Letter To Peter's Basilica

Research on Martin Luther was chosen to demonstrate the importance of his works, and decisions that not only fueled his purpose, but changed the church for generations to come. Martin Luther propelled himself into his work and was not afraid of voicing his often strong opinion of the Catholic Church. Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses provides readers his opinion of the church, calling out failures, and known corruption of leaders within.

The Catholic Church during the early 16th Century was rooted throughout Europe. The Church influenced every country and its respective monarchs through the Church’s wealth and power. The Catholic Church placed a tight hold on the general populace with individuals who went against the Church being branded as heretics and excommunicated. The wealth and power of the Church eventually caused the quality of the clergy to deteriorate. Priests became corrupt and subjected to their physical desires. They frequented taverns, gambled and kept mistresses. The reputation of the clergy were horrid as the general populace was relieved that “their priest [kept] a mistress” because it “[secured] their wives from seduction” The knowledge of the clergy degenerated as well as they were no longer required to learn and teach the Holy Scriptures because the Church dictated their actions. The pinnacle of the Church’s corruption was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was the “extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment” sold by priests as a temporary relief from sins. The indulgences were then sold to the general populace for money as the monetization of a priest’s services. Johannes Tetzel was a prominent preacher of indulgences who relied on the money from the sales to subsidize the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The corrupt sales did not go unnoticed as Martin Luther, in an effort to stop the corruption of the Church, posted the 95 Theses on the door of a Castle

A major 16th century movement initially aimed at reforming the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformation was begun by a German monk named Martin Luther who challenge the Catholic Church’s doctrine by posting his 95 Theses on a church door. He did this because he was appalled that the church was selling indulgences, which were written letters that assured people’s salvation, in order to build a new Basilica in Rome under Pope Leo X. Martin Luther argued that the Bible, not the pope, was the central means to discern God’s word and was the only thing capable of giving salvation.

In addition to indulgences, Luther also wrote about “St. Peter’s Scandal.” He states, “Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the

Martin Luther played a vital role in the start of the Reformation, his actions from 1517 allowed people to start forming their own opinions on religion and the church. Between 1517 and 1522 Martin Luther wa pivotal in the course of the Reformation. On the 31st October 1517 Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses on a door of All Saint’s Church in Wittenburg, provoked by indulgences sold by John Tetzel in villages around Germany; he was selling to relatives of people who had died. This money was needed in order to pay back debts to the Fugger bank for buying Albrecht of Brandenburg third bishopric and to build St Peter’s Church. This Theses was addressed to Pope Leo

The Reformation started with the ideas and concepts of Martin Luther, all explained in his Ninety-Five Theses. Luther believed that God’s gift of faith was freely given to the unworthy, and the righteousness is passive and is not active or based on our good works or deeds. These ideas clashed with the Roman Church, which in turn created the “Indulgence Controversy.” To raise money to help rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope Leo X issued the offer of indulgences as a penance for parishioners to buy. This penance acted as a way to pay as a remission of temporal punishment due to the sins of the person whose guilt has already been forgiven. Luther caught wind of the issue of indulgences happening within his own church and went ballistic

The Catholic Church by the 15th and 16th century was closely aligned with state and was largely corrupt. Many of the Popes, Bishops, and Priests of this time exhibited immoral behavior and their activities in the church opposed scripture. These Catholic priests sold indulgences that represented full or partial remission of sin (Bettenson, 1). Taking into consideration this perceived fraudulence, it was not surprising that a lot of people became disillusioned with the Catholic Church. One of the main characters of this time period who had the courage to go against the Bishop and Catholic Church was Martin Luther, who did not agree with all of the Catholic Church’s doctrine (Unknown, 6). He also did not entirely believe that the bishop and the pope were always authoritative as the church claimed because he believed only the Bible is infallible.

A long history of corruption caused people to view the Catholic Church as a for-profit organization rather than God’s voice on Earth. By the Renaissance, the Catholic Church had already lost much of its power over secular rulers but still held leverage over the masses. This authority naturally paved the way for corruption. The most outrageous form of corruption practiced by the Church was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence is the remission of temporal punishment still due for a sin that has been sacramentally absolved. One of the ways the Church would generate income was by selling them. The notion started off innocently enough; it stemmed from the idea that punishment for crimes could be converted to payments of money, in essence, a fine (Simon 35). However, it soon spiraled out of control as the Church used indulgences simply to gain money, as when Pope Leo X needed money for the construction of St. Peter’s basilica (Duiker and Spielvogel 429). People began to view salvation as something that could be bought; they could go out and sin on Saturday night, then simply pay for it monetarily Sunday morning. To encourage people to buy more indulgences, the Church even claimed that indulgences could be bought on behalf of those already dead and in purgatory (Sporre 378). This blatant victimization was what spurred Martin Luther to write his Ninety-Five Theses, which

The Catholic church were giving people false impressions that if you paid a certain amount of money, you would be forgiven and receive salvation. Luther’s “95 Theses” wanted the people to realize their salvation and remorse solely relied on their faith, not false indulgences. Luther then elaborates on why the Pope is using false indulgences to pay for the construction of St. Peter’s bascilica and not using his own money. Luther continues to make valuable points stating the church’s governance should be based only on the word of God and each individual should read and interpret the Bible for himself. To spread the word, Martin Luther posted his theses in the Wittenburg church. However, it was not until the printing press that word truly got out as far as Europe and throughout the Holy Roman

Born in Eisleben, Germany, in 1483, Martin Luther went on to become one of Western history’s most significant figures. Luther spent his early years in relative anonymity as a monk and scholar. But in 1517 Luther penned a document attacking the Catholic Church’s corrupt practice of selling “indulgences” to absolve sin. Luther was a highly religious Catholic monk and scholar. He earned his doctoral degree in biblical studies, his intent on nailing the Ninety-Five Thesis to the church door was motivated by a desire to reform the Catholic Church by addressing and correcting what he viewed as corruption, of which, the buying and selling of Indulgences was at the heart. Luther’s thesis also brought into question papal authority along with the Catholic

In October of 1517 as a direct response to the selling of indulgences, Luther would post his soon to be famous 95 Theses onto the front door of Wittenburg Cathedral, signaling the beginning of a revolution. This document represented a personal manifesto of everything Luther felt was wrong about the Catholic Church, including the selling of indulgences. Luther’s Theses would quickly become extremely popular selling 50,000 copies in its first three weeks. While Luther’s monastic overseers strongly remained he stay silent Luther remained firm in his beliefs after being challenged to a debate by a fellow religious expert John Eck. During the debate Luther boldly claimed that the Pope himself was totally unnecessary. By 1520 Luther had gone all in on his claims, publishing pamphlets about his new ideas. Within these pamphlets he stated, “it is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to be called the spiritual estate” (Rogers

Martin Luther wrote the Power and efficacy of indulgences .Know as the 95 theses. Martin Luther came up with the 95 theses in Germany in Wittenberg. These 95 theses show what the church was doing wrong in his time this change the course of the catholic church. See the church would take and fool the good christian people by take and stealing their money. Like if the person was having a bad day they would come to the church and the pope are monks would tell them they could feel mary, or anybody from the bible bones are some fake holy relic or they told them they could drop money in a pot and when it hit the bottom there person they to wanted to go to heaven went .

When we take a look at the background, we understand what it was that Martin Luther was standing up for. According to our textbook, Johann Tetzel was commissioned to sell indulgences in Germany by Pope Leo X, which did not immediately affect Martin Luther, however the prince of each province had the right to allow or deny their sale in his territory (Campbell 306). While these new indulgences for the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica

Many ideas had originated from the events of the Reformation. For instance, the event of the publication of the 95 theses by Martin Luther would be a great example of an event which had led and caused the shifts of ideas, practices and teachings during the current time period as the ideas had been achieved through Luther’s theses, where he declares numerous ideas in relation to the church’s corruption. The ideas which had risen were related to repentance and indulgences, Luther had established the idea that the benefits provided by Christ was achievable even without the use of indulgences and that the indulgences only promoted greed Luther had also established the idea that true repentance was greater than buying indulgences, thus providing

The history had alluded that the attempts of royal supremacy preventing papal supremacy from collecting taxes had failed tremendously. Popes, such as Pope Boniface, had objected the king’s endeavors by forbidding taxation “without papal permission (Jordan,190).” However, such power was being widely challenged during the early fifteenth century when the selling of indulgences finally ignited the rebellions. The Catholic church first started applying indulgences in Germany, indicating that by buying indulgences one could shorten one’s time in purgatory (Jensen,13). Though it appeared to be a problem of corrupted church ideals, the money that indulgences generated in Germany was used to fund a church that was being built in Rome (Jensen,14). Thus, on the other hand, the selling of indulgences was equivalent to taxing. Such action infuriated majorities of Germans, including Martin Luther. He casted doubts on churches’ rights to perform such political deed that was clearly deviated from the original catholic beliefs. With the protections of Frederick the Wise and other royal supports, Luther “wrote his 95 Theses to spur debate” and publicly established a new religion called Protestantism (Jensen,13). Thus it was a challenge to the church regarding its political