Who criticized the church for selling indulgences?

Answer 1

Many have condemned the sale of indulgences over the centuries, but the most famous of these is Martin Luther.

Martin Luther (10 November 1483 - 18 February 1546) initiated the Protestant Reformation. As a priest and theology professor, he confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his The Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. Luther strongly disputed their claim that freedom from God's punishment of sin could be purchased with money. His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520 and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the emperor.

Martin Luther taught that salvation is not from good works, but a free gift of God, received only by grace through faith in Jesus as redeemer from sin. His theology challenged the authority of the pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that The Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptised Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.

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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:

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 2

Over the centuries, not a few heretics have expressed such opposition: the Catholic Church is nearly two thousand years old, there have been untold heresies which were religious movement against the Church in that time. A short list of the "Great Heresies":

The Circumcisers (1st century)

Gnosticism (1st and 2nd centuries)

Montanism (late 2nd century)

Savellianism (early 3rd century)

Arianism (4th century)

Pelagianism (5th century)

Semi-Pelagianism (5th century)

Nestorianism (5th century)

Monophysitism (5th century)

Iconoclasm (7th and 8th centuries)

Catharism (11th century)

Protestantism (16th century)

Jansenism (17th century)

Answer 3

No doubt many people criticised the Catholic Church for selling indulgences, but most who did were wise enough to keep their criticisms to themselves or to those they could trust. Martin Luther is most famous for this criticism.

Answer 4

Martin Luther spoke out against the Catholic Church's practice of selling indulgences.

Answer 5

95 Theses written by Martin Luther in 1517

Answer 6

Martin Luther. 'The power of pardon was God's alone'