You're over four hundred years behind the times. The selling of indulgences was explicitly condemned by the Council of Trent.
Some folks just don't 'get it'. Arguing against somebody else's doctrine is one thing. Some folks, though, argue against a doctrine they've made up and then imputed to other people. It's basically a 'straw man' argument, and it reflects very badly on the folks who make it.
If one can't state one's "opponent's" position clearly, completely, and correctly, in terms with which he would agree, and which he would find inoffensive, one has absolutely no business commenting on the matter.
It took a council to figure that out?
So I was imagining the counter at my cousin's wake where I could buy a mass to help him get out of purgatory?
Someone should tell that to the RC faithful who still cough up a large chunk of cash to buy their dead relatives out of some phantasmic fantasyland.
Trent merely acknowledged things had gotten a tad out of hand. But throughout Trent and up to this very day, the sale of Indulgences is still alive and kicking through the RC coffers.
Knowing this, obtaining an indulgence can never be a selfish act, indeed it can be made completely unselfish by offering it up for a Holy Soul in Purgatory. Since the Pope himself desires that abundant use be made of indulgences, the challenge for each one of us is to obtain as many of them as possible, particularly in the time of Jubilee left to us. It is a pity that many have fulfilled the conditions for one indulgence for themselves only to stop there...""...Pope John Paul II places the gaining of a Jubilee Indulgence in the context of entering into the spiritual communion of the Body of Christ, knowing that in the spiritual realm, people do not live for themselves alone, each indulgence gained becoming a gift of grace for the whole Church.
You're over four hundred years behind the times. The selling of indulgences was explicitly condemned by the Council of Trent.
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It's pointless to argue with the haters, my friend.