Understanding Christianity

[Banquo's Ghost]

What exactly happens when you get 'shriven'?

To shrive is the archaic term for the act of a priest hearing confession and pronouncing absolution.

I'm just an old traditionalist. To me, religion went downhill when the peasantry was allowed to have its own bibles...

The Chapters between William I (1066) and the Tudors (Henry VIII etc) are always called the Middle Ages, on account of their coming at the beginning; this was also The Age of Piety, since Religious fervour was then at its height, people being (1) burnt alive with faggots (The Steak) (2) bricked up in the walls of Convents (Religious Foundations) and (3) tortured in dungeons (The Confessional).

All this was not only pious but a Good Thing, as many of the people who were burnt, bricked, tortured, etc. became quite otherworldly.

Nowadays people are not so pious, even heretics being denied the benefits of fervent Religion.

[Kralizec]

I'm just an old traditionalist. To me, religion went downhill when the peasantry was allowed to have its own bibles...

If that's such a large beef for you, maybe you should consider Scientology