ROFL!!! How am I supposed to "find out for [my]self" what your local Priest told you? Don't be absurd!
No, I am suggesting you find out for yourself what YOUR parish has to say about indulgences and whether or not they will sell you one.
Afraid of the answer?
Can you read? I already KNOW the answer. It's not only "No" but "HECK no, and the confessional is right over there!".
"No, I am suggesting you find out for yourself what YOUR parish has to say about indulgences and whether or not they will sell you one.
Afraid of the answer?"
I am not afraid of the answer, because the law of the Church is clear on the point. So, if a greedy pastor decided to sell an indulgence (mine wouldn't, but mine wouldn't molest boys either; there ARE some bad men in the priesthood, obviously), he might dupe somebody, but it wouldn't be an act in accordance with the law of the Church, any more than molesting a little boy is.
That said, the whole indulgence thing is a bit uncomfortable. The problem isn't that the Church doesn't have the AUTHORITY to forgive sins and penance periods, etc. Rather, it's that things have been reduced too much to a pat code, sort of like the civil service code for salvation. Now, thanks to the Power of the Keys, the Church DOES have that authority, so indulgences are, technically anyway, effective. So are tambourine masses.
I'd prefer both practices be tucked away into the attic of history as things that, while licit (because the Church has the power, granted by Jesus through Peter and the Apostles, to make them so) the optics are bad. If there were no Enchiridion Indulgentarium the Church would not suffer, but it would be easier to find greater unity with Protestants.
Luther wasn't WRONG about the abuses of the Church, and maintaining a practice that had a really odious past would be like maintaining (Officially, in Official Name) the office of Grand Inquisitioner of Spain. Faith and morals still need to be protected, but not by an officer of that title.
Optics matter.
Indulgences are a stumbling block for some, and that's too bad.