The whole sale of indulgences thing is widely misunderstood, and I'm one of the guys who can't get it quite nailed down, or when I do I immediately forget it.
The idea that a personal sacrifice would be a willing accepting of some kind of pain, if only financial pain, and therefore be a kind of suffering now instead of later is not on its face repugnant to me. And indulgences didn't buy salvation, they bought a reduction of time in Purgatory.
But I guess I think that pastors are stuck, and easily abused. As a former pastor I can say my inclination w ass to deliver cautions, but also to believe what people told me. If it turned out later that they lied to me, and that lie meant that they didn't intend matrimony as the Curch understands it, then what should I do?
It's bad to monkey with important stuff. If a person gets an annulment, that doesn't mean he's free of having done something very wrong. It means that there was no marriage. But there may well have been a kind of very culpable fraud or, at the least, a kind of contempt not only for the other person but for an very important thing.
Fading fast. Gotta go to bed. Maybe we can talk more tomorrow? God bless you and give you good rest. Sleep is so nice. What a gift!
Seems to be a big split on that issue...Even here on FR we've come across Catholics who claim they won't know if they are going to heaven until they get there (or don't)...They say it's presumptous for some of to suggest we already know we are going to heaven...
I've read numerous cases where Catholic widows and mothers begged their priests to 'connect' with God and further the chances that their already dead husband/child would make it to heaven...
The priest would then demand an 'indulgance'; a cow, horse, money, and in many cases the house and property...Surely you're read or heard of cases like this...