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Need a free pass out of Purgatory? The Lourdes will provide

The Vatican announced a special offer last week, writes Tom Shields. The Pope has decreed that any of the faithful who take part in any private or public devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes will receive a plenary indulgence.

The special offer, which is valid at any participating shrine until December 8 next year, is to mark the 150th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.

You will notice that it is not just any ordinary indulgence which would only knock a bit off of your term of punishment in Purgatory for sins committed during your life. Pope Benedict XVI is offering the gold-card plenary indulgence which remits all purgatorial punishment. Do not hang about in Heaven's detention centre; proceed directly to the Pearly Gates.

I am a touch surprised that the Catholic Church is still in the indulgences business after all the bad press they got in the Middle Ages. Pope Leo X (1513-1521) set up a lucrative business flogging forgiveness to raise the cash to rebuild St Peter's in Rome.

Sundry lower grade clerics got into the indulgence-selling act. It was a good Catholic boy called Martin Luther who turned whistle-blower on the corrupt practice. Such a shame that Luther did not simply call his reform movement New Catholic. Then we might not have had all this Kafflick and Proddie business. But enough potted history.

The Lourdes indulgence promotion does seem to be about holiness rather than lucre. You do not have to travel by Mistralair, the Vatican's own charter airline, to qualify.

Ryanair is fine. Although Mistralair does offer the possibility of having a cardinal as a tour guide, not to mention in-flight entertainment of a religious nature, and the slogan "I am searching for your face, Lord" on each seat.

In fact, you don't even have to go to Lourdes at all. The plenary time-off for bad behaviour will also be available to anyone who pops into any "public sanctuary, shrine or other worthy place dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes" any time between February 2 and February 11. Which means that the Marian grotto in Carfin, Lanarkshire, should be pretty busy during that period.

Devout readers may detect a hint of negativity in this report. Call me a cynic (and Canon Gilmartin of Our Lady of Lourdes parish church in Cardonald often did), but I just don't buy indulgences. I suspect that trying to get through the turnstiles at Heaven with an indulgence will be as much use as attempting to enter the gates of Ibrox with a Celtic season ticket.

From what I can see, the spirit of Pope Leo X, the money man, is still very much in evidence. In the internet age, you can light an e-Candle for a minimum credit card donation of $5 via the Society of the Divine Word.

For $30 you can buy an attractive personalised, gold-stamped Mass card which entitles the purchaser to perpetual enrolment to "seven Holy Masses each day and a share in all the Masses, communions, prayers, sacrifices and good works of 6000 Divine Word missionary priests and brothers".

I notice that you can make an online donation to the Carfin grotto via Paypal, which sounds like papal if you say it quick. The money-changers are still very much in the temple.

Full story at the Sunday Herald.