(4) An indulgence is valid both in the tribunal of the
Church and in the tribunal of
God. This means that it not only releases the penitent from his indebtedness to the
Church or from the obligation of performing canonical penance, but also from the temporal punishment which he has incurred in the sight of
God and which, without the indulgence, he would have to undergo in order to satisfy Divine justice.
To say that an indulgence of so many days or years is granted means that it cancels an amount of purgatorial punishment equivalent to that which would have been remitted, in the sight of
God, by the performance of so many days or years of the ancient canonical penance.
Finally, from the nature of the case, it is obvious that one must perform the good works—prayers, alms deeds, visits to a church, etc.—which are prescribed in the granting of an indulgence.
It is therefore of faith (I) that the
Church has received from Christ the power to grant indulgences, and (2) that the use of indulgences is salutary for the faithful.
According to
Catholic doctrine, therefore, the source of indulgences is constituted by the merits of Christ and the saints. This treasury is left to the keeping, not of the individual
Christian, but of the
Church. Consequently, to make it available for the faithful, there is required an exercise of authority, which alone can determine in what way, on what terms, and to what extent, indulgences may be granted.
As to Luther's 95 theses not happening as thee faith claims here again is the truth.
The
Ninety-five Theses or
Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences[a] is a list of propositions for an academic
disputation written in 1517 by
Martin Luther, professor of
moral theology at the
University of Wittenberg, Germany, at the time controlled by the
Electorate of Saxony. Retrospectively considered to signal the birth of
Protestantism, this document advances Luther's positions against what he saw as the abuse of the practice of clergy selling
plenary indulgences, which were certificates believed to reduce the temporal punishment in
purgatory for
sins committed by the purchasers or their loved ones. In the
Theses, Luther claimed that the
repentance required by
Christ in order for sins to be forgiven involves inner spiritual repentance rather than merely external
sacramental confession. He argued that indulgences led Christians to avoid true repentance and sorrow for sin, believing that they could forgo it by obtaining an indulgence. These indulgences, according to Luther, discouraged Christians from giving to the poor and performing other acts of mercy, which he attributed to a belief that indulgence certificates were more spiritually valuable (despite the fact that indulgences were granted for such actions). Though Luther claimed that his positions on indulgences accorded with those of
the Pope, the
Theses challenge a 14th-century
papal bull stating that the pope could use the
treasury of merit and the good deeds of past saints to forgive temporal punishment for sins. The
Theses are framed as propositions to be argued in debate rather than necessarily representing Luther's opinions, but Luther later clarified his views in the
Explanations of the Disputation Concerning the Value of Indulgences.
Luther sent the
Theses enclosed with a letter to
Albert of Brandenburg,
Archbishop of Mainz, on 31 October 1517, a date now considered the start of the
Reformation and commemorated annually as
Reformation Day. Luther may have also posted the
Ninety-five Theses on the door of
All Saints' Church and other churches in Wittenberg, in accordance with University custom, on 31 October or in mid-November. The
Theses were quickly reprinted and translated, and distributed throughout Germany and Europe. They initiated a
pamphlet war with the indulgence preacher
Johann Tetzel, which spread Luther's fame even further. Luther's ecclesiastical superiors had him tried for
heresy, which culminated in his
excommunication in 1521. Though the
Theses were the start of the Reformation, Luther did not consider indulgences to be as important as other theological matters which would divide the church, such as
justification by faith alone and the
bondage of the will. His breakthrough on these issues would come later, and he did not see the writing of the
Theses as the point at which his beliefs diverged from those of the
Roman Catholic Church.
