Last week, the New York Times posted an item about the church putting a new emphasis on indulgences.

This morning, in a followup, it’s posted online a debate about the meaning and significance of the same subject. Among those weighing in is John Allen:

Some Catholics today see the comeback in indulgences as part of a broader “restorationist” push in the Church under Pope Benedict XVI that would also include his revival of the old Latin Mass and his recent decision to lift the excommunication of four traditionalist Catholic bishops, including one who, it turns out, is a Holocaust denier. All of this, in the eyes of some liberal Catholic critics, is dragging the Church back into the Dark Ages. One leftist group, the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church, recently denounced the return to indulgences as “the latest in a series of restorationist efforts to roll back the joyful renewal accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council in 1962-65” and “a return to medieval thinking.”

Of course, there’s a perfectly legitimate debate to be had as to whether the Church needs the Latin Mass, or whether the Vatican ought to be rolling out a red carpet for ultra-traditionalist dissenters. In themselves, however, indulgences don’t imply a position on any of those matters. Considered on their own, they’re simply a piece of the Church’s spiritual tradition which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they don’t force anyone to take sides in the Catholic version of the culture wars.

Perhaps what Catholics might try instead, when faced with legitimate diversity in spiritual taste and practice, is to be, well, a bit more indulgent.

Visit the link and see what others had to say.