Why thank you sir...chivalry is not dead.

Subject:

Comments:
: : and not the bandwagon BS of "you're stupid, its just a movie." : That's known as people who can't come up with anything else to say and must revert back to the old "don't take it so seriously" stuff. And for their benefit (since ironically I am quite sure they're all reading this) I must say that trust me, this is not causing me to lose sleep, sex or exercise. I still say pointless bitching is the truly stupid move. Come up with your own shit, or quit complaining when you stick your nose into mine. Sorry, worm, that was my first of the morning rant. : : :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. : Well, that wasn't made specifically clear in the movie, and the party line of the Catholic Church is that the requirements hold true in ANY circumstances except the moment of death. The indulgence may still be bestowed, but unless the conditions are met it becomes a partial one rather than a plenary one. In Bartleby & Loki's case, partial means a whole lot of sin is still lingering. I find it interesting that the Catholic Church is actually much more careful about protecting indulgence abuse than the movie makes out. But I'm not trying to take the fun out of it or anything, I'm just bringing some information to the table. : : : 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. : Sorrow is not the requirement; the absence of sin is. It doesn't matter how one feels about previous sins, the point is that one has no desire to commit sin in the future -- a very reasonable stipulation since the Church naturally doesn't want to give plenary indulgences to every yahoo who then thinks "great, I'm clean, I can go rape and pillage every village in Wisconsin". Plenary indulgence, as given by Mother Church, doesn't even remove sins or the guilt of them. They aren't intended as a replacement for confession; that's why it's required that one confess first. Plenary indulgence removes only the acquired punishments for sins that one has already confessed to a priest and been given penance for. : I suppose, if he were to go entirely senile and lose his senses, John Paul 2 could declare an archway to give plenary indulgence, but it would entirely contradict all of the other dogmatic laws (and there are quite a few) regarding indulgences. In that case, which laws would hold true? What a religion, I tell you. : A better explanation from my standpoint is that angels have the ability to communicate directly with God; their thoughts & prayers would be equivalent to confession without the medium of a priest. So all Bartleby & Loki would have to do would be run in the church, tear off their wings, say a couple of Hail Mary's or Father's or whatever to the Pope, eat a couple of wafers and run back out through the archway. But it still doesn't explain the absence of desire to sin thing. : From my vantage point it reconciles a lot of the questions about God's omnipotence contradicting the plot; but again, this is my interpretation. : : 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. : What about Loki, though? He'd already turned against Bartleby's plan and had his wings jacked off by the time the crew showed up. And I'm not saying that B&L received a moment of death indulgence, just that its a possibility. Just as I'd say its a possibility that Bethany received such an indulgence when she unplugged the old man from his coma. : : : 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. : Freaking hell. You are a helpful soul after all. Thanks bunches. : -- Isis

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL: