Thinking about converting to the Catholic Church but I have problems with their history

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DictatorCzar

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So I was thinking about converting to the Catholic Church, but there were multiple historical events that made me feel iffy about it. Like the selling of indulgences in the 16th century, why would they do that? And the sack of Constantinople, why would they attack fellow Christians for some money? I just feel confused.
 
Well, if you really want to go there, go all the way back to Judas. Ours is a history of scoundrels, scandals, and notorious sinners. If the Church were a merely human organization, we’d have destroyed it many hundreds of times over. But the Church lives on, because the truth of her foundation is infinitely mightier than the sins of her constituents.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Don’t let the wolves (evil) make you walk away from conversion. After all, Jesus said that the gates of Hell will not prevail over thr Church. God bless.
 
INdulgences were kind of like insurance for committing sin by soldiers going off in the Crusade. These were people who honestly felt that they had confessed all their sins to a priest, but in the event they had forgot a few sins or in the event that during battle (where no confession booth is available) they commit a sin, they could purchase a kind of insurance against that happening, since they were engaged in work for the Church. Its kind of like each of us having auto insurance. We dont have it beacuse we intend to get in a wreck. We get it just in case we get in a wreck.
 
That’s not at all what indulgences are. An indulgence remits the temporal penalty due to sin. It isn’t a permission to sin in the future.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Aquinas11 said:
INdulgences were kind of like insurance for committing sin by soldiers going off in the Crusade.
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uh no, an indulgence is not insurance against future sins. The Church granted indulgences for certain meritorious acts performed on earth by the faithful, such as giving to charity, making a pilgramage, or having to go to war to defend Christianity from being wiped out. An indulgence may reduce the temporal punishment of venial sins (not mortal sins) during the purification of purgatory.
 
I specifically said people fighting in Crusade who died during battle without access to a confession booth. Those remissions were konwn as the first “indulgences”
 
That simply isn’t what an indulgence is, nor what it was at the time. The indulgence granted by the Holy Father for fighting in the crusades was meant to be the remission of the temporal penalty of sin already forgiven sacramentally.
 
DictatorCzar said:
Like the selling of indulgences in the 16th century, why would they do that?
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“They” didn’t.

A few priests in Germany certainly gave that appearance, and weren’t very prudent.
DictatorCzar said:
And the sack of Constantinople, why would they attack fellow Christians for some money?
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“They” didn’t.

Crusaders, individual greedy men, did. Much to the detriment of Christendom.

The politics are complicated, with both Latin and Greek inhabitants of Constantinople, the all too recent massacre of Latins at the hands of the Emperor, the succession and usurpation of the crown, political ambitions of the local nobility, the alliance with the Venetians. The looting and sacking of Constantinople was carried out by men who had already been threatened with excommunication. They raped and murdered women including nuns. They destroyed and plundered churches and artwork— NONE of this was done by permission or order of the Church nor with religious intent. This was pure greed and politics.

You are blaming “the Church” for things “the Church” did not do, order done, or teach.
 
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Aquinas11 said:
INdulgences were kind of like insurance for committing sin by soldiers going off in the Crusade.
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They were no such thing!
Aquinas11 said:
These were people who honestly felt that they had confessed all their sins to a priest, but in the event they had forgot a few sins or in the event that during battle (where no confession booth is available) they commit a sin, they could purchase a kind of insurance against that happening, since they were engaged in work for the Church.
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Nope, nope, and nope.

No wonder the myth perpetuates when Catholics don’t even know what indulgences are!
Aquinas11 said:
Its kind of like each of us having auto insurance. We dont have it beacuse we intend to get in a wreck. We get it just in case we get in a wreck.
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No! This is NOT what an indulgence is or does.
 
Imagine that your soul is a plank of wood. When you sin, you hammer a nail into the plank. When your sins are absolved, the nails are removed. The nail marks still remain, and it’s easy to put another nail into them. Those marks are the temporal effects of sin, whereas the eternal effect of unrepented sin is separation from God.

The nail marks may be filled in this life by prayer and penance, and in the next life by purgatory. Indulgences are annexed for those acts which fill the nail marks in this life. It’s not a permission to sin in the future. It’s cleaning up after what your sins already did to you.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Aquinas11 said:
committing sin by soldiers going off in the Crusade.
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this isn’t covered by an indulgence. That’s what you are missing out on. An indulgence only applies to sins already committed. Crusaders went to fight to have their current sins temporal punishment reduced not their futures sins.
 
Wrong. It is a plenary indulgence, see Pope Urban’s declaration at the Council of Clermont (1095)
 
Aquinas11 said:
I specifically said people fighting in Crusade who died during battle without access to a confession booth. Those remissions were konwn as the first “indulgences”
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No, you are incorrect.

An indulgence has NOTHING to do with a future sin, committed in battle or not, committed with or without access to confession, and whether one lives or dies, and the forgiveness thereof.

Indulgences only have to do with remission of temporal punishment due to sins ALREADY CONFESSED if you do the indulgenced work and meet all the other criteria.
 
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I know what a plenary indulgence is.

And it is not what you are saying it is.

You are confusing an indulgence and general absolution in battlefield conditions.
 
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It’s nearly 2019 and as the Lord said, the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church. Why let centuries old issues affect your present? What’s past is past.
 
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DictatorCzar said:
Like the selling of indulgences in the 16th century
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Well, that practice was NEVER EVER approved by the Church but was carried out by some people who totally disregarded the teachings of the Church. We shouldn’t blame the Church as a whole for heresy promulgated by individual people who disregarded the truth that was there. Those individuals are to blame.
 
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