{"id":4518,"date":"2006-02-17T08:34:26","date_gmt":"2006-02-17T08:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/indulge-me.html"},"modified":"2006-02-17T08:34:26","modified_gmt":"2006-02-17T08:34:26","slug":"indulge-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/indulge-me.html","title":{"rendered":"Indulge Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

In The Tablet, Robert Mickens on indulgences and Benedict’s revival of them<\/a><\/p>\n

Benedict has proclaimed three occasions for plenary indulgences during these past ten months: World Youth Day, the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II, and most recently, the World Day of the Sick. Mickens gives some background, particularly on the Conciliar (as in Vatican II) and post-Conciliar discussions. He concludes that Benedict is on the Indulgence Train for a couple of reasons:<\/p>\n

\n
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Since then Pope Benedict has indicated that he will make indulgences much more visible than his immediate post-Conciliar predecessors. There are good reasons for this. Theologically, the Pope seems to be emphasising the medieval doctrine \u2013 codified at Trent \u2013 of the \u201ceconomy of salvation\u201d and the necessity of the Church. And politically he is making direct appeal to those Catholics \u2013 both those still in communion with Rome and those like the Lefebvrists that are in schism \u2013 who feel the practice of indulgences and the doctrine of Purgatory have been almost irreparably minimised. <\/p>\n

But by revising the granting of the indulgence, Pope Benedict is actually doing nothing new at all. But the words of Paul VI in his 1967 document might offer a further clue to the new Pope\u2019s motives: \u201cWe ought not to forget that when they try to gain indulgences the faithful submit with docility to the lawful pastors of the Church. Above all, they acknowledge the authority of the successor of Blessed Peter, the key-bearer of heaven. To them the Saviour himself entrusted the task of feeding his flock and ruling his Church.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Ah, so Mickens claims that it’s all about Benedict shaking the keys, making sure the world knows he’s got ’em. Well, that’s his<\/em> opinion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In The Tablet, Robert Mickens on indulgences and Benedict’s revival of them Benedict has proclaimed three occasions for plenary indulgences during these past ten months: World Youth Day, the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II, and most recently, the World Day of the Sick. Mickens gives some background, particularly on the Conciliar (as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nIndulge Me - Via Media<\/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\/viamedia\/2006\/02\/indulge-me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Indulge Me - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In The Tablet, Robert Mickens on indulgences and Benedict’s revival of them Benedict has proclaimed three occasions for plenary indulgences during these past ten months: World Youth Day, the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of Vatican II, and most recently, the World Day of the Sick. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4518\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}