What does selling indulgences mean?

Answer 1

The correct terminology is "the selling of Indulgences".

An "Indulgence" is a document that the Catholic church can grant to a person to remove the temporal punishment for a specific sin. It does not in itself forgive the sin, that is a separate issue.

At the time of Martin Luther, the Pope (Leo X) was in the middle of the reconstruction St. Peter's Basilica, a task that the church did not have enough money to pay for. So the Pope offered to grant Indulgences for any desired sin to those who would donate to this construction project.

Many of the individuals assigned the task of traveling the countryside to collect such donations were less than honest and often misrepresented the Indulgence as actually forgiving a sin before it was committed and instead of simply accepting a voluntary donation misrepresented the transaction as a sale (some even kept large percentages of the money collected for themselves).

This practice of selling of Indulgences was just one of the 95 complaints against the Catholic Church of the time raised by Martin Luther, and it was one of the man reasons the Pope excommunicated him as it threatened funding of the Pope's present and future reconstruction plans in Rome.

BTW, i agree completely with the Expert answer by James Hough given above: The Catholic Church has never sold indulgences, ever. It was the misrepresentations by a few of those tasked to collect the donations that the indulgences were being sold and what they did for you that Martin Luther complained about, wanted discussed, and wanted corrected. However instead of considering Martin Luther's complaints for the possibility of validity, the Pope just excommunicated him.

Answer 2

Catholic Answer
The selling of indulgences was one of the rallying cries of the protestant revolt, unfortunately, the whole thing is invented over some abuses:

This is another, "when did you stop beating your wife?" question. You can't answer it, because the premise is a lie. The Catholic Church never sold indulgences, ever. Nor, for that matter do indulgences have anything to do with forgiving sin. You need to understand the Christian concept of the Body of Christ: we are all members of the Body of Christ by our baptism. When one of us sins, we hurt the entire Body. Our Blessed Lord died on the cross to forgive our sins. We apply that forgiveness to ourselves in various ways, the first of which is baptism which wipes out everything up to that point in our lives. After baptism, Our Blessed Lord provided another Sacrament to remove serious sin (and venial {less serious}), that is confession. When you go to confession you must have contrition for your sins, confess all of them, and resolve to never to them again. Let me see if I can explain this another way:

To understand indulgences you must first understand sin and its consequences:

When one sins, one damages the Body of Christ, as, by our Baptism, we are all members of the Body of Christ, and everything we do, for good or ill, affects everyone.

Say you are in the street in your neighborhood playing softball. You hit one and it goes flying across the street and through Mrs. Neighbor's front window. You put the bat down, walk across the street, knock on the door, and apologize to Mrs. Neighbor. She forgives you, since you were nice, and owned up to your fault. Up until now we have the basic scenario of someone going into confession and confessing their sins.

But wait, notice that in my example, the window is still broken. You have to go home and confess to your father and mother that you broke the window, they, in turn, take your allowance for the next several years and pay to have the window fixed. The broken window is the example of how we damage the Body of Christ. The allowance that you have to fork over for the next several years is your penance.

Now, an indulgence is based on the fact that when Jesus was a man living on the earth, his mother, and the other saints down through the centuries, have done more good works than they need to do their penances (in the case of Our Blessed Lord, and His mother, they had no need of penances, so all their good works are surplus), so, the Church, through Her power of the keys, can apply the merits of those good works to your penance. So in the example above, the indulgence is your parents fixing the window for you, and you are still going to get your allowance. You might have to fork over some of it to help, but they are not going to impoverish you for the next several years.

That is what an indulgence is: it is the application of the good works of the saints to make up for your penances. Please note that they are only applicable to someone in a state of grace who has already been forgiven. They have NOTHING to do with the remission of sin. Without prior remission of sin, there can be no indulgence.

Now, any good work can be used to obtain an indulgence in the Church, the classic works of penance are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The one that causes so much trouble back during the protestant revolt was an indulgence attached to almsgiving. For instance, you can earn a plenary indulgence now if you go to confession, go to Mass, receive Holy Communion, pray for the Holy Father, and do a good work, say a Rosary in front of the Blessed Sacrament, or in a family group. You used to be able to earn a Plenary Indulgence for all the same conditions, but instead of saying the Rosary, you could donate ANY sum of money for some good work the Church was involved with. In this particular case, it was rebuilding St. Peter's Basilica. Because of all the hysterics and false rumors, that is no longer possible. Bottom line? The Church has never sold indulgences, ever.

Answer 3

Technically, it is possible to say that indulgences were not, for the most part, actually 'sold' although they were traded for money in the form of contributions. Indulgences could even be earnt for good works.

Vivian Green (A New History of Christianity) says Pope Urban II preached the First Crusade and in 1095 undertook to bestow a plenary indulgence on all who took part, promising that a crusader who died in a state of penitence for his earthly sins would be received into heaven immediately. Innocent III extended the system, offering indulgences to all those who helped the crusade with money or advice. Green says the indulgence became a familiar aspect of Christian life; remission of sins was promised to an increasing number of people in return for payments, or visits to holy places or churches. Russel Chamberlin (The Bad Popes) says the sale of indulgences became another method of contributing to the upkeep of the curia.

The trade in indulgences was a relatively accessible and quite popular means of seeking some assurance of favour in the after life among Germany's Christian population, and in fact Martin Luther initially only sought to reform their use. Pope Leo X needed money to finalise the construction of St Peter’s in Rome and planned to declare indulgences for all who contributed. At this time, Albert of Brandefound had borrowed money for the purchase of the archbishopric of Magdeburg and now found himself in financial difficulties. Chamberlin explains that Leo therefore proposed that an eight-year indulgence for St. Peter's should be promulgated in Germany, with Albert to keep one half of the proceeds and the rest to go to Rome. Prierias, Master of the Papal Palace, declared any challenge to the sale of indulgences heretical.