What practice related to indulgences at the start of the 1500s left the church vulnerable to scrutiny and critcism?

Answer 1

Pope Leo X, who was pope from 1513-1521 managed to spend the vast sum of money that his predecessor, Julius II had left in the treasury within the first two years of his papacy. Trying to recover, he tried to raise money in numerous ways, one of them was that he debased many spiritual practices into little more than financial transactions. Although indulgences could be gained for any of the three spiritual works: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; during this period almsgiving was highlighted and the Papacy took a lot portion of all alms given to gain an indulgence. It was borderline but still "kosher", however, Martin Luther raised such a stink about it and falsely accused Fr. Johann Tetzel of "selling indulgences". All of which, we are only now discovering is a bunch of lies and falsehoods concocted by Martin Luther. Martin Luther pretty much broke Fr. Tetzel with a series of outright lies that were believed during his lifetime and have been repeated by protestant historians to this day.

from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The theses dispute between Luther and Tetzel,

is handled so circumstantially in the article MARTIN LUTHER that we need not repeat it here. The publication of Luther's "Sermon on Indulgences and Grace" was replied to by Tetzel's

"Vorlegung",

issued in April, 1518 (Lea, in "A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences", III, 395, erroneously makes it Vorlesung),

in which the scholastically-trained

theologican,

though not profound, scents nevertheless with keen penetration, not a mere academic tournament, but a far-reaching

and momentous battle of principles, involving the very fundamentals of the Christian religion and the authority of the Church. He lays bare with extraordinary precision the unfortunate consequences that would arise. At the close of his "Vorlegung",

Tetzel announces that he would presently publish "a few other principles and positions". These are the second series of theses, fifty in number, with Tetzel as author, and published in May, 1518. In these, indulgences are but lightly touched upon, the burden of the argumentation being shifted to the authority of the Church. Tetzel as yet was only a bachelor of theology. In the course of 1518 he was promoted to the doctorate, whether by the master-general

or the University of Frankfort is not known. Luther's agitation having frustrated further efforts to popularize the granted indulgence of eight years, Tetzel,

deserted by the public, broken in spirit, wrecked in health, retired to his monastery at Leipzig in 1518. Here in the middle of January, 1519, he had to face the bitter reproaches and unjust incriminations

of Carl von

Meltitz.

It was at this time that Luther magnanimously penned a letter in which he tries to console him by declaring "that the agitation was not that of his [Tetzel's]

creation, but that the child had an entirely different father". Tetzel died soon after, received an honourable burial, and was interred before the high altar of the Dominican church at Leipzig.

History presents few characters that have suffered more senseless misrepresentation, even bald caricature, than Tetzel.

"Even while he lived stories which contained an element of legend gathered around his name, until at last, in the minds of the uncritical Protestant historians, he became the typical indulgence-monger,

upon whom any well-worn

anecdote might be fathered" (Beard, "Martin Luther", London, 1889, 210). For a critical scholarly study which shows him in a proper perspective, he had to wait the researches of our own time, mainly at the hands of Dr. Nicholas Paulus,

who is closely followed in this article. In the first place, his teaching regarding the indulgences for the living was correct. The charge that the forgiveness of sins was sold for money regardless of contrition or that absolution for sins to be committed in the future could be purchased is baseless. An indulgence, he writes, can be applied only "to the pains of sin which are confessed and for which there is contrition". "No one", he furthermore adds, "secures an indulgence unless he have true contrition". The confessional letters (confessionalia)

could of course be obtained for a mere pecuniary consideration without demanding contrition. But such document did not secure an indulgence. It was simply a permit to select a proper confessor, who only after a contrite confession would absolve from sin and reserved cases, and who possessed at the same time facilities to impart the plenary indulgence (Paulus,

"Johann Tetzel",

103).