God eventually, and know this. So their pain of the senses (poena sensus) may be the same while it lasts, but it is full of hope, or actually not even hope, it is faced in the certainty of a blissful outcome. It's more like a visit to the dentist then.

I do not think that it is doctrine that the pain inflicted on the senses is the same in purgatory and hell. But even if it was way more severe in purgatory, it would be a much more bearable pain psychologically. The issue of duration is actually key.

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
The point I find problematic here is the concept of punishing someone after you've forgiven them. It seems to suppose a philosophy of punishment that is no longer widely held, and needs to be argued for rather than simply taken for granted as an obvious truth. For example, I would guess that more frequent use of the word "punish" is a marker for a right-wing authoritarian personality type.

So instead of providing any argument yourself on the matter, you make an unsupported assertion and then try to derail discussion with an argumentum ad hominem, implying that only "right-wing authoritarian personality types" could possibly support punishment?

Setting such rhetorical niceties aside, the distinction is actually obvious. If somebody kills my son, then I may be able to forgive him (if he repents and begs for forgiveness for his crime). Let's say that I am that big, for the sake of discussion. It does not follow at all that I would want the murderer of my son instantly released from prison. Neither would the murderer expect that to be part of my forgiveness. (Or if it were so, then we would question his motives.) In fact, it is precisely by accepting a just punishment for his deed as appropriate that the murderer might convince me that he deserves my forgiveness.

quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
What I think it amounts to is that if IngoB dies owing me £100 (whether as a literal debt or as unpaid recompense for some sin against me that he has been unwilling or unable to compensate me for) then in purgatory he will undergo £100-worth of suffering, even if I have forgiven him and do not wish him to suffer and God has forgiven him also.

Your paraphrase is an attempt to turn my clear message into something murky. It aims to ridicule by a concern with trivialities (£100), introduces falsehoods (equating unwillingness with inability), ignores key distinctions (double effect of sin), and tries to form imaginary teams, Russ+God vs. purgatory, by sly use of language (parallelism lacking 'to suffer' for God) in spite of their inherent absurdity (Russ+God vs. God's purgatory).

Indeed, people can simply go to the other thread and see what I wrote there.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
What I am saying is that there is NO punishment in purgatory. The man was suffering the judicial sentemce for his crimes. By Jesus talking him to paradise immediately, he was entirely forgiven of his sin before God - with no need for spiritual punishment.

In which case Jesus Christ granted the Good Thief a plenary indulgence for all his sins. [Smile]

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
One might also speculate that the good thief joined Our Lord in Paradise - the intermediate state for which Jesus was initially bound upon his death: He descended to the dead, offering salvation to the departed. He didn't ascend to the Father for sometime thereafter, as I recall.
Bot strictly true.
He descended to the place of the dead which was divided into 2 parts - Paradise or The Bosom of Abraham, and Torment (from which there is not escape).

The thief was taken to paradise which Jesus emptied on his ascension.
Jesus did not preach salvation, he announced the good news of release to the souls in Paradise.

There was no salvation for those in Torment.

Mudfrog, I hesitated over the choice of verb/participle where I ultimately selected "offering". I did not mean by that "preaching" in the sense of offering something that one might or might not accept. Your suggestion of "announced" is closer to what I was trying to describe, though if I wanted to be more to point, I suppose I might use words like "manifested" or "showed forth" or "made known" His completed work of redemption and salvation to the souls in Paradise.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

Going back to what might have prompted this thread, here is the decree from the Vatican that regarding the special indulgences for World Youth Day:

Decree of the Apostolic Penitentiary according to which Special Indulgences are granted to the faithful on the occasion of the 28th World Youth Day

It's a short document and as one can see from the second paragraph of the following:

quote:
a) — the Plenary Indulgence, obtainable once a day is granted on the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer for the Supreme Pontiff’s intentions). It may also be applied by way of suffrage for the souls of deceased faithful and for faithful who are truly repentant and contrite who will devoutly participate in the sacred rites and exercises of devotion that will take place in Rio de Janeiro.

Those faithful who are legitimately prevented may obtain the Plenary Indulgence as long as, having fulfilled the usual conditions — spiritual, sacramental and of prayer — with the intention of filial submission to the Roman Pontiff, they participate in spirit in the sacred functions on the specific days, and as long as they follow these same rites and devotional practices via television and radio or, always with the proper devotion, through the new means of social communication;

it makes no mention of tweets or tweeting. The decree also states the conditions for receiving a partial indulgence during World Youth Day.

There is nothing new about the granting of indulgences during a World Youth Day. For example, one can read the short decree for WYD in Cologne back in 2005 here: link.

Posted by SeraphimSarov (# 4335) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
If you substitute the Anglican idea of the Church Expectant - or AFAIK the Orthodox notion of Paradise - for the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, the whole business of indulgences crumbles, even whilst we still posit an intermediate state between departing the relative dark-seeing of the Church Militant here in earth and arriving at the fullness of the beatific vision of perfect communion with the Triune God (the Church Triumphant). In the Church Expectant, those who have departed this life continue to grow in the love and service of God until such point that they know, love and serve Him perfectly.

In contrast to the foregoing, the more radically Protestant notion of a translation immediately into the state of Heaven upon death (or alternatively at the general resurrection) seems counter-intuitive.

The only version of the Romish notion of Purgatory that I can reasonably imagine actually falls along the more radically Protestant lines, in that Purgatory would involve the intense but cleansing pain associated with the complete but repentant realisation of our own failures, unworthiness and inadequacy when faced by the personal, individual judgement following death -- but this repentant realisation would itself be an utterly transformational thing that would bring the penitent soul into a correct state of communion with the Trinity. Hence, this wouldn't be a prolonged state of anguish, and would neither need nor be susceptible to mitigation via the mechanism of indulgences.

All this is just so much theorising, ISTM, but what I do find implausible is the specifically Romish, mediaeval ideas of Purgatory, hence also the indulgences promulgated by the Church of Rome to mitigate "time"/punishment in Purgatory (and how could you have "time" as a quality of a state that is outside of our linearly-perceived dimension of time?).

How cute that the term "Romish" was applied. Soon we shall have calls for a "No Popery" rally

[ 21. July 2013, 02:19: Message edited by: SeraphimSarov ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
it makes no mention of tweets or tweeting.

Perhaps you missed the part that says "through the new means of social communication"? Tweeting could easily fall under the umbrella of "new means of social communication." This would need to be unpacked, but your categorical rejection of the idea is not warranted by the site you quoted.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
it makes no mention of tweets or tweeting.
Perhaps you missed the part that says "through the new means of social communication"? Tweeting could easily fall under the umbrella of "new means of social communication." This would need to be unpacked, but your categorical rejection of the idea is not warranted by the site you quoted.

No I did not miss that, of course, I quoted it myself. I can read too, you know.

But so much was being made of twitter and tweeting here and elsewhere online as if the indulgence was specifically for tweeting, as if all you had to do is make tweet and bingo! Jackpot! You've got a plenary indulgence!

Just take a look at what the OP wrote,

quote:
Originally posted by Edith:
Can some learned Catholic shed any light on what seems to this cradle version, as to why the Pope is granting indulgences to those who follow his Tweets?

So thank you so much for making it clearer to our audience but I think they understood the point I was making.

p.s.
I didn't make "a categorical rejection", I simply noted "it makes no mention of tweets or tweeting." for the reasons I stated above.

[ 21. July 2013, 04:10: Message edited by: Pancho ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
No I did not miss that, of course, I quoted it myself. I can read too, you know.

Clearly you can read. It doesn't follow that you carefully read everything you posted. And "quoting" and "copying and pasting" are not quite the same thing. One can do the latter and read next to nothing in the text one pastes.

Posted by Pancho (# 13533) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Pancho:
No I did not miss that, of course, I quoted it myself. I can read too, you know.
Clearly you can read. It doesn't follow that you carefully read everything you posted. And "quoting" and "copying and pasting" are not quite the same thing. One can do the latter and read next to nothing in the text one pastes.

Yes I can read. No it doesn't follow that one reads carefully everything that one posts but in my case I certainly try. Yes, "quoting" and "copying and pasting" are not always the same thing, but they are when one is using quotation marks in a written medium or one is using the quote function and the quote tags are clearly visible in the post. Yes, one can "copy and paste" and read next to nothing in the text that one pastes but one hopes that one would be taken at one's word for what one intended to say or at least be given the benefit of the doubt. One can also be disappointed that someone thought that one deliberately ignores or is incapable of reading the text one quotes and/or pastes.

I don't know why you choose to nitpick my post. I don't know why you respond to a clarification of my post with further nitpicking and a casting of doubt upon my reading and writing skills. It is unbecoming of you.

[ 21. July 2013, 06:18: Message edited by: Pancho ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Paradise IS the punishment.

Posted by Russ (# 120) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The papacy is an office ordered to a specific task. By no stretch of imagination would making people wear goldfish in their ear further that task. The only useful discussion that can come from your example is what the Church will do if a pope becomes mentally unfit for the office without resigning. Because providing an indulgence for wearing goldfish in one's ear is clear evidence of having lost it.

No, there's a real question here about how you view the "powers" of the church.

Do you see the Pope as having the ability to remit purgatorial suffering as much as he chooses for whatever reason he chooses ? Something like a king who makes the rules for his kingdom ?

Or does he have only the power to discern what actions have a character which will cause them to be effective in reducing purgatorial suffering, and brings those to the attention of his flock ? Something like a nutritional scientist working out and telling people that vitamins are good for you ?

Of course you're right that in practice he's only likely to declare an indulgence in support of whatever ecclesiastical initiative he's focussed on at present. But powers and how they're traditionally used are two different things.

quote:
acts of religion do not play a secondary, or worse, negligible role in pleasing God.

God sees to the heart. Outward acts of religion are not in and of themselves pleasing to God. What is pleasing to God are acts of the heart - such as the desire to please Him, or reverence for goodness in whatever form, as well as love of neighbour. The man whose mouth stops saying ten Hail Marys because they've been distracted by a sense of gratitude for what God has done in their life is (I suggest) more pleasing to God than someone who completes ten Hail Marys while contemplating what a tedious old fart the priest is.

And the Catholic Church knows this and puts in appropriate sub-clauses about "right intention" or "right spirit" etc. What Protestants react against is a culturally-Catholic way of talking that makes it all sound mechanistic - that saying these particular words has an impact regardless of the spirit in which they're spoken or the attitude of the speaker.

quote:
try to derail discussion with an argumentum ad hominem, implying that only "right-wing authoritarian personality types" could possibly support punishment?

The point I was making here is that people have different views about punishment. Punishment for its own sake, a good in its own right, tends to be an extreme right-wing view. The left tend to talk about "educating people in socially-appropriate behaviour".

It was an aside. I'm not calling you a Fascist, I'm suggesting that you should spell out explicitly the view of punishment under which indulgences make some sort of logical sense because such a view isn't "common sense" any more if it ever was.

quote:
If somebody kills my son, then I may be able to forgive him (if he repents and begs for forgiveness for his crime). Let's say that I am that big, for the sake of discussion. It does not follow at all that I would want the murderer of my son instantly released from prison.

Let's start a little smaller. Suppose somebody steals and damages your car. And then repents of his action, and acts on that interior repentence by
- returning the vehicle of his own volition
- giving you a cheque that will cover the cost of repairing the damage and any other out-of-pocket costs you may have incurred
- begging your forgiveness, apologising profusely to you, asking if there's any other way he can make it up to you, and by these and other words convincing you of his sincerity.

Do you forgive him, and tell him to go and sin no more ? And then bring charges against him in a court of law and ask that he be put in prison ? Why ?

quote:
Your paraphrase is an attempt to turn my clear message into something murky.

Not my intention at all - quite the opposite. If I've failed to put it plainly and baldly, that's my shortcomings. My words seem pretty clear to me, just as yours probably seem clear to you.

quote:
It aims to ridicule.

The doctrine you are putting forward does indeed seem to me worthy of ridicule, but I'm writing because I genuinely want to understand whether it's a sound idea badly communicated to modern ears, a load of complete tripe masked by pious language and perpetuated only out of exaggerated respect for tradition (in such cases ridicule has a serious purpose), or (as I suspect) a logical way of interpreting Christian ideas given a particular philosophical view of punishment & forgiveness which I don't happen to hold.

I could be wrong.

quote:
a concern with trivialities

Life & civilization are so fragile that a man can easily do more damage than he can ever recompense.

Is purgatory only about the really big stuff - the debts that are too big to ever be paid ? Or is all sin a matter which can be suffered for in purgatory ? If the latter, I can't see what's wrong with small examples.

quote:
double effect of sin

Double may be understating it. If you steal my car, then
a) you have a duty to recompense me (as above)
b) you have broken trust with me, and need to repair the relationship - just sending a cheque in the post won't do.
c) you've also held up two fingers to God by knowingly going against His law, and need to repair your relationship with Him.

a) is the debt that is the temporal consequence of sin in the literal meaning of those words
b) and c) are to do with reconciliation & forgiveness.

Purgatorial suffering does nothing for a) - your pain doesn't fix my car.

I may wish you to suffer for what you've done under (b), but that would be an indication that I hadn't fully forgiven you. Once we are reconciled, I will no longer wish you to suffer.

c) is between you and God, but I don't believe Him to be the sort of person who desires your pain except as a last-resort means to the end of reconciling you to Himself.

There may be a fourth effect to do with impact on the community, but this post is much too long already.

I understand "double effect" to mean "c) as well as a) and b)". I suspect you mean something else, so spell it out...

Best wishes,

Russ

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SeraphimSarov:

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
If you substitute the Anglican idea of the Church Expectant - or AFAIK the Orthodox notion of Paradise - for the Romish doctrine of Purgatory, the whole business of indulgences crumbles, even whilst we still posit an intermediate state between departing the relative dark-seeing of the Church Militant here in earth and arriving at the fullness of the beatific vision of perfect communion with the Triune God (the Church Triumphant). In the Church Expectant, those who have departed this life continue to grow in the love and service of God until such point that they know, love and serve Him perfectly.

In contrast to the foregoing, the more radically Protestant notion of a translation immediately into the state of Heaven upon death (or alternatively at the general resurrection) seems counter-intuitive.

The only version of the Romish notion of Purgatory that I can reasonably imagine actually falls along the more radically Protestant lines, in that Purgatory would involve the intense but cleansing pain associated with the complete but repentant realisation of our own failures, unworthiness and inadequacy when faced by the personal, individual judgement following death -- but this repentant realisation would itself be an utterly transformational thing that would bring the penitent soul into a correct state of communion with the Trinity. Hence, this wouldn't be a prolonged state of anguish, and would neither need nor be susceptible to mitigation via the mechanism of indulgences.

All this is just so much theorising, ISTM, but what I do find implausible is the specifically Romish, mediaeval ideas of Purgatory, hence also the indulgences promulgated by the Church of Rome to mitigate "time"/punishment in Purgatory (and how could you have "time" as a quality of a state that is outside of our linearly-perceived dimension of time?).
How cute that the term "Romish" was applied. Soon we shall have calls for a "No Popery" rally

Why don't you try a more substantive response, as opposed to your characteristic sniping? Romish: a perfectly good word taken from the 39 Articles, in reference to the Romish doctrine of Purgatory. Romish: referring to that which is specifically associated with the Church of Rome.

Posted by Zach82 (# 3208) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Why don't you try a more substantive response, as opposed to your characteristic sniping? Romish: a perfectly good word taken from the 39 Articles, in reference to the Romish doctrine of Purgatory. Romish: referring to that which is specifically associated with the Church of Rome.

Roman Catholics rightfully don't like it, because it's a passive aggressive jab at them. So, just for the sake of Catholic/Protestant relations here, could you knock it off?

Posted by Fuzzipeg (# 10107) on :

Yes Edith. I haven't heard indulgences mentioned at Mass for heaven knows how long! When talked about at all it is always with a degree of amusement.

Having said that there are a lot of Catholics who really do believe in a snakes and ladders approach. I remember an elderly priest who always said that you only have to get to Purgatory. Mudfrog has obviously thrown a double six and moved on!

I don't know what happens after death. I have faith and hope but no certainty. I know that neither Dante nor Bunyan have provided a map that makes sense to me. I just plod on knowing that I am lucky enough to have Jesus provide sacraments and the Church to point me in the right direction,Our Lady and the Saints to encourage me and Jesus himself will hopefully give me a leg-up in the end.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras - would Jesus use it?

Posted by Edith (# 16978) on :

Thank you Fuzzypeg. A voice of sense reason and wisdom. There must be a lot more who think like you out there, I just wish they were more vocal here.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

We're here, but we just get shouted down. No one wants to hear the boring reality.

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