CATHOLIC CATACLYSM

Gosh darn*, where to start? There are just so many inconsistencies, mistruths, bizarre assertions and assumptions and plain nonsense in the catholic cataclysm catechism that beggar belief.

As you saw from that comment from Richard of Richard's Grumpy Blog in the first post he's impatient for this blog to get underway. I was going to wait until my main inspiration for religious response, Robert, he of the insane uttering on the existence of a trilogy of mythical beings, made a new pronouncement but - needs must. I'll kick off with  a discussion of some of the more weird teachings of catholicism. Most of these were taught to me at primary school and some have been promulgated later.

First up:

Indulgences

Catholics are taught that there are two types of sins: Mortal Sin which is punishable by being sent to Hell for eternity (Hell will be explained in a later post):

HELL

Oh, sorry, not that one, try this one:

HELL - NO-ONE WILL GET YOU OUT OF THERE

 and Venial Sin which is temporal and punishable by being sent to Purgatory (Purgatory will also be explained in a later post):

PURGATORY - THE ANGELS WILL EVENTUALLY GET YOU OUT

While if you commit a Mortal Sin and don't clean up the mess by confessing to a guy in a black dress (Confession will be covered in a later post) you will go to Hell and stay there for eternity, if you go to Purgatory by committing a Venial Sin (eating meat on Friday or saying 'Bugger' in the earshot of one of those jokers in a black dress) you will only stay there for an (unspecified) period of time - not eternity.

Got it?

Right.

But wait, there's more. The Catholic hierarchy somewhere along the way in the Middle Ages were being pressured by their congregations to explain how long they might have to stay in Purgatory before going to Heaven (Heaven to be explained in a later post). Obviously a lot of Friday meat eaters saying 'Bugger' were about then. The church hierarchy saw that they had a ready market and being wonderful snake oil salesmen decided to create the concept of Indulgences.

 Indulgences are special actions that a person can perform in order to reduce or remove the temporal punishment they are owed due to having died in a state of Venial Sin. The idea behind it is that certain acts of holiness can take the place of punishment. Indulgences must be declared by the Pope (the chief snake oil salesman).

"WANNA BUY SOME SNAKE OIL"?

There are two types of indulgence: 

Plenary (removes all temporal punishment) and partial (removes some punishment). 

A partial indulgence can be for a specific number of days or years. Some indulgences only apply to the actual souls in Purgatory but any personal indulgences can also be offered for those souls, rather than your own if you know say that Uncle Fred said 'Bugger' and dropped down dead. 

A Plenary indulgence is applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory and is granted to the faithful who devoutly visit a cemetery and pray for the departed. The indulgence is plenary each day from the 1st to the 8th of November; on other days of the year it is partial.

Got that?

Well that's good because it makes no sense to me.

During the Middle Ages the Church told people that they could pay for indulgences. This abuse helped in starting the Protestant Reformation where Martin Luther nailed his faeces theses to the door of a church in which he complained about the practice of selling indulgences for money (I guess he preferred the trade of prayers to get some time off for good behaviour in Purgatory).

Eventually the official practice of selling indulgences was quashed (at least officially) but it is quite common for the Pope to announce new indulgences from time to time, to mark special occasions – such as the Jubilee in which Pope John Paul II granted a plenary indulgence.

Well I hope that makes more sense to you than to me.





* On The Religious Curmudgeon cursing and bad language is frowned upon.