How did the selling of indulgences cause corruption in the Catholic Church?

Answer 1

The church is supposed to direct ones spiritual life and ones relation with God. The idea that you can pay money to the church and thus be excused in advance for your evil action is contrary to the purpose of the church .

Answer 2

Catholic AnswerThis is another, "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. You can't answer it, because the premise is a lie. The Catholic Church never sold indulgences, ever. Nor, for that matter do indulgences have anything to do with forgiving sin. You need to understand the Christian concept of the Body of Christ: we are all members of the Body of Christ by our baptism. When one of us sins, we hurt the entire Body. Our Blessed Lord died on the cross to forgive our sins. We apply that forgiveness to ourselves in various ways, the first of which is baptism which wipes out everything up to that point in our lives. After baptism, Our Blessed Lord provided another Sacrament to remove serious sin (and venial {less serious}), that is confession. When you go to confession you must have contrition for your sins, confess all of them, and resolve to never to them again. Let me see if I can explain this another way:

To understand indulgences you must first understand sin and its consequences.

When one sins, one damages the Body of Christ, as, by our Baptism, we are all members of the Body of Christ, and everything we do, for good or ill, affects everyone.

Say you are in the street in your neighborhood playing softball. You hit one and it goes flying across the street and through Mrs. Neighbor's front window. You put the bat down, walk across the street, knock on the door, and apologize to Mrs. Neighbor. She forgives you, since you were nice, and owned up to your fault. Up until now we have the basic scenario of someone going into confession and confessing their sins. But wait, notice that in my example, the window is still broken. You have to go home and confess to your father and mother that you broke the window, they, in turn, take your allowance for the next several years and pay to have the window fixed. The broken window is the example of how we damage the Body of Christ. The allowance that you have to fork over for the next several years is your penance. Now, an indulgence is based on the fact that when Jesus was a man living on the earth, his mother, and the other saints down through the centuries, have done more good works than they need to do their penances (in the case of Our Blessed Lord, and His mother, they had no need of penances, so all their good works are surplus), so, the Church, through Her power of the keys, can apply the merits of those good works to your penance. So in the example above, the indulgence is your parents fixing the window for you, and you are still going to get your allowance. You might have to fork over some of it to help, but they are not going to impoverish you for the next several years.

That is what an indulgence is: it is the application of the good works of the saints to make up for your penances. Please note that they are only applicable to someone in a state of grace who has already been forgiven. They have NOTHING to do with the remission of sin. Without prior remission of sin, there can be no indulgence.

Now, any good work can be used to obtain an indulgence in the Church, the classic works of penance are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The one that causes so much trouble back during the protestant revolt was an indulgence attached to almsgiving. For instance, you can earn a plenary indulgence now if you go to confession, go to Mass, receive Holy Communion, pray for the Holy Father, and do a good work, say a Rosary in front of the Blessed Sacrament, or in a family group. You used to be able to earn a Plenary Indulgence for all the same conditions, but instead of saying the Rosary, you could donate ANY sum of money for some good work the Church was involved with. In this particular case, it was rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica. Because of all the hysterics and false rumors, that is no longer possible. Bottom line? The Church has never sold indulgences, ever.

Answer

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (see Link) Leo X bankrupted the Vatican treasury. He was a cheerful and generous man, and gave alms constantly. Partly because of this, he allowed plenary indulgences to be granted to those who contributed to the New St. Peter's. Technically, this did not amount to the selling of indulgences, but it is disingenuous to put much weight on that argument. This led to other abuses. The Archbishop of Magdeburg was allowed to keep one half of all proceeds gained this way. The encyclopedial goes on to explain that Leo X failed to offer the church the leadership it needed at this most critical time in her history.

AnswerIn fact, the Catholic church DID routinely sell indulgences. They did it in many ways, from charging pilgrims a "donation" to visit a shrine ( where the "visit" was rewarded with a "free" indulgence... but, in fact, there was a mandatory donation required to make the visit) all the way up to outright purchases of forgiveness in advance for the aristocratic classes.

The selling of indulgences was one of the principal outrages that led to the Lutheran schism and is specifically condemned in Martin Luther's theses.

The reason why the Church "effectively" sold indulgences is simple. They needed the money.

Answer 3

Catholic AnswerPlease be careful answering this question, as the way the question is phrased assumes that the Catholic Church was selling indulgences, this has been repeated for nearly five hundred years now, so it is common knowledge, right? Wrong. The Church never actually sold indulgences, that is called the sin of simony (the selling of sacred things for money) and is an automatic excommunication, and it was a sin in the first century, and certainly in the sixteenth century. That being said, you have several questions above:

1) Was there corruption in the Catholic Church? The web defines corruption as a) dishonesty, fraud, etc. or b) the process of changing something into something erroneous or debased. According to this definition, then there is a good case for saying that there was corruption in the Church, particularly during this time period. However, it was not as a result of people abusing indulgences, rather, the other way around. There was abuse of indulgences due to corruption in the Church.

2) Were indulgences actually sold. The answer to this must be a resounding "no". Indulgences have always been available (and still are, by the way) for any act of religion as currently spelled out in the Enchridion of Indulgences. They are normally attached to the three penitential practices of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. It is the last that Martin Luther accused the Church of corrupting indulgences. Mind you, Martin Luther, at this time, had no problem with indulgences, as can be seen in his 95 Theses, but he accused the hierarchy of "selling" indulgences. Pope Leo X was in the process of rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica, and he issued an indulgence to people that made a contribution towards this work. This was perfectly fine. In addition, the Bishop in Germany also had some work being done, and he also collected part of the money generated from the Indulgence towards St. Peter's Basilica.

Bottom line? There has always been sin and corruption in the Church. The Church has been composed entirely of sinners (saving Our Blessed Lord, and His Mother), and sinners will fall. But indulgences were not sold at any time, you still had to fulfill the other conditions to get an indulgence in addition to donating money (almsgiving). There is nothing whatsoever wrong with this. Was Pope Leo X a saint? No, of course not, nor was the Bishop involved. But your question as stated is wrong as it assumes facts which are not facts.

For a complete explanation of indulgences and the situation that you are talking about, look at Frs. Rumble and Carty:

from Radio Replies, by Fathers Rumble and Carty, 1942

994. I have heard Catholics speak of indulgences for the souls in purgatory? What are indulgences?

Do not mix up the ecclesiastical term indulgence with the modern idea of self-indulgence. An indulgence is not a permission to indulge in sin, but is a remission of punishment due to sin. Now in the early Christian Church certain sins were punished by long public penance, sometimes for days, at other times for years. But the Church was often indulgent, and loosed or freed Christians from all or part of their public penance, if they showed other good dispositions, or performed certain works of charity. The Church had that power in the name of God as surely as the state has the power in its own name to commute a sentence or even release a criminal altogether under certain circumstances. Christ said to the Church, "Whatsoever you shall loose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven." Matt. XVIII., 18. That the merits of Christ and of the Martyrs and Saints of the ages are at the disposal of the Church is also a consequence of the doctrine of the Communion of the Saints. And that power of commuting or even of remitting penances and expiations exists in the Church to-day, being exercised by the granting of indulgences.

995. What do you mean by an indulgence, say, of forty days?

An indulgence of forty days means that the Church liberates us from that amount of expiation of our sins which would be equal to a forty days' public penance in the early Church. It does not mean forty days less purgatory. Such an indulgence is called a partial indulgence.

997. Can indulgences be applied to the souls in purgatory?

Yes, but by God alone. We can but ask Him to accept indulgences on their behalf. But we can certainly offer them with a definite conviction of their normal acceptance by God for those we love, even as we can share our goods in this life with more needy friends. This too is implied by the doctrine of the Communion of Saints.

999. Do you deny that indulgences were sold in the middle ages?

They were never sold with the sanction of the theology of the Church. If unscrupulous individuals sold indulgences, such traffic in them would no more militate against the Church than would my own conduct did I myself adopt the practice privately.

1000. Pope Leo X. Sold indulgences in Germany to get money for St. Peter's. Do you think it right to sell pardons for sins?

An indulgence is NOT a pardon for sin. It can be gained only by one who is not in a state of sin, but who has previously secured forgiveness of his sins by repentance and confession. Then, and then only, an indulgence is a remission of further penalties due to sin. It is absolutely wrong, of course, to sell indulgences. Pope Leo X. Did not do so. There were abuses by some individuals in this matter, but they were never with the sanction of the Church. The Pope granted the favor of certain indulgences to those who would give alms towards the building of St. Peter's in Rome. But there is a difference between giving alms to a good work, and giving money to purchase something of equivalent value. Remember that Christ had a special blessing for the widow who gave her mite as an alms to the temple in Jerusalem. Would you accuse Him of selling that blessing for a mite?

1001. Are not Papal Bulls, and indulgences still sold in Spain, and cannot any crime be committed and an indulgence obtained, if sufficient money is forthcoming?

A Papal Bull is simply a Papal document with a leaden seal or bulla attached to it. It need have nothing whatever to do with indulgences. Indulgences have never been for sale as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, and are not sold in Spain or anywhere else. If a man commits mortal sin, not all the indulgences in the world could forgive it. They are not for the forgiveness of sin, but can be gained only after such sins have been forgiven by other means. Since they can be gained only by people in a state of grace they are an inducement not to fall into sin. And they may be obtained, not by money, but by certain good works such as prayer, almsgiving to the poor, etc.

Answer 4

According to Roman Catholic theology, one can atone for one's evil deeds by doing good deeds. The Popes took it upon themselves to issue certificates called indulgences to people guaranteeing that their sins would be forgiven if they did a good deed such as donating money to the Church.

This was an old practice: the Pardoner in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales was an indulgence seller. But the practice was enormously expanded when the Popes embarked on the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica, particularly the Popes Julius II and Leo X, in order to raise funds for the construction. Indulgences were aggressively marketed. To many people, including Martin Luther, it appeared that the church was "selling salvation" and that the church's policy was that if you were rich enough you could buy your way into heaven. The church did not agree with much that Luther said, but they did scale back on the indulgences big time.

Answer 5

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Catholic AnswerThe Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and Our Blessed Lord guaranteed that it would remain until the end of the world, and "the gates of hell would not prevail against it", thus the Catholic Church cannot "become corrupt", although, certainly, individuals in it can be corrupt - we are all sinners. That being said, indulgences used to be offered for acts of piety, which included the three main works of charity towards God: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. Because of the hysterics caused by Martin Luther over the indulgences offered for donations to help repair St. Peter's Basilica in the sixteenth century, one can no longer obtain an indulgence for almsgiving. The Church did not become corrupt over indulgences or anything else. That would be to deny that Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, is God, and can carry through on His Word to keep His Church from error. To say the Catholic Church is able to become corrupt is to call Jesus a liar.

Answer 6

Catholic AnswerNothing is wrong with the Catholic Church, nor can it be, it is the Body of Christ - see St. Paul, nearly every letter he wrote. The Catholic Church has always taught that salvation is a free gift from God, the only thing wrong with selling indulgences is that Martin Luther said the Church was doing it, and they weren't. Indulgences are a very real thing, and one of the acts of charity that you used to be able to do in order to earn an indulgence was the giving of alms. Because of the scandal caused by Martin Luther, this is no longer possible, but please keep in mind - the Church NEVER sold indulgences, doesn't now, didn't then.