21st century indulgences
Originally published to Facebook August 11, 2020 The sale of indulgences was chief amongst Martin Luther's complaints which inspired the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. To oversimplify a bit, the practice had progressed to a place where the wealthy could donate prodigious sums to the church in exchange for pardon of particular sins, or for the reduction or commutation of the amount of penance or time in purgatory merited by those sins. As practiced, it also created pressure on the poor who already had so little to transfer more wealth to the church for the sake of loved ones who they were told were suffering in purgatory but could be delivered... if the price was right. In practice it created a religious culture where the wealthy could leverage their resources to act immorally according to religious tradition but still be fully accepted into the life of the church and even held up as models of faithfulness, while the poor had to conform to a much higher standard to app...