Pope John Paul has declared the year 2000 a Holy Year and with that Catholics can once again "earn" indulgences in order to get into heaven faster. Catholics believe they must suffer, to attain a spot in heaven, and by suffering they earn indulgences which leads to a faster trip. (This reminds me of the special booths at the airport, where drivers who have been there less than seventy minutes, go in order to avoid the line for the people who have been there longer and have to pay.) As a Catholic you are encouraged to avoid smoking and drinking, give to charity (the Catholic Church?), visit people in the hospital or in prison and you too can earn your way into heaven. Last Sunday the Pope issued what is known as a
Papal Bull (ahem!) This Bull contained the provision that indulgences may once again be "earned" (as opposed to bought as they were in the 16th century).
Back in the 16th century, the Catholic Church actually sold indulgences to people hoping to either get into heaven sooner themselves, or get loved ones who had died, out of purgatory. It was the German monk Martin Luther who took exception to this and on October 31, 1517 nailed a copy of his 95 Theses to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany. He chose this day, in part, because November 1 was All Saints Day and he knew that the church would be packed. Martin Luther was opposed to the act of granting (much less selling!) indulgences because he was convinced that the Bible stated clearly that the earning/buying of indulgences was not necessary to attain a place in heaven. It was this act that touched off what we now know as the Lutheran Reformation. As you can imagine the Catholics were pissed. They wanted Luther's head on a platter and he was decreed a heretic. However, this non-suffering, Protestant, way of entering the pearly gates appealed to many people, and they told the Pope what he could do with his indulgences.
Yet once again, the Catholics have lugged out that musty old book of indulgences, blown off the dust, and opened up shop. I'm very curious about this indulgence business as I'm sure are others, so I've decided to do some checking into the process. After all, what typifies the Economics of Human Behavior more than the Catholic Church selling indulgences? In the official Bull of last Sunday, the Pope didn't proclaim that indulgences were available for sale again, but what if they were? They sold them in the 1500s and a lot has changed in the last 500 years. What would the indulgence business be like today in 1998?
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