Catholics, we would all like to hear how you justify the sale of indulgences or the inquisition?

Question

Forgiveness for sale---who profits from that?

Answer 1

+ Purgatory +

To discuss indulgences, first we have to talk about Purgation (or Purgatory).

Are you perfect now? Most people would say no.

Will you be perfect in heaven? Most people believe yes.

Purgatory (or purgation) is the process of God's love changing our imperfect selves into perfect beings. Depending on the amount of change needed by different people this can be an easy or slightly harder process.

Everyone in purgatory is on their way to heaven. I don't think Mother Teresa of Calcutta had a very hard time of it.

+ Indulgences +

The concept is that a person can do acts of penance now on earth to make purgation easier.

Penance is internally turning one's heart toward God and away from sin in hope in divine mercy and externally by fasting, prayer, and almsgiving.

A corruption grew in the Church many years ago where rich people would give enough alms (money to the Church) to essentially buy an easy way to heaven. This was one of Martin Luther's protests (hence Protestants) and shortly thereafter the Catholic Church cleaned up this practice.

In 1567 Pope Pius V canceled all grants of indulgences involving any fees or other financial transactions.

But remember because everyone in purgatory is already on their way to heaven, indulgences do not get you into heaven. They just make purgation easier.

I guess if you did not believe in purgatory then there would be no reason to worry about indulgences.

+ The Inquisition +

Modern historians have long known that the popular view of the Inquisition is a myth. The Inquisition was actually an attempt by the Catholic Church to stop unjust executions.

Heresy was a capital offense against the state. Rulers of the state, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw heretics as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath.

When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig. It was not to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. The lord needed some basic theological training, very few did. The sad result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent judge of the crime.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, an attempt to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges.

From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community.

Most people tried for heresy by the Inquisition were either acquitted or had their sentences suspended. Those found guilty of grave error were allowed to confess their sin, do penance, and be restored to the Body of Christ. The underlying assumption of the Inquisition was that, like lost sheep, heretics had simply strayed.

If, however, an inquisitor determined that a particular sheep had purposely left the flock, there was nothing more that could be done. Unrepentant or obstinate heretics were excommunicated and given over to secular authorities. Despite popular myth, the Inquisition did not burn heretics. It was the secular authorities that held heresy to be a capital offense, not the Church. The simple fact is that the medieval Inquisition saved uncounted thousands of innocent (and even not-so-innocent) people who would otherwise have been roasted by secular lords or mob rule.

Where did this myth come from? After 1530, the Inquisition began to turn its attention to the new heresy of Lutheranism. It was the Protestant Reformation and the rivalries it spawned that would give birth to the myth. Innumerable books and pamphlets poured from the printing presses of Protestant countries at war with Spain accusing the Spanish Inquisition of inhuman depravity and horrible atrocities in the New World.

For more information, see:
The Real Inquisition, By Thomas F. Madden, National Review (2004) http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/madden200406181026.asp
Inquisition by Edward Peters (1988)
The Spanish Inquisition by Henry Kamen (1997)
The Spanish Inquisition: Fact Versus Fiction, By Marvin R. O'Connell (1996): http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/history/world/wh0026.html

With love in Christ.

Answer 2

We Catholics, today, are just as appalled as any other person.
I am sure that when indulgences were being sold, the general populace was pretty ticked off, too.
The inquisition is a shameful time period. AS WERE THE CRUSADES.
But conversely, Protestants have persecuted Catholics in many countries for many centuries.
People with power are just MEAN.

We also do not like having a Nazi Youth as the current POPE.
Most of us believe that anyone who accepts the ONE true God will go to Heaven. Most Catholics today practice some form of birth control even though it is outlawed by our religion.
Most of us believe Popes should be allowed to marry.
And pedophiles castrated.

Most of us believe that the Catholic church needs reform.
But, no matter where we travel in the world, we are comforted in knowing that the mass will be performed in the same way- And comforted in knowing that this POPE will not last forever.
We pray for him.

Answer 3

I think you need to read up on history. I am not saying this for the sake of defending Catholics but there were lots of horrible things done by protestants in Europe and in USA, such as killing of women who were supposedly witches.

Martin Luther even lead his own inquisition against people who didn't agree with him religiously and many of these people were executed.

So its not just a Catholic thing.

Answer 4

You are lamentably misinformed. The Church does now not promote indulgences. An indulgence isn't a permission to devote sin; it isn't even a forgiveness of beyond sins. An indulgence is worried simplest with the debt of temporal punishment which we owe to God after our sins had been forgiven within the sacrament of penance (or via an act of ultimate contrition). The granting of indulgences is doctrine within the Catholic Church, a doctrine whose software used to be very badly abused within the 16th century. The doctrine can also be definitively traced again to the 3rd century at which factor it looks to be good founded and is established scripturally at the vigour of the keys and the potential to bind and unfastened. The Church has exercised this vigour via remitting temporal punishment from the very earliest days of Christian historical past. In the ones early instances, while Christians had a miles larger horror of sin than we've got at the present time, repentant sinners needed to participate in excellent penances earlier than they might be readmitted to fellowship with the Christian group. A sinner could must do public penance for 40 days, or 3 years, or seven years, and even for the relaxation of his lifestyles--relying at the seriousness of his sins and the quantity of scandal given. Examples of such penances had been the dressed in of difficult sackcloth with ashes sprinkled at the head, fasting, scourging one's frame, retiring to a monastery, kneeling on the church door to beg prayers from the ones getting into, or wandering as a beggar via the nation-state. When we see that an indulgence of 500 days is granted, this refers back to the quantity of temporal punishment which might had been imposed within the early Church. Indulgences can also be won just for oneself or for the ones in purgatory. Indulgences can not be won for residing people as opposed to oneself or for sins which have not begun to be dedicated.

Answer 5

It is amazing how some will talk about what they are against in the catholic religion but yet none of them learn from it and leave it.
Answer to your question: The catholic religion is the wealthiest religion in the world. Read here.

http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Roman%20Catholicism/vain_repetitions.htm

Answer 6

While I am not a Catholic I think I can explain it. It is sort of like or actually Identical to what Pat Robertson and his ilk are doing.