What were indulgences why did Martin Luther opposed is practice?

Answer 1

Catholic Answer

See, this is an extremely difficult question to answer for the simple reason that the indulgences that Martin Luther was opposed to simply never existed. I don't find this as amazing as I used to. I am going to celebrate my 62 birthday this year. I have been studying Martin Luther off and on since I was a 12 year old boy in Lutheran confirmation class - and realized, at that time, that what they were teaching me didn't make any sense.

The more that I look into Martin Luther and his "complaints", the more I am absolutely astonished that he was (purportedly) a Theology professor. All I can say is if Catholic education back in the 16th century was this bad, then it is no wonder so many left the Church. What I *don't* understand is how anyone man with a good conscience could ask the questions that he asked, and NOT listen to the answers from the Pope and his representatives.

In other words, the indulgences that Martin Luther was opposing were (supposedly) an absolution of sin for money, BUT this has NEVER been the practice OR theology of the Church and has been condemned since at least the first century - about 14+ centuries before Martin Luther started making his complaint. You can look at theology texts and Church statements of dogma from that time and before and nowhere are you going to find anything even resembling what he is talking about.

This 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.