The Race is Run

The Roman Question : Of Errors and Anathemas

...continued from The Roman Question : The Prisoner of the Vatican

Of course, it cannot be said that this "Prisoner" had been just idly praying up and down and twiddling his thumbs while political and military turmoil raged outside his walls. We may even surmise that, as the inevitable liberalist movement drew the net ever tighter around the Vatican, Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti began to dwell upon his prerogatives, his authority and his inalienable rights.

Ferretti attempted to unman his opponents by first offering them a new and more wondrous contemplation of Mary. So, on the 8 December 1854, he proclaimed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Predictably, a little more mediaeval superstition had exactly nil effect on men whose minds were fixed on the expanding horizons of the Enlightenment.

Undaunted, however, the Pope followed up this opening salvo with an 1858 declaration by Mary herself that the Pope was correct about her Immaculate Conception!* Who could possibly argue with that?  If the Pope had a direct line to Heaven, then he also had Heaven's approval, the obvious corollary being that his enemies did not. It was one thing to challenge the Pope, but quite another to challenge Heaven itself, and so on, and so on...

Unfortunately for the Pope, his enemies probably had neither the time nor the will to dwell upon these theological particularities and neither did contemplating heavenly Marian compassion and tender maternity soothe the savage breast of modernism and liberalism so those wondrous events at Lourdes, which should have shaken men to their core, were met with nothing but yawns, and possibly sniggers.

Pius eventually realised that his best chance lay in appealing to man's earthier instincts so he devised an attack he thought so terrifying that the enemy would be rendered helpless with dread, something akin to that of the Israelites when confronted with the thundering voice of YHVH at Sinai. Well, that was the reaction he sought to provoke anyway.

Accordingly, on 8 December 1864, Pope Pius IX issued the Encyclical "Quanta Cura" [Condemning Current Errors] in which he "reprobated," "proscribed" and "condemned" sixteen evils touching on errors of the age such as modernism, liberalism and freedom of religion. The Catholic Church, he said, has a divine right to exercise her influence "not only over private individuals but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes," even to the end of the world! So who, he asked, could be so impudent as to dare assert the heresy that the Pope's absolute authority - an authority given by Christ himself - could be subject to any civil power? Just for good measure, "Quanta Cura" was accompanied by the "Syllabus of Errors," naming eighty anathematised errors.

Instead of the enemy falling back in dread, Ferretti's voice uttering its damnations, its anathemas, and its hells of boiling oil raised only a few twitters.

Increasingly desperate, Pope Pius IX eventually marshalled his own troops and convened the First Vatican Council on 8 December 1869.

By the following July, as the sound of marching feet appeared to grow ever louder, the Council had devised a dogma whereby the Pope's judgement on matters of "faith" and the limitless horizon of "morals" would be declared "infallible."

All to no avail, however, for within a few weeks of the declaration of the binding dogma of Papal Infallibility, Italian troops siezed Rome on 2 September 1870.

As we saw in the previous post, the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Vicar of Christ, and the self-proclaimed "prisoner" then dropped his mask of sanctimonious piety and began hurling personal abuse at all and sundry, bestowing such epithets as "wolves," "liars," "satellites of Satan," and "monsters of hell" before assuming the martyr's cloak and nursing his wounded dignity in his self-proclaimed "prison," a practice continued by his successors until the "Roman Question" was finally settled in 1929.

Millions of Catholic faithful believe in the dogmas of Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception without realising that, rather than being the products of sober reflection and sound biblical exegesis, they were devised as tactics within the battle strategy of a Church desperately seeking to assert religious and political authority over the forces of Italian Unification.

* See The Patter of Little Feet and Adam's Rib

to be continued...

PHOTO:
Arrival of Pope Pius IX on the Sedia Gestatoria [mobile throne] at the Opening of the First Vatican Council Artist: French School

WORKS CONSULTED:
Oxford History of the Christian Church: A History of the Popes 1830-1914, Owen Chadwick, Oxford University Press, 2003.
History of the Church: The Church in the Modern Age, Vol. 10, Hubert Jedin, Gabriel Adriányi, John Dolan, Konrad Repgen, 1981.
The Vatican and Italian Fascism 1929-1932: A study in conflict, John F Pollard, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

The Roman Question : The "Prisoner of the Vatican"

...continued from The Roman Question : The Papal States

The new Italian State tried to appease the Vatican and in May 1871 passed the "Law of Guarantees" under which the person of the Pope [then Pius IX] was recognised as sacred.

Insults against him were to be punishable in the same degree as were insults against the King. The Pope was given the right to all royal honours; the right to maintain his private guards; the right to tax exemptions for his palaces, museums and libraries. He was also granted in perpetuity the inviolable right to enjoy the Vatican Palace, the Lateran Palace, and the country residence of Castel Gandolfo, meaning that no Italian government official could enter the Pope's premises without the Pope's permission.

Nowithstanding the concessions conferred by the Italian State upon the Church by the "Law of Gaurantees," Pius IX refused to accept the new regime: he excommunicated its leaders; he refused to accept the loss of his territories; he bestowed upon members of the government such epithets as "wolves," "liars," "satellites of Satan," and "monsters of hell; " and he began calling himself a "prisoner of the Vatican," as did his successors who continued his policies until 1929.

The Lateran Treaties of 11 February 1929 resolved the so-called "Roman Question" and marked the final chapter of the millennial history of the Papal States in Italy.

But the 11 February 1929 also marked the beginning of the great scourge of history. To borrow from President Rooseveldt: "A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY."

Just how infamous will be the subject of future posts in our series - Rome and 20th Century European Fascism.

to be continued...

Works consulted:
History of the Church: The Church in the Modern Age, Vol 10, Hubert Jedin, Gabriel Adriányi, John Dolan, Konrad Repgen, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1981.

The Vatican and Italian Fascism 1929-1932 : A study in conflict, John F. Pollard, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

The Roman Question : The Papal States

...continued from Rome and Fascism : Introduction

On 11 February 1929, Pietro Gasparri, Cardinal Secretary of State to Pope Pius XI, and Benito Mussolini, Duce of Fascism and Head of the Italian Government, signed the Treaties of the Lateran, bringing to and end the 'Roman Question,' the sixty-year-old dispute between the Papacy and the Kingdom of Italy.

So...what was the 'Roman Question?'  This fascinating subject will be divided into two parts - The Papal States and The Prisoner of the Vatican.

Since the days of the Roman Empire, the Popes had been temporal as well as spiritual sovereigns.Throughout the long centuries, the papacy had gradually acquired territories within Italy known as the Papal States. From about 1859, however, the Papal States had been whittled away by forces working towards the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy.

By the eve of unification, all that was left to the Papacy was a narrow strip of land across the peninsula and the City of Rome. In September 1870, Italian troops occupied the City of Rome and made it the capital of the new unified Italy. All that was then left to the Papacy under Pope Pius IX was the Vatican Palace, the Lateran Palace, and the country residence of Castel Gandolfo.

According to Pollard* -

"The Roman Question had its origins in an ideological conflict, a conflict between the secularising and modernising tendencies of Liberalism and the resistance to this development on the part of the Catholic Church.

"Like other European Liberals, the Italian Moderate Liberals le by D'Azeglio and Cavour enacted a series of laws, first in Piedmont and then in the rest of Italy which wrested control of such matters as education, marriage and censorship from the Church, established freedom of religion for Protestants and Jews...and confiscated a substantial portion of the property of the Church."

"But the Church and State dispute in Italy had a dimension that sharply differentiated it from similar disputes elsewhere, for the process of Italian unification [ the 'Risorgimento'] necessarily involved the destruction of the Pope's temporal power, that is his sovereignty of the Papal States of central Italy. In September 1870, the last remnant of that sovereignty was extinguished when Italian troops occupied the City of Rome and and made it the capital of Italy."

Note particularly that depriving the Pope of his temporal power "...established freedom of religion for Protestants and Jews." 

coming up...Part 2 of The Roman Question : The Prisoner of the Vatican

* The Vatican and Italian Fascism 1929-1932 : A study in conflict, John F. Pollard, Cambridge University Press, 2005

Pictured: [top] The modest Papal Tiara of Pope Pius IX, and [bottom] Pius IX with his equally modest trappings of State.

The Roman Word : Part V

The Ten Roman Tenets

One participant in the recently completed Synod of Bishops in Rome was Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, a Jesuit priest, biblical scholar, and former rector of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.  While outlining a Bible study plan for the faithful, the Cardinal admitted to his own lack of faith in the intellectual abilities of the flock:

"...It is clear that it is necessary for the faithful to have the assistance of aids that present the texts and place them at the intellectual level of the faithful, their capacity to understand and live..."

What is abundantly clear is that the priestly class fears that the "faithful," the people for whom the New Testament was written, may one day begin to think for themselves and discover that the doctrines of Rome are nothing more than a collection of unintelligible and infantile drivel and that their claims of Apostolic Succession are simply assertions based on no evidence whatsoever.

In the Roman Word : Parts I, II, III, IV, it was possible to ferrett out from amongst all the verbiage presented to the Synod Ten Tenets essential to the magisterium of the Roman Church. They fall into two categories - they are either demonstrably false or simply baseless assertions.

1. The Roman Church is the church founded by Jesus of Nazareth

2. The Pope is the successor of the Apostle Peter

3. The Roman Bishops are the legitimate successors of the Apostles

4. The Roman Bishops are under the guidance of the Holy Spirit

5. The mortal remains of both Peter and Paul lie in Rome

6. Both Peter and Paul were martyed in Rome

7. Roman Catholic Tradition guides the whole of God's people

8. Jesus of Nazareth "saved" the world through the Paschal Mystery

9. Jesus of Nazareth is bodily present in the Eucharist

10. Jesus of Nazareth is the Supreme Shepherd and Ruler of Souls

We have dealt at great length with some of these tenets in our series Apostolic Succession and demonstrated that they are utterly false. We will address the remaining tenets when time permits.

The Roman Word : Part IV

The Formation and Transmission of the New Testament

...continued from The Roman Word : Part III

One of the speakers to address the Synod of Bishops just completed in Rome was His Excellency, the Most Reverend Sylvester Carmel Magro, O.F.M., Titular Bishop of Salde, Apostolic Vicar of Benghazi.

The Bishop's topic, the formation of the Canon of the New Testament, probably had the more er...educated members of the Synod squirming in their seats when he made the most breathtakingly outrageous claims of Roman Catholic "authority" over the scriptures.

He told the meeting that:

"Many of the faithful are unaware of the role of the Church in the formation of the Canon of the Scriptures.

"They are conscious of the importance which the Church accords to the Word of God, but fail to appreciate the role of the Magisterium in identifying the "canon" of the Holy Books.

"They do not realize that ultimately it was the Church who authenticated the Bible. In actual fact the Bible presupposes the Church and depends on the Church for its own authentication ... The Church precedes the Scriptures.

"Therefore, it should be made clear to the People of God that ultimately there had to be "some authority" capable of determining which books had to be considered authentic, or divinely inspired and so be included in the official list or "canon" of the New Testament in particular, while excluding the rest as "apocrypha", that is lacking divine inspiration.

"It was the Church Authority which actually authenticated the books which today we believe as making part of our Bible. This process of identification lasted almost five centuries. The Church did this after long investigations and decided upon it in local and regional councils during which the matter was exhaustively studied.

"The complete Christian "canon" or list of the New Testament Scriptures, was attested to by St. Athanasius in 367 A.D., but accepted universally only with the Synod of Rome in 380 and the councils of Hippo and Carthage (A D. 417)."It is the Church which came before the Scriptures; the Church that produced the Scriptures with divine assistance, and that preserved their integrity through the threats of persecution and heresy - it is the Church that gathered the Scriptures together in a book - a book that sustains all who call themselves Christian." (Scott Hahn).

The Bishop, either through naivete or to deflect criticism, has repeated Scott Hahn's pious fictions designed for a gullible public. They do not stand up under even the mildest scrutiny. Scott Hahn is a former Protestant minister who converted to Roman Catholicism and is now one of her chief apologists. With such books under his belt as "Hail Holy Queen, The Mother of God in the Word of God" and "Rome Sweet Home," we may take all his writings with more than a few grains of salt.

The facts are that the earliest churches in Jerusalem, Samaria, Lydda, Caesarea, Antioch etc. were all separate entities and from the earliest times were in possession of the various materials which form our present NT. The formation of the canon was due to a growing grass-roots consensus rather than a decision that was handed down by ecclesiastical authorities. The canon was not imposed by church leaders or by councils - they stand at the end of the process rather than at the beginning.

No action of a council or a synod was early enough to have had a decisive influence on the course of events. The council decrees have the form: "This council declares that these are the books which have always been held to be canonical".

And even if it had been a "church" that selected the canon, it would certainly not have been the Roman Catholic Church as all Ecumenical Councils before 900 AD were held in the Greek East and all were convoked by the Emperor from Constantinople. At these Councils, where the 'Nature of God' was defined and determined for all generations, Roman bishops made an insignificant contribution. For instance, out of a total attendance of 318 at the Council of Nicea, the Latins could boast of only 7 representatives.

The order of church development was conditioned by the availability of scriptures in the common tongue. The New Testament writings passed from Hebrew* to Greek and thence into Latin, and the churches developed in similar order. The Latin churches, in the centuries when they were without the authoritative word, relied a great deal upon unauthoritative and wholly unreliable tradition.

The Councils of Rome, Hippo and Carthage to which the Bishop refers were regional synods and merely decided which books were to appear in the approved Catholic Bible. Just as this present 21st Century Synod is not a universal or ecumenical council and has no authority to speak on behalf of the whole of the 21st Century Christian Church, neither did those 4th Century Synods have the authority to speak for the whole of the 4th Century Christian Church.

By the time the Councils of Rome, Hippo and Carthage had addressed the matter, the list of books recognized as forming the New Testament was well established:

"What is particularly important to notice is that the New Testament canon was not demarcated by the arbitrary decree of any Church Council. When at last a Church Council, the Synod of Carthage in A.D. 397, listed the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, it did not confer upon them any authority which they did not already possess, but simply recorded their previously established canonicity." (F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments)

As F.F.Bruce also states in The Canon of the New Testament:

"It was specially important to determine which books might be used for the establishment of Christian doctrine, and which might most confidently be appealed to in disputes with heretics...One thing must be emphatically stated. The New Testament books did not become authoritative for the Church because they were formally included in a canonical list; on the contrary, the Church included them in her canon because she already regarded them as divinely inspired, recognising their innate worth and general apostolic authority, direct or indirect. The first ecclesiastical councils to classify the canonical books were both held in North Africa — at Hippo Regius in 393 and at Carthage in 397 — but what these councils did was not to impose something new upon the Christian communities but to codify what was already the general practice of those communities."

On 15 May 2007, Father Raneiro Cantamalessa, the Pontifical Household preacher, directly contradicted Bishop Magro and Scott Hahn while commenting on a book by Corrado Augias and Mauro Pesce, entitled  "Inchiesta su Gesù" (An Investigation on Jesus):

"...In regard to the canon of the Scriptures, Pesce rightly affirms (p. 16) that the definitive list of the present 27 books of the New Testament was determined only with Athanasius in 367, but we must not be silent about the fact that its essential nucleus, composed of the four Gospels along with the thirteen Pauline epistles, is much more ancient; it was formed around the year 130 and at the end of the second century it already enjoyed the same authority as the Old Testament..."

Oh...what a tangled web we weave...

* It has been overwhelmingly demonstrated by Claude Tresmontant, Father Jean Carmignac, Professor David Flusser, and many other eminent scholars, that the original accounts of Jesus' life were composed in Hebrew before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD and that the Greek gospels which have come down to us represent a third or fourth stage in the written transmission of these accounts.

The Roman Word : Part III

...continued from The Roman Word : Part II

Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, opened the Synod with a welcome to the 253 Synodal Fathers, representatives of Eastern Catholic Churches, Episcopal Conferences, Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, various "experts" and sundry other religious with a Latin-language address in which he stated that:

"As the dogmatic constitution 'Dei Verbum' reminds us, there exists an indissoluble unity between sacred Scripture and Tradition since both flow from the same source...only the living ecclesial tradition allows sacred Scripture to be understood as the authentic word of God that acts as guide, rule and law for the life of the Church and the spiritual growth of believers.

"This involves the rejection of any interpretation that is subjective or purely experiential or the fruit of a unilateral analysis, incapable of embracing the global sense that has guided the Tradition of the whole of God's people down through the centuries."

It is in this context, the cardinal said, that the "necessity and responsibility of the magisterium are born."

"And we individual bishops too know well how great our individual responsibilities are as legitimate successors of the apostles and what is expected of us by today's society to which we are duty-bound to transmit the truth that we, in turn, have received," he added.

"As we begin the work of this synodal assembly, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, let us turn our gaze to Christ, the light of the world and our only teacher..."

In just a few words, Cardinal Levada has managed to say much. His statements -

• That the Bible and Roman Catholic Tradition "flow from the same source;"

• That the "whole of God's people" have been guided by the Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church;

• Ergo, that Roman Catholics constitute the "whole of God's People;"

• That the Roman Bishops are the legitimate successors of the apostles and recipients and purveyors of their "truth;"

• That any "interpretation" of the Bible made without reference to Roman Catholic Tradition must be rejected;

are typical of Rome's self-righteous arrogance, her patronising high-mindedness, her demonstrably unhistorical lies, and her unchanging, unceasing, authoritarian mentality.

stay tuned for more Synod stuff...

The Roman Word : Part II

continued from The Roman Word : Part I

In a pre-Synod briefing entitled "To Understand the Mystery of Jesus Christ, One Must Know the Scriptures" the Synod's Secretary-General, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, stated that:

"To become a member of the family of Jesus Christ, of his Church, it is necessary to listen to and observe the Word of God. Now, the Word of God is Jesus Himself, the eternal Word made flesh (cf. Jn 1:14), He who has words of eternal life (cf. Jn 6:68). To understand the mystery of Jesus Christ one must know the Scriptures, the Old Testament, which prepare for his coming, and the New Testament, especially the four Gospels, which narrate his life, describe the Paschal Mystery, through which the Lord Jesus saved the world, and tell of the beginning of the Church founded by Him...

"By the grace of the Holy Spirit, the faithful can find his presence in the Church, in prayer, in the celebration of the Word and, in a particular way, in the Eucharist."

Archbishop Eterovic went on to describe "Eucharistic" celebrations, prayers and ecumenical encounters which will accompany the synodal works at significant moments:

"On October 9, the Bishop of Rome will preside over Holy Mass on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of the Servant of God, Pius XII, who has, among other things, great merits in the renewed interest for Biblical studies.

"Even the Eucharist on October 19, in the Pontifical Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mary of the Holy Rosary in Pompeii, will be an occasion for the Holy Father to plead with the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for the Synodal Fathers, that they may follow her example as a Disciple of Jesus Christ who listens, holds close and meditates on the Word of God...

"Prayer will also accompany the ecumenical encounter on Saturday October 18 2008. In the Synod Hall, the Holy Father Benedict XVI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I will preside over the first Vespers of the XXIX Sunday of ordinary time. Then, they will intervene on the theme of the Word of God with special reference to the Pauline Year. This will be the first time that the Ecumenical Patriarch addresses the Synodal Fathers. He will greet on behalf of the particular Churches that the Apostle of the Gentiles founded before coming to Rome, where he was martyred.

"On his part, the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI will greet the Ecumenical Patriarch with a fraternal embrace, showing the great importance of the mission of Saint Paul in Rome, the city that jealously and proudly guards the mortal remains of the two columns of the Church, Peter and Paul, as well as their rich apostolic tradition."

Archbishop Eterovic then invited everyone:

"...especially the persons of consecrated life, to pray with greater fervor and perseverance so that the results of the Synod may lead to renewed love towards the Word of God, that finds in Holy Scriptures the proven expression, the hoped-for dynamism of the Church and her mission of evangelization and the promotion of man.

"I conclude with the quotation from the last book of the Bible, which opens the horizons of eternity to those who love Jesus Christ, sent by God the Father, and, led by the Holy Spirit, move towards the Kingdom of the Heavens in communion with all the saints. "Blessed is anyone who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed those who hear them, if they treasure the content, because the Time is near" (Rev 1:3).''

Indeed it may be nearer than they think.

More unscriptural assertions enunciated in the briefing are:

• That the New Testament records a Virgin Birth;

• That Jesus of Nazareth is the "eternal Word" rather than a representative of that Word;

• That Jesus of Nazareth saved the world through the "Paschal mystery;"

• That the plain facts of the New Testament are a "mystery;"

as well as assertions for which there is no evidence whatsoever:

• That Paul was martyed in Rome;

• That the mortal remains of both Peter and Paul are buried in Rome.

stay tuned for more Synod stuff...

The Roman Word : Part I

Currently underway in the Vatican from 5-26 October is the XII Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops convened by Pope Benedict XVI. The assembly is reflecting upon "The Word of God in the Life and the Mission of the Church".

It is divinely ironic that that the entities invoked by the Vatican in its following prayer for the success of a Synod supposedly devoted to the Word of God are non-Hebrew, non-Christian, non-biblical, and non-existent concepts. The Synod is In fact studying the Word of Rome; that collection of pious fictions developed in the overheated imaginations of Latin and Hellenist Church Fathers:

"Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Father has commanded us to listen as his beloved Son, shed your light upon your Church, so that she might have nothing more holy than to listen to your voice and follow you. You are the Supreme Shepherd and Ruler of Souls. Look then upon the Pastors of your Church gathered in these days with the Successor of St. Peter in synod assembly. We implore you to sanctify them in truth and confirm them in faith and love.

"Lord Jesus Christ, send forth your Spirit of love and truth on the bishops in synod and on all who assist them in fulfilling their task. Make them more faithful to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches; stir their souls and teach them truth by that same Holy Spirit. Through their work, may the faithful of their Churches be purified and strengthened in spirit, so that they might greater follow the Gospel through which you accomplished salvation and they might make of themselves a living offering to the heavenly Father.

"May Mary, the Most Holy Mother of God and Mother of the Church, assist the Bishops in these days, as she assisted the Apostles in the Upper Room, and intercede with motherly affection to foster brotherly communion among them, to allow them to rejoice in prosperity and peace in the calmness of these days, and, in reading the signs of the times, to celebrate the majesty of the merciful God, the Lord of History, to the praise and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit. Amen."

Demonstrably unscriptural doctrines are found within the Vatican's prayer:

The Blessed Trinity;
The concept that Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos);
The concept that Mary is the Mother of the Roman Church;
That Jesus is the Supreme Shepherd and Ruler of Souls;

as well as assertions for which there is no evidence whatsoever:

That the Bishop of Rome is the successor of the apostle Peter;
That Rome is the Church founded by Jesus of Nazareth.

stay tuned for more Synod Stuff...

Indulgences Part XIII: The Dead Cry Out

...continued from Indulgences Part XII : The Holy Hoax

It appears there is now a sort of desperation in certain Catholic circles to deny the circumstances surrounding the granting of previous indulgences.

For instance, the catholic.com website contains an enlightening section titled "Myths about Indulgences."

Myth 5 is the notion that-

"An indulgence will shorten your time in purgatory by a fixed number of days."

To dispel this "myth," the following assertion is made -

"The number of days which used to be attached to indulgences were references to the period of penance one might undergo during life on earth. The Catholic Church does not claim to know anything about how long or short purgatory is in general, much less in a specific person’s case."

Unfortunately for these revisionist historians, there still exists a positive plethora of evidence to the contrary, as we have seen in this series. Even the dead cry out from the ground to bear witness against them-

Hopeful dead clutching their tickets to heaven
Lead seals from papal indulgences found with burials from medieval cemetery

"Archaeologists excavating a large medieval cemetery in London have found four individuals who were buried clutching papal indulgences in the coffin - packed off with their very own one-way ticket to heaven..." From Issue 67 of the British Archaeology Magazine of October 2002

Of necessity, we have embarked on only a brief tour of Indulgences. If readers are so inclined, they can find a complete list of acts and prayers that carry indulgences in the Church's official handbook Enchiridion of Indulgences or a digest of the Enchiridion may be found here.

Indulgences Part XII : The Holy Hoax

...continued from Indulgences Part XI : The Holy Name

As we saw in Indulgences Part IV : Crime and Punishment, the Catholic Online article Introduction to Indulgences explained that, in the past, certain lengths of time had been associated with particular indulgences. Catholics had believed that an indulgence said to be worth, say, "300 days" actually meant 300 days less time they would have to spend in Purgatory.

Apparently this had been a great misunderstanding because, according to the article -

"there has never been any way for us to measure how much "good time" that represents. All the Church could say, and all it ever did say, was that your temporal punishment would be reduced -- as God saw fit." 

Accordingly, to clarify any misunderstandings and to call a halt to any unseemly totting up of indulgences, the rules were changed in 1967.

Now, a partial indulgence does not carry with it any specific time period. I can only consider it fortunate that the multitude of faithful Catholics who went to their graves believing they had amassed thousands of years time off for good behaviour did not live to see their spiritual account books go up in smoke.