The Roman Catholic Church remains unreformed

This article reminds us that the essential doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church remain the same as they were before the Reformation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/16/vatican-indulgences-pope-francis-tweets

One of the fundamental absurdity of Roman Catholic doctrine asserts itself again. If the Pope has power in his hands to remit the time that people spend in Purgatory, and if he can grant large remissions in return for trivial acts, then why does he do so so infrequently? Does he not care?

And secondly, why do these remissions normally come, not in exchange for acts genuinely useful to fellow human beings, but for acts that testify to the importance of Rome? As in the days of Tetzel, so today - in the article above, indulgences are not offered for alleviating anyone's suffering or improving their lot in life - but for climbing steps in Rome, or following the Pope's media output.

The doctrines of purgatory and imagined Papal powers to release people from are a big spiritual fraud. Their effect is to dissuade people from looking to the final, complete, glorious sufficiency of Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross, given freely to all who come to him. Instead, they cause their followers to lower their eyes from him and instead put them onto the works-based, Rome-centred treadmill of conditional grace. Be warned.