Continuing evidence that Pope Benedict XVI (a.k.a. The German Shepherd) and his underlings are deeply engaged with the crucial issues of our time. Need examples? Look no further than their recent efforts to rehabilitate anti-Semites and, now, to bring back that plea bargain of the soul, that buyout of the beyond, the indulgence. From the NYT:

The announcement in church bulletins and on Web sites has been greeted with enthusiasm by some and wariness by others. But mainly, it has gone over the heads of a vast generation of Roman Catholics who have no idea what it means: “Bishop Announces Plenary Indulgences.”

In recent months, dioceses around the world have been offering Catholics a spiritual benefit that fell out of favor decades ago — the indulgence, a sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife — and reminding them of the church’s clout in mitigating the wages of sin.

Because you want to choose your religion the same way you would choose a lawyer or city councilman. The Catholic Church is the Church that Gets Things Done, eternal things like erasing your lifetime of sin. And don’t worry, today’s indulgences are nothing like that stuff Martin Luther was complaining about. In today’s Catholic Church, you don’t buy indulgences, you earn them, by like, contributing money and stuff. And prayers, absolutely, lots of prayers.

According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.

There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years, and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1567 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day. . . .

One really does suspect that Benedict’s goal must be rendering the Church immune to caricature by living up to it. The caricature about hyper-scholastic theologians haggling over abstruse matters like the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin, or establishing the formula to convert the number of prayers said to years off from Purgatory? Check. The caricature about Catholics being encouraged to fixate on the letter of Church doctrine rather than the spirit of Christian moral teachings, or I don’t know, the Holy Spirit itself? Check.

Octavia Andrade, 64, laughed as she recalled a time when children would race through the rosary repeatedly to get as many indulgences as they could — usually in increments of 5 or 10 years — “as if we needed them, then.”

Still, she supports their reintroduction. “Anything old coming back, I’m in favor of it,” she said. “More fervor is a good thing.”

Karen Nassauer, 61, said she was baffled by the return to a practice she never quite understood to begin with.

“I mean, I’m not saying it is necessarily wrong,” she said. “What does it mean to get time off in Purgatory? What is five years in terms of eternity?”

The latest offers de-emphasize the years-in-Purgatory formulations of old in favor of a less specific accounting, with more focus on ways in which people can help themselves — and one another — come to terms with sin.

“It’s more about praying for the benefit of others, doing good deeds, acts of charity,” said the Rev. Kieran Harrington, spokesman for the Brooklyn diocese.

After Catholics, the people most expert on the topic are probably Lutherans, whose church was born from the schism over indulgences and whose leaders have met regularly with Vatican officials since the 1960s in an effort to mend their differences.

“It has been something of a mystery to us as to why now,” said the Rev. Dr. Michael Root, dean of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, S.C., who has participated in those meetings. The renewal of indulgences, he said, has “not advanced” the dialogue.

“Our main problem has always been the question of quantifying God’s blessing,” Dr. Root said. Lutherans believe that divine forgiveness is a given, but not something people can influence.

But for Catholic leaders, most prominently the pope, the focus in recent years has been less on what Catholics have in common with other religious groups than on what sets them apart — including the half-forgotten mystery of the indulgence.

“It faded away with a lot of things in the church,” said Bishop DiMarzio. “But it was never given up. It was always there. We just want people to return to the ideas they used to know.”

Hmmm . . .  returning to the ideas people used to know, let’s continue that conversation. [SATIRE ALERT] The thing about absolute monarchy was, you always knew where you stood, know what I’m saying? And you know, there’s nothing like burning a heretic to bring a community together. Maybe Papa Ratzi is on to something there.