Offer closes December 8, 2008

[ciphergoth]

Pope Benedict XVI is offering relief from purgatory to Roman Catholics who travel to Lourdes over the next year, the Vatican said yesterday.

Pilgrims to the shrine in south-west France will receive "plenary indulgences" from the Pontiff, which the Church says reduce the time spent being "washed" of sin after death. The indulgences will be available from this weekend until Dec 8, 2008.

[...] In August the Vatican opened an airline service offering pilgrims direct flights from Rome to Lourdes.

-- Daily Telegraph, 7 Dec 2007

Comments

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

Is this in a package deal with the Lourdes board of Tourism?

[mskala.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the liberal and conservative cardinals have political arguments over how to divide the Church's prayer surplus between purgatory reductions for individual sinners, and paying off Original Sin.

Have we travelled back to 1517 while I wasn't looking?

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I thought we were long past the days of "as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs".

[reddragdiva]

You're just posting this out of antireligious bigotry.

[battlekitty.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Ooh!

Do you think we'll get a real life version of Dogma??

Maybe they're doing it as a reality TV show...

[barakta]

*snorts*

[aster13.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

It's been done before, said Nile, who ate overcooked and unidentifiable fish for his school inners on a Friday, all because some Pope said we should - when all that's virtuous about it was that it promoted his commercial interests in the fishing industry.

Maybe we should nail another 95 precepts to a door somewhere - though preferably one where nobody will notice, and get us all prosecuted for inciting religious hatred.


Assuming, of course, that the shareholders' register for this new venture in religious tourism has a public listing of its owners; the Vatican is one of the few areas within the EU that isn't subject to all those tedious banking laws.