{"id":1045,"date":"2009-02-14T14:26:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-14T14:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html"},"modified":"2009-02-14T14:26:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-14T14:26:00","slug":"room-for-debate-on-indulgences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html","title":{"rendered":"Room for debate: on indulgences"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, the New York Times posted an item<\/a> about the church putting a new emphasis on indulgences. <\/p>\n

This morning, in a followup, it’s posted online a debate<\/a> about the meaning and significance of the same subject. Among those weighing in is John Allen: <\/p>\n

Some Catholics today see the comeback in indulgences as part of a broader \u201crestorationist\u201d push in the Church under Pope Benedict XVI that would also include his revival of the old Latin Mass and his recent decision to lift the excommunication of four traditionalist Catholic bishops, including one who, it turns out, is a Holocaust denier. All of this, in the eyes of some liberal Catholic critics, is dragging the Church back into the Dark Ages. One leftist group, the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, recently denounced the return to indulgences as \u201cthe latest in a series of restorationist efforts to roll back the joyful renewal accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65\u201d and \u201ca return to medieval thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s a perfectly legitimate debate to be had as to whether the Church needs the Latin Mass, or whether the Vatican ought to be rolling out a red carpet for ultra-traditionalist dissenters. In themselves, however, indulgences don\u2019t imply a position on any of those matters. Considered on their own, they\u2019re simply a piece of the Church\u2019s spiritual tradition which may not be everyone\u2019s cup of tea, but they don\u2019t force anyone to take sides in the Catholic version of the culture wars.<\/p>\n

Perhaps what Catholics might try instead, when faced with legitimate diversity in spiritual taste and practice, is to be, well, a bit more indulgent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Visit the link and see what others had to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the New York Times posted an item about the church putting a new emphasis on indulgences. This morning, in a followup, it’s posted online a debate about the meaning and significance of the same subject. Among those weighing in is John Allen: Some Catholics today see the comeback in indulgences as part of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"\nRoom for debate: on indulgences - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Room for debate: on indulgences - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week, the New York Times posted an item about the church putting a new emphasis on indulgences. This morning, in a followup, it’s posted online a debate about the meaning and significance of the same subject. Among those weighing in is John Allen: Some Catholics today see the comeback in indulgences as part of…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-14T14:26:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Room for debate: on indulgences - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Room for debate: on indulgences - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Last week, the New York Times posted an item about the church putting a new emphasis on indulgences. This morning, in a followup, it’s posted online a debate about the meaning and significance of the same subject. Among those weighing in is John Allen: Some Catholics today see the comeback in indulgences as part of…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-02-14T14:26:00+00:00","author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html","name":"Room for debate: on indulgences - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-14T14:26:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-14T14:26:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/02\/room-for-debate-on-indulgences.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Room for debate: on indulgences"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/052b8cd86cc713feaccdc8282b03cf10","name":"deacon greg kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a4e\/a4e07ce6fde3f10d4d9753243fd48d45x96.jpg","caption":"deacon greg kandra"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/deacon-greg-kandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}