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"It's either right or it's wrong."

No, the world is more complicated than that, I'm afraid.

Indulgences are no longer sold. They once were, and that was a bad, bad thing.

Now they're not. But there's still this complex skein of rules about something which, frankly, seems like a waste of time and effort. After all, you confess your sins and are absolved of them. I suppose back in the day when penances were sometimes crushing, an indulgence could have real meaning. But today?

Today it's just an appendage of a past practice, like the funny looking cardinals' hats. They don't have to wear those. But they do, because it's history. All organizations have their practices. There is nothing unholy per se about the idea of an indulgence, which is to say, shortening the time of penance by doing some other mitzvah, some other good deed.

Obviously there IS something very wrong with SELLING them, which is why the practice was stopped. The main problem with the practice THEN was that it, more than anything else, led to the division of the Church. The main problem with it NOW is that it is superfluous, and has a lingering bad odor to it.

That it's intricate and seeks to indulge this and that has a real "civil service salvation" feel to it which is, frankly, uninspiring.

Unfortunately, once organizations and traditions get moving in a direction, even straight talk and honesty doesn't move them easily. Look at all of the grief up this thread about one simple word: Gehenna, which has, and had in Jesus' time, a clear Jewish meaning, which is what he meant, and which resolved completely the Hell vs. Purgatory business.

The elephants are marching and the bulls are rumbling. There are some there who have the inkling, at the back of their minds, that actually I have told them the truth and illuminated something here, some, but even they are not going to ADMIT that, because it would involve a lot of, well, footing changes, course corrections, perhaps some humility in the face of some knowledge they didn't have and wish they did.

Instead the whole thing will rush on. Some on the Protestant right will ignore the definition and keep on saying I've provided no Scripture. Others, on the Catholic left, have already come at me saying that what I am saying is SCANDAL to the Church, etc.

So, even when people are just plain wrong, about a simple word, the whole weight and momentum of tradition and organizational committment just carries them forward like a great juggernaut. The price of changing course would be to admit some small degree of error or doubt, and that would weaken appearances before the other combattants, and so this thread will expire, some folks will have that tickle in their mind about Gehenna. Most will forget it tomorrow.

It's like that with the Enchiridion Indulgentarium too. Indulgences might have been a good idea once, if they were intended to focus people on prayers for one another, and prayers for the souls of the departed, and good works as acts of pious faith. But they became "simonized", so to speak, and became a REAL scandal (as opposed to me, who am no scandal, just an honest man speaking an uncomfortable truth). Now they're just superannuated, but to do away with them completely would be to grant a victory to the Lutheran side, and the institutional old bulls would rather maintain the book and the elaborate intricacy of "civil service penance"...even though it is barely much used...rather than put the thing to bed.

It's sad, but men are what they are, and traditions take on a force of their own, not just because of devils without, but because men themselves would rather be wrong than admit defeat.