People tell me that the Roman Catholic Church no longer teaches salvation by works alongside their teaching of God's grace in Christ to sinners. Some people tell me that indulgences are a thing of the past.
I remember, though, all the indulgences that were made available in the year 2000. So many years off purgatory for giving up smoking for a half-day. (So what would I get, given that I haven't smoked for my whole life?) So many years off purgatory for working in a soup kitchen. There was a whole list in our secular daily-newspaper.
Pastor Esget passes along information that pilgrimages made on certain days to certain Marian shrines will get you an earlier release from purgatory. This is not news that inclines me to believe that the pope is as strong on justification as some of my friends would like for me to believe.
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I bought a papal crucifix necklace from a Catholic Bookstore.
ReplyDeleteEach and every time I piously cross myself while wearing it, it's 50 years off Purgatory!!
Or so the Indulgence said...
(250 years if I were it whilst receiving the Mass!)
My pastor is teaching on the topic of "The Treasures of Lutheranism in Denominational Context" right now. He compares/contrasts Confessional Lutheranism with Catholicism, Traditional Protestantism, American Evangelicalism, Liberalism, and Pentecostalism on their teaching/practice with regard to the truth of scripture, Christocentricity, sacramentalism, piety, law and gospel, liturgy, and vocation/office of the ministry. He specifically addressed this very point about Catholicism in class Sunday, saying that Roman Catholics indeed still practice the selling of indulgences and that they still teach that salvation is "by grace through faith and works over time in the believer." As a former Catholic and the daughter of a practicing Catholic, my personal experience (sadly) bears this out.
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