Martin Luther was a Catholic priest in Germany who strongly opposed the sale of "indulgences". Remember that an indulgence was a temporary forgiveness of sin. According to the church, after you had shaken off this mortal coil, an indulgence could actually shorten the time you had to spend in purgatory In Luther's day, these indulgences were being sold for money.
Luther didn't cotton to that idea very much. He vehemently disputed the teaching that God's forgiveness could be sold, and so he wrote up his "Ninety-Five Theses" and nailed them to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany (picture to the right). When he refused to retract his theses, even though admonished to do so by Pope Leo X, he was excommunicated and branded an outlaw. Thus started the Protestant Reformation.
Now, I don't know if you were aware of this or not, but indulgences are still granted by the Pope to this very day. In fact, now's your chance to get one! If you are forward thinking enough and have a Twitter account (it's free!), you can get an indulgence (maybe more than one?) between July 23rd and 28th. How? Let me explain.
No, there is too much.
Let me sum up.
July 23rd through the 28th is World Youth Day in Brazil. And though it seems like that's really more like World Youth Week than World Youth Day, the Pope has decided that he is going to be granting indulgences via Twitter to his nearly 2.7 million Twitter followers.
The only requirement is that you have to somehow "tune in the world to World Youth Day broadcasts or take other spiritual actions." What those actions are, I'm not sure, but according to the Vatican, this whole Twitter idea is a way for the "faithful to get the spiritual benefits of World Youth Day even if they can't be there."
Before you get out the clubs and pitchforks, let me assure you that I am NOT making fun of Catholics. Having served my LDS mission in Argentina, I have the utmost respect for the Catholic Church. I worked with them every day for two years. I've seen what good that church can do, and I have seen plenty of good people who were associated with it. And I'm being serious about that.
But indulgences? Via Twitter? REALLY?
I'm all for forgiveness, believe me. I, among all men, need it most. But what about Godly sorrow? What about making amends? What about confessing? All of these are NECESSARY steps to being forgiven. It's a hard, long, drawn-out process that's supposed to take a lifetime. Can you really just follow a Twitter feed and be forgiven? Sounds pretty easy!
Wait for it. This one was even better! In 2001, then Pope John Paul 2 granted indulgences to anyone who walked through the bronze door of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Get that? Walk through a door! That's all you had to do! Dang it! And where was I that day? Mowing my lawn! You mean to tell me I'm going to have to spend more time in purgatory because my lawn was too high? Dang it!!
Now that I've thought about this a little more, though, I am kind of warming up the idea of social media being a good source of forgiveness. Heck, maybe I'll mention it to the Bishop when I see him at Church on Sunday. Maybe I can get him to cut me some slack because I'm his friend on Facebook. After all, I HAVE been coveting a new cell phone lately.
Where is Martin Luther when you need him?
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