Posted by little worm at nas-2-177.boston.navipath.net on May 17, 2000 at 09:06:59:
In Reply to: Some interesting (?) stuff...Plenary Indulgences. posted by Isis on May 16, 2000 at 13:25:28:
and not the bandwagon BS of "you're stupid, its just a movie."
:In "Dogma", where Carlin's character refers to the archway as bestowing :plenary indulgences, those indulgences would only be valid *after* people :had been in the Church and done all the proper preparations. When they :walked out, they'd have had all the punishments for their sins removed. :Obviously, Bartleby & Loki didn't do any of those things and didn't seem :like they were planning on it.
The nature of the indulgence that was offered at the church had one and only one stipulation: the person had to walk through the arches. No other actions required.
: The most important requirement for a plenary indulgence is that any :desire to sin be absent in the recipient's soul at the moment the :indulgence is bestowed. Obviously, B&L are far from meeting this one as :their whole plan revolved around defying God's will.
Again, the nature of this particular indulgence was that a person walking through the arches didn't even have to be sorry for their sins. The sins were removed regardless of sorrow. Like I said in my earlier post, if B&L were truly sorry for their actions, they could've just gone to confession. But they weren't, so they had their sins removed by a means that didn't require them to be sorry.
: So...even if Bartleby & Loki had made it through the archway before :anybody stopped them, according to Catholic dogma (which if we're going by :the rules of the movie or the dogma itself, holds true in heaven as well :as on earth) their plan wouldn't have worked and they would have died as :humans with a great deal of sin-debt on their souls.
The only sin that would be on their souls would be the one of suicide, because they WANTED to die *after* their sins were forgiven.
:So once and for all, I think we can safely say the universe in "Dogma" was :never in danger and all the events that occured were within God's design.
We can say that the universe wasn't in danger, whether this was God's design can't be argued from here.
: PLENARY INDULGENCE EXCEPTION TO THE THREE CONSTANTS.
:"The plenary indulgence at the point of death can be acquired by the :faithful, even if they have already obtained another plenary indulgence on :the same day."
: So, if I understand this correctly and we assume Bartleby & Loki prayed :at some point in their long lives (which is reasonable to believe), and :assuming that their faith was restored and their desire to sin absent at :the moment of their deaths (which in Loki's case is definitely true since :he'd turned against Bartleby's plan), both of them were redeemed at the :same time they died.
If b&l's plan wasn't interrupted by Bethany and friends, their faith wouldn't have been restored, and they would have died with the sin of suicide on their souls. Thus, no indulgence by that law. Furthermore, the indulgence you cited is just a mere TYPE of indulgence offered by Holy Mother Church. The TYPE offered at the archway was only valid while walking through the archway...not at time of death. It wouldn't be granted if B&L died, say 30 years later, let alone 30 seconds later.
: That's my interpretation from here on out. You can read more about :indulgences at (sorry I don't know how to do links here):
See at the botton of the Comments area, where it says 'Optional Link URL'? That's where you put in links for people to go Clicky-clicky on.
-little worm-