Chapter 10 – Stock Exchange in Indulgences

Miracles, portents and wonders, although they produced a remarkable volume of income, could not be relied upon with confidence by a clerical administration which, like its modern counterpart, was burdened by the ever-mounting flow of a concrete and steady expenditure. The income derived from them was too haphazard and unpredictable, and hence too unreliable. Something of a more consistently dependable nature, therefore had to be denied for the collection of revenues. This was near at hand; the Pope’s power to bind to loose.

Such power was, in the eyes of all Roman Catholics, capable indefinite and indeed of infinite application. When made to work it brought forth, amidst other things, the practice of buying and selling indulgences. Indulgences, like so many other privileges, were eventually much abused; so much so in fact, that they became one of Christiandom’s numbs most regrettable scandals.

Originally an indulgence was far the most innocuous instruments and the spiritual armory of the papacy. Initially it was designed to help the penitent, since there was nothing else than the remission of the penance imposed on confessed sins. The peril of leaving such power in the hands of a notoriously rapacious clergy was too obvious. So the pope reserved the granting of indulgences to himself.

Like many other church institutions the practice of granting indulgences did not come to the face all at once. At the beginning it was granted with the utmost parsimony, and even then, only during exceptional circumstances. The “real” indulgence began to appear during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in a very unobtrusive manner, and at this period was truly a tremendous event if a pope granted an indulgence was still a rare event.

It was the Crusade which eventually pushed indulgences to the forefront. To induce people to enroll under the banner of the Cross, the popes began to grant indulgences with generosity. As the ardor for the Crusades diminished, so the issue of indulgences increased proportionately.

From the liberation of the Tomb of Christ, the indulgences turned to the exterminations on the Church’s enemies in Europe. Later, they degenerated into “crusades” of all kinds, mostly of a religious- political character. Pope Urban VI, for instance, ordered England to fight against France had taken the side of Pope Urban’s rival, Pope Clement VII. To encourage volunteers, Urban promised indulgences to anyone who would thus take up arms. Pope John XXIII did the same when he announced a crusade against Naples-again , because Naples happened to support John’s rival, the Anti-Pope Gregory. From this to an increasing number of sundry causes the steps quickened. Indulgences were granted with ever increasing facility to places, to people, to saints, to monastic orders, and so on, ad infinitum.

This process occurred not only because individuals, orders and places wanted such privileges to enhance to enhance their spiritual status, but above all because the privilege in most cases resulted in substantial and steady monetary gains. The fiscal possibilities were seeing from the earliest period. By the later Middle Ages the practice of selling indulgences for money became general, until it was abused.

The sale of indulgences took sundry shapes and forms. If that privilege of granting indulgences was accorded to the shrine of some saint, it resulted in the increase of pilgrims, and since, after each visit, numerous coins were invariably left behind, the indulgence became ipso facto a money-spinner of considerable importance. This reached such absurd proportions that at one time no less than 800 indulgences-plenaries, accompanied by appropriate offerings, were attached to St. Peter’s in Rome.

The small Church of the Portiuncula, where Francis of Assissi had a vision, was enriched with a novel form of indulgence called the toties quoties, which meant that anyone visiting it in August during a special holy day gained one plenary indulgence each time he entered the little church. The novel indulgence was too good to be restricted to Portiuncula, and in no time Franciscans everywhere wanted a similar privilege, with the result that soon every Franciscan church in every country had its Portiuncula Day. Other monastic orders, of course, could not resist so good an opportunity, and the Dominicans, the Carmelities and countless others followed suit in due course.

Then there was the privileged altar. The pope promised that if a mass was said at a given altar, the soul on behalf of whom the mass had been said would be released instantly from purgatory. Every church was ultimately endowed with such an altar.

If the Crusades opened the flood gates to endulgences, the money-making nature of the multiplying indulgences, of course, brought a veritable flood of indulgences, of course, brought a veritable flood of indulgences as means of accumulating riches, particularly when they were applicable to the dead, thus tempting, as it were, members of families to pay for the release of the souls of their beloved from the flames of purgatory. The absurdity to which this went can be gathered by the fact that no less than 9,000 years, plus 9,000 quarantines for every step of the Scala Santa in Rome, were transferable to souls of the dead.

This was granted by the authority of Pope Pius VII and even of Pope Pius IX. Why such incredible indulgences? Because the Scala Santa is supposed to be the stairway to Pilate’s house, which Christ ascended at His trial. The Stations of the Via Crucis, also in Rome, were so rich in indulgences that, according to an eminent authority on the subject, (1)a Roman Catholic could, within one single year, gain forty-nine plenaries and more than one and a half million years of partials.

An English account appeared round the year 1370 enumerated the widespread indulgences offered by the churches of Rome, the following being but a typical sample:

We learn, for instance, that at St.Peter’s, from Holy Thursday to Lammas (August 1st), there was a daily indulgence of 14,000 years, and whenever the Vernicle (Sacro Volto) exhibited, there one of 3,000 years for citizens, 9,000 for Italians, and 12,000 for pilgrims from beyond the sea. At San Anastasio there was one of 7,000 years every day, and at San Tommaso one of 14,000 years, with one- third remission of sins for all comers. (2)

The indulgences grew in number and power with the passing of time, until finally they became so unlimited that even the most pious began to have doubts about their efficacy. Gerson suggested that they were thus exaggerated owing to “the avarice” of the pardoners, “that is, the people who were selling them” and declared, incidentally, that as so many dealt with thousands of years they could not have the authority of the popes, since purgatory would end with the end of the world. (3)

On the other hand, another no less devout authority, Lavorio, declared that the indulgences of 15,000 or 20,000 years were proof of the extent of purgatorial suffering which hardened sinners might expect, while Polacchi argued that such indulgences should not seem absurd or incredible when we reflect that a single day in purgatory corresponds to many years of the fiercest bodily anguish during life. (4)

The extravagance of the indulgences continued. In 1513, for instance, Pope Leo X granted to the Servite Chapel of St.Annunciata at Florence that all visiting it on Saturdays should obtain a thousand years and as many quarantines, and double that amount on the feasts of Virgin, Christmas and Friday and Saturday of Holy Week. (5)

Even after the council of Trent had enjoined moderation in dispensing a treasure, Pius IV in 1565 granted to the members of the confraternity of the Hospital of St. Lazarus, besides several plenaries and the indulgences of Santo Spirito in Saxia and the Stations of Rome, the jubilee and the Holy Land, a year and a quarantine for every day , 2,000 years on each of the feasts of the Apostles, 100,000 years on Epiphany and each day of the octave, 3,000 years and as many quarantines with remission of one- third of sins on every Sunday, 2,000 years and 800 quarantines of Christmas, Resurrection and Ascension and each day of their octaves, 8,000 years and 8,000 quarantines of Pentecost and each day of the octave, 2,000 years and one-seventh remission of sins on Corpus Christi and each day of the octave, 2,000 years and one-seventh remission of sins on Corpus Christi and each day of the octave, 30,000 years and 3,000 quarantines on All Saints and each day up to St. Leonard’s (November 1st to 6th). (6)

The immensity of the riches which brought to the papacy during the centuries is incalculable. Their use, abuse and misuse should not make us lightly condemn them, as unimportant, nor their absurdity induce us to underestimate the tremendous power they had – or rather, the tremendous power of the cumulative effect of their employment by both the Church and the popes.

For, more often than not, they served their purpose in the mobilizations, control and use of the vast masses of men, armies and nations, none of which might otherwise have been mobilized with such ease and fluidity by successive popes. In the struggles of the papacy with the temporal powers, for instance, which was the dominating fact of medieval history, they played a paramount role. This they did, not not only by creating renewed zeal, but by putting men, riches and armies at will into the hands of the popes.

It was, thanks to the weapon of indulgences, for example, that Pope Innocent III was able to crush for good the menacing heresy of the Cathari, a heresy which at one time at one time seemed about to engulf half Europe; and for that matter, that Pope Clement IV was able to humiliate the German emperors and reduce them to quasi-impotence politically, an event which profoundly affected the subsequent course of European history. For by the mere fact that the popes could proclaim a crusade at will with all the indulgences invariably involved, princes, kings and emperors were made to think twice before opposing the papal path in territorial disputes of political or dynastic matters.

Explorations, conversions and domination of known and unknown lands and races were greatly accelerated by the power and use of indulgences. We quote only one typical case, that of the Teutonic Knights, who were spurred chiefly by indulgences in conquering and thus Christianizing North-East Germany and most of Hungary and finally in erecting an impregnable barrier against the invading Islamic armies of the Turks.

Indulgences, therefore, played a paramount part in the shaping in creation of capital events the history of Europe. Yet, if they were positive factors in certain spheres of the Church’s activity, they also contributed mightily to her mounting corruption and decadence. Their trading for money became such a scandal that it turned, as already hinted, into a universal, well-organised abuse, which operated all levels, is chief exponent and proponent being the papacy itself. Papal dynastic and personal greed was at the bottom of such gross profiteering. The corruption of the clergy, ever ready to make money by selling their offices, was a contributory factor.

Christians everywhere, who for decades had frowned upon the practice, finally came boldly to the fore in open protest . The chief exponent was a troubled monk, Dr. Martin Luther. Following many tergiversations, on the 31st October, 1517 he nailed his famous ninety-five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. It was a fateful day for the whole of Roman Catholicism: for on that day the German monk, acting as the spokesman of untold millions of believers, defiantly challenged the practice of selling documents and offering money payments for penance, that is, rejecting indulgences.

Like many others, he had seen the degradation and abuse of such commerce. He had openly shuddered at the theory that by buying a papal indulgence Roman Catholics could shorten and indeed cut out altogether their time in purgatory. He considered the belief that the souls of the deceased could be released from the flames by the purchase of indulgences on their behalf a theological monstrosity.

The brazen buying and selling of indulgences to make money had become so open as to disgust the most tolerant of Christians. This was being done not only by the pope, who traded them throughout Europe, ostensibly for religious purposes, but equally by lesser dignitaries. To mention only one among many, the Pope Leo X in 1517 gave permission to the Archbishop of Mainz, to sell indulgences on a grand scale in order to pay his debts, which he had contracted in buying the dignity of archbishop. In Germany this type of trade in indulgences was promoted by the pope’s delegate himself, Dominican

J. Tetzel, who operated near Wittenberg. The reaction and counter-reaction of Luther’s indignation in due course provoked what finally became a historical inevitability the Reformation.

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