Pope Announces Economic Stimulus Package!
I copied this for my dissertation.
ROME - Pope Benedict XVI announced that a round of indulgences will be granted Monday, earlier than previously announced, and should help Catholics cope with temporal consequences of the rise of opportunities for daily sins, such as usury and the lies associated with election seasons, as well as aid a slumping salvific economy. Critics said they were glad the remissions were about to go out, but suggested that multinational, corporately-backed structures of sin stood to benefit through the indulgences from an easing of conscience, making a trickle-down effect to the average layperson in the pew unlikely.
The salvation-economy stimulus package includes indulgences of 300 to 600 days, to be issued by the Apostolic Penitentiary to all faithful who made their Easter Duty by April 15. Those with lower numbers on their baptismal certificates will receive the indulgences first, reported analysts. "The indulgences are going to help Catholics offset the increasing proximate occasions to sin we're seeing in hectic daily life, from children's tantrums at the grocery store to violations of the second commandment at the gas pump, and also to give the unfolding realization of the eschaton within our midst a boost to help us pull out of the recent uptick in secularism," explained Archbishop Qualcuno Italiano.
Archbishop Italiano has suggested the indulgences could trigger a piety spree. "When the remissions reach the Catholic people, we expect they will use it to boost Mass attendance, the offering-up of daily annoyances, and the production of spiritual bouquets," he said last month. The salvific economy—burdened by the sluggish vocations, the abuse scandal, and now rising interest in second-rate atheistic literature—grew at 0.0093 percent from 2002 to 2003, the most recent year for which statistics are available.
HT Holy Whapping.
They're Just kidding.
posted by MM at 10:37 AM
<< Home