Pope offers Indulgences
Taken from IrishCalvinist.com:
Pope Benedict is seemingly trying to get ahead of the vacation planning for the upcoming year. According to this article, the Pope is offering “relief from purgatory to Roman Catholics who travel to Lourdes over the next year.”
Realizing that not everyone will be able to pony up the coin to get to France, the Pope is generously granting “indulgences to Catholics who pray at places of worship dedicated to the Madonna of Lourdes from Feb 2 to Feb 11.”
(photo: Pope Benedict XVI prays to a statue of Madonna of Lourdes in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican)
Memo to evangelicals: Just in case you are getting drowsy and unable to still see the glaring differences between what the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church, particularly with regard to the atoning work of Christ, please shake yourself and wake up. There is a HUGE difference between traveling to your knees and clinging to the righteousness of Jesus Christ and traveling to France and clinging to a piece of porcelain.
December 20, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Thank you for the post.
I’m a Protestant and have decided to once for all do some study and research about the almost extinct (?)indulgences tradition in the RCC. I had always been told that it is “working” or “paying” towards salvation and we all know that in Germany abuses of this tradition led to the Reformation – understandably of course.
It was therefore quite interesting to learn that what Protestants are told about indulgences in the RCC – side stepping the redeeming work and “justification” of Christ’s death on the Cross – is just not true. Neither is this a case of Mary redeeming the sinner who stands before a porcelain statue. The RCC believes that only Jesus Christ can take away our unredeemed state. Nobody else. Christ alone…
Perhaps people should get to the Catholic sources themselves to learn more about this doctrine/tradition. One should also remember that for Catholics – and the Christian church before the reformation -the “Body of Christ” includes all believers, dead or alive.
I still think “indulgences” is an unnecesary doctrine, but at least one should be well informed about it before writing total and uninformed nonsense on the WWW as can be seen on blogs and even in some of the sniggering MSM.
December 21, 2007 at 3:32 am
1 Timothy 2:5 (no place for Mary).
Matthew 18:18 (Peter or multitude of people?)
1 John 1:9 (don’t need confessional!)
Purgatory is just another RCC invention and so are indulgences. It makes me sick to think that people put so much trust in man’s traditions and so little trust in the Word of God, the Bible.
One more thing. The single most destructive teaching of Christian ‘mythology’ is the teaching of the immortal soul.
1 Timothy 1:17 says only God is immortal. Yet, most Christians think they are immortal too, and that God will sustain their life either in heaven or hell. I left the church for a time because I knew I was not worthy of heaven, and why should I serve a ruthless god who would burn people forever if they rebel in this short life? People, get your bibles out and read them. Everlasting life is a gift. Death is the wages of sin (not a life sentence in hell). The wicked will surely go to hell. There is no doubt about that, but this is the place where they shall perish John 3:16. God is Love, Merciful, Kind, Gracious, Prince of Peace, Everlasting Father.
The truth shall set you free, hold fast what is true. We are almost at the culmination of that war which started in heaven Revelations 12:7-17.
Whose side will you be on? God’s truth or man’s traditions? We all have to make our own decision on this matter. Make yours a study to know the Truth as it is in Christ. He is most merciful and oft forgiving.