Why were Luther's ideas unacceptable to the Catholic Church?
Why were Luther’s ideas unacceptable to the Catholic Church?
There are many reasons why Luther’s ideas were unacceptable to the Catholic Church. One such reason was that Luther’s ideas had a serious impact upon the amount of money that was taken from Saxony by Pope Leo X in the form of indulgences. The money was quite desperately needed to pay off the huge debts that the Archbishop, Albert of Brandenburg had incurred as well as the building of St. Peter’s cathedral in Rome. But because so many of the senior priests were very corrupt and had most likely bought their position within the church solely to make money, the act of buying ones position within the church is called simony. Also because of the vast amount of greed that was such a problem within the church many priests held far more than just one position in the church so as to gain far greater wealth, the is called pluralism. This was so important because it meant that unlike more pious religious men these men of the church were unlikely to back any reform whatsoever that led to the lessening of their own personal wealth because that was the only reason they were part of the church in the first place. Luther’s ideas were voiced in 1517 when he pinned his 95-point thesis to the church door in Wittenberg. His main disagreement with the church was the selling of indulgences, particularly the Jubilee indulgence and the promises that were being sold with them that all the buyer’s sins would be forgiven and most controversially the sins of dead relatives so that they might escape the torment of Purgatory. The thing that worried Luther was that the Pope was forgiving sins that he had no right or power to forgive. This is shown in point 6; “The Pope can remit no guilt, but only declare and confirm that it has been remitted by god…” This went completely against the Popes supposed infallibility, which he upheld so as to crush any opposition against any of his ideas. Although Luther was not the first to Luther was also worried about the forgiveness of sins to the dead that was in his view completely wrong because sins should only be forgiven if the sinner confesses and is truly sorry and blessed by a priest. But obviously if one is dead then this would be near impossible and also because Jubilee indulgences were often sold in the market square and other such non-religious places. His views are shown in point 8; “…penitential canons only apply to the living…none applies to the dying” All of Luther’s views told the Catholic community “the purchase of pardons is voluntary, not obligatory” and that many people were actually making it harder for themselves to go to heaven by buying these indulgences rather than as they thought increasing their chances. Point 32 shows this perfectly; “All those who believe themselves certain of their own salvation because of letters of pardon, will be eternally dammed together with their teachers” As Luther goes on it becomes more and more obvious that overall what he is trying to say is that “Any Christian whatsoever, living or dead, participates in all benefits of Christ and the Church; and this is granted him by god, even without letters of indulgence” and so letters of indulgence were redundant. Many people in Saxony were buying indulgences left, right and centre because of the worry of what may happen if they did not, but when they heard this, which they invariably did because Luther’s 95-point thesis was translated into German and sent all around the country they found the excuse they had been looking for to stop buying these extortionately priced commodities. Interestingly when Luther first put up the 95-point thesis he did so in Latin, which was the language of the church and so emphasising the fact that his quarrel was with the church.