The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has gotten permission to offer a “plenary indulgence” to Philadelphia-area Catholics who visit shrines or do other faith-affirming things. I admit, I went to a Catholic parish grade school in Philly, I went to a Catholic prep school in Philly, and then I went to a Jesuit university in New York, and I’ll be damned if I can figure out how this is supposed to work, despite the Inquirer writer’s valiant attempt to explain what a contemporary indulgence does and why Lutherans are still, let’s say, less than thrilled with the whole thing.
If I’m following this, the doctrine runs like so:
- When you commit a sin, you’re forgiven because of God’s grace, not because of any good work you perform. (The act of accepting Catholic/Christian doctrine, apparently, does not count here – that’s still faith, not a work that justifies oneself.)
- However, even though the sin is forgiven, you’re still gonna have to spend some time in purgatory to atone for it. (How one would perceive time after becoming an eternal being is a topic we’ll also leave to the side.)
- On special occasions, the Church can offer an indulgence, which reduces the aforementioned amount of time one’s now-eternal spirit must spend in purgatory before moving on to a presumably-infinite existence in Heaven.
I really wish I had seen a rate sheet while I was in school, so I would know how much time in purgatory I’ve racked up and whether or not these indulgences are worth the effort.
Of course, the somewhat mocking tone I’ve taken here has probably added some time to my sentence. But it does strike me that this story illustrates the major tension I’ve always felt running through Christian thought: on the one hand, there’s the notion that it’s all in God’s hands and we should trust that things happen for a reason and it will all work out. And on the other hand there’s the notion that what we do with our lives matters. Take that paradox, throw in a bureaucracy, and the result is me sitting here scratching my head