Rome is re-introducing the practice of plenary indulgences. I guess my aspirations of Rome rolling back Trent (and the attached anathama's on on things Protestant) is Just a Pipe dream.
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A game in which players toss a jackknife in various prescribed ways, with the object being to make the blade stick firmly into the ground. [From the phrase mumble the peg, from the fact that originally the loser had to pull up with the teeth a peg driven into the ground.]
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4 comments:
At least there not selling them, but this is discouraging.
They have never stopped issuing plenary indulgences. It was the sale of them that brought about Luther's ire.
If you read JPII's comments about the practice, which he encouraged during his pontificate, he felt it was an important way to promote personal piety and get people back into the confessional. So, it isn't quite the scandal it is made out to be.
FWIW, they ground the practice on John 20:22-23.
So this is the passage?
19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
Interesting text to justify indulgences.
I think the key is, "if you forgive anyone his sin, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." Jesus seems to be passing on the ability to forgive sins to the apostles.
The question for us is, what about now? As protestants, we don't believe that the power to forgive sins lies with anyone except Jesus. To defend this belief, we have to say either 1) this was a gift unique to the apostles themselves and was never passed on, or 2) this was one of those portions of scripture added later.
The RCs and EOs (and many Anglicans) believe that this apostolic gift is passed along, through apostolic succession, to priests throughout the church, and that rightly ordained priests have this ability even today to forgive sins (thus, the practice of confession and absolution). They claim that it is we protestants who are playing "fast and loose" with the scriptures by denying the implications of this passage.
Indulgences, as I understand them, don't absolve the individual, but instead shorten or eliminate the time spent in purgation (purification from or purging of) for those sins. The process is, as it seems to me, confession to a priest, absolution by the priest, performance of acts of piety, and granting by the priest of the indulgence.
In Luther's time, the Church would allow people to bypass the confession / absolution / acts of piety stuff, and actually exchange money for the indulgence (claiming, I guess, that the gift of money was an adequate act of piety). This no longer happens.
It seems a bit stretched to me, but it comes from the fact that the Church claims for herself the power to forgive sins. And, to be honest, I'm not sure we protestants have an adequate answer for what v. 23 above means for us to be casting stones.
Anyway.
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