Order of Perpetual Indulgence - Sydney House

       
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The Granting of Perpetural Indulgences

Is a two-fold concept:

1. In early Catholic Church history, the plan was to die and go to heaven. Because everyone was born with sin, the theory was that no one could really get to heaven and so everybody had to go to Hell. This upset people - especially Satan who had to find room for everyone - so the Church invented Purgatory - a kind of afterlife waiting room where you stayed until you had ‘done time’ for your earthly sins.
   
   Depending on how bad you were, depended on how long you stayed.
   
   Sometimes your earthly sins were so horrible ("mortal sin"), that you went straight to Hell and bypassed Purgatory altogether. Usually though, people committed only basic, run-of-the-mill sins ("venial") and so went to Purgatory to do time.
   
   After a while, the Catholic Church decided that there needed to be some sort of order to this, and so they decided that every sin should have a time length. This was useful because then it was able to work out how to get people to heaven quicker by inventing the Indulgence.
   
   Therefore, each ‘good’ deed you did on Earth, you were rewarded with a certain amount of days’ indulgence. Everyday good deeds included: going to Mass, saying the Rosary, taking communion, confession.
   
   Especially pious deeds, like becoming a monk or nun, gained lots of days of indulgence (plenary).
   
   The best indulgence (and certainly the most sought after) was the "Perpetual Indulgence", which gave you instant access to Heaven without spending any time at all in Purgatory.
   
   Overtime time, corruption set in and Perpetual Indulgences became a form of currency.
   
   The Catholic Church officially abandoned the belief in indulgences (and Purgatory) some time ago, however the concept still lurks around in various forms.
   
2. The English language being what it is, it allows us to play with words. The "Order of Perpetual Indulgence" is also a word play (pun) which we can use to advantage. For example, we can bless someone - allowing them to indulge perpetually in being of themselves, in their sexuality, in their joy.