Do you think that Luther really believed that Pope Leo X did not know what the indulgence salesmen were saying?
For the first week in the RPC Mr. North covered the topic of Martin Luther and his writing of the 95 theses. This week covered the story of the Catholic church and what it took for Martin Luther to write his work. While at the time, this was seen as disobedience to the church, Martin Luther Accomplished to main things with his writing. One would be changing the course of Catholic Christianity for the rest of history, and creating one of he greatest written works the world has seen. The 95 theses put simply exposed the corrupted and Power hungry religious and political leaders of the time. The main theme of the Theses was to explain not only to the religious zsars but also to the people that Christianity couldn’t be paid off. One doesn’t go to heaven just by paying off the church. One gets into heaven through hard work, and following the Bible.
Within the Catholic Religion an indulgence is a payment to the church to cleanse the soul. For example, if a man cheats on his wife, that is a sin. Known as adulatory. However, the church taught to all of it’s goers that paying them would remove that sin from their soul. While silly to believe for us, the Catholic Church at the time was playing off the fear that many had of going to hell and then profiting off of it. Soon people used this to become lazy with their religious duties and began paying the church off to pay for their sins. Instead of actually putting the time and effort into becoming and better Catholic and repenting for pure salvation, it was easier to write a check and hand it to the priest. Martin Luther saw this. He saw that people were to be damned if they treated Christs following like this. This was a smear to God. He knew that the Catholic Church wouldn’t stop because they were making a pretty profit.
Martin Luther wrote the 95 theses to warn people of their error. Paying off God doesn’t work and the Church is just going to get rich. While some people saw that message, others took it as a direct attack to the Pope at the time. While he didn’t mean to do this, in a way the Pope was called out for perhaps having alternate motives. However to answer the question. Absolutely The Pope knew what was going on and what the Salesman was trying to say. A simple question should be asked. If you were amassing a small fortune from people, and then got caught, would you play dumb? The Pope made enormous amount of money by using people and their laziness. While today Christianity teaches repentance and to follow the Bible, we wouldn’t have that if it weren’t for Martin Luther and the 95 theses
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