Going Backwards.

Pope Benny seems to be going backwards again. Abusing indulgences got the Catholic Church a bad name back in the 1500's and quite rightly too. Implying that pilgrimages to Lourdes will cut off time in Purgatory in order to up the visitor number can't be very good theology. As an ex Catholic I don't believe in Purgatory, the "miracle" at Lourdes etc now, actually I don't think I ever believed in them especially not Lourdes, even as a young un I was left pretty cold by the Marian apparitions and how they were spun to us at school. But, but the thing is - if you've "sinned" or felt you've done wrong either on an internal scale or to someone else the best way to make that good isn't to traipse off to France it's to make good to the person you've hurt.

All Saints Day

I know they are angels not saints.

All Saints Day is a Holy Day of Obligation within the Catholic Church when I was at school we would troop into the Assembly Hall for Mass with singing, guitars and bad poems read with lisps. The head of RE would gurn madly as he tried to encourage us to join in and "really worship" It was pitiful, he had a bad beard and wore worse sweaters, the hymns we had to sing were mostly in the "modern pop style" (think bad 50s folk). Communion would take for ever as almost all the 750 pupils at my school were able to take communion and not doing so just because you didn't feel like it or didn't believe in god was frowned upon if you had been baptised Catholic that is, those who were not couldn't take communion even if they wanted to.

It was awful I loathed it, it helped me to come to the conclusion that I didn't believe in a god.

Once in Sixth form we had to suffer through a Christian "Rock Band" at least it was ecumenical suffering as the sixth form was a joint one with the C of E school up the road.

The 1st of January used to be a Holy Day of Obligation in the United Kingdom as well it was probably one of the least well kept days, it struck a lot of people as the Church being killjoys about New Years Eve, a secular celebration.