Vatican Offers Twitter Indulgences

The Vatican is offering time off from purgatory if you follow Pope Francis on Twitter. The Vatican Office of Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, (which deals with penances and isn't the jail the guards in the puffy pants put you in), announced that if you follow the Pope's tweets during Catholic World Youth Day on July 22 you can get a few years knocked off your time in purgatory. It is called a papal indulgence and you may remember from history that the Church got in trouble for this once before. The Church sold indulgences back in the middle ages and it led to the Protestant reformation and millions of deaths in hundreds of years of war. So, rather than sell indulgences the Church only asks that along with all the Egotastic! tweets about celebrity titties you also see what pope Frank has to say.

It's a good deal if you think about it. What I learned in Sunday school was that no matter what I did, I was going to spend some time in purgatory. Just clicking on this website probably earned you a couple of months in the pit. The Vatican was quick to add that you needed to also have faith and that it was preferable if you followed the Vatican's live tweets during Catholic World Youth Day events. It's still a small price to pay to shave off a little time in writhing torment. That's what makes the time we live in so great. It used to be that you had to go on long pilgrimages or have to flog yourself to do proper penance. My own grandmother crawled up the Cobre hill in Cuba on her knees to ask the Virgin of Charity's indulgence. Now all you have to do is follow a live tweet and bam! 7 years off from purgatory. Miraculous.