Wednesday, April 06, 2005
How long would you stand in line for a dead pope?
Does one wait in line for 24 hours to have a 30 second glimpse of a dead pope merely out of respect? Of course not. The unspoken reason, which is superstitious & not openly endorsed by the Roman Church in this instance, is that such an effort constitutes a penitential pilgrimage that in some way ameliorates or removes altogether an unspecified number of sins, particularly those sins one does not recall committing. There are also the teenagers who get in line for a few hours then leave simply because it is an extraordinary, exciting "event."
The retail system of buying or bargaining salvation touched off the protestant reformation. This hypothetically includes not only the sale & purchase of indulgences (the Roman Church in response to Luther suppressed the practice), but also all sacramental & apparent attempts at negotiation with God (e.g. buying flowers for the altar, inviting clergy to the country club for a round of golf, extreme self-mortifications like giving up ice cream for Lent, viewing a fuzzy image vaguely resembling Virgin Mary on a window in Perth Amboy New Jersey, signing over one's estate to a slick televangelist, defending or castigating Bernard Law, boycotting Disneyworld for allowing "Gay Day," dispassionately rooting for the Liberty College women's basketball team, voting for Republicans).
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
The retail system of buying or bargaining salvation touched off the protestant reformation. This hypothetically includes not only the sale & purchase of indulgences (the Roman Church in response to Luther suppressed the practice), but also all sacramental & apparent attempts at negotiation with God (e.g. buying flowers for the altar, inviting clergy to the country club for a round of golf, extreme self-mortifications like giving up ice cream for Lent, viewing a fuzzy image vaguely resembling Virgin Mary on a window in Perth Amboy New Jersey, signing over one's estate to a slick televangelist, defending or castigating Bernard Law, boycotting Disneyworld for allowing "Gay Day," dispassionately rooting for the Liberty College women's basketball team, voting for Republicans).
