In researching El Camino de Santiago de Compostela (known in English as the Way of St. James the Greater), a 500-mile walking pilgrimage across northern Spain that has been calling to me, I came across a reference to plenary indulgences in the Camino's history. I had almost forgotten about indulgences, as they are foreign to my faith experience.
My grandmother had a thing about “first Fridays.” If you made it to Mass on the first Friday of the month so many times in a row, she said, you were guaranteed a fast-track to heaven. I remember asking her when I was 11 or 12: What if you do all those first Fridays and then murder someone? Do the Fridays override mortal sin? What if you do the first Fridays and don't even believe in God?
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