.

Indulgences had their hay day with  the sixteenth-century, gay Pope, Pope Leo X.**2   He became Pope in 1513 and is famous for his zeal at selling indulgences.   In those days the governments were ruled by what was  called the "established church."   It ruled every aspect of European life.    People had to obey the laws of the church and pay taxes that went to the church.   Whether or not they followers of the faith was irrelevant.

The church leaders peddled the story that without the church's blessing, God would not let you into heaven.   Most of the people,  being uneducated and having no other source of information, believed the story.   Thousands of people purchased indulgences.   Leo was such a good salesman that he even gave the purchaser a piece of paper acknowledging God's forgiveness.

Pope Leo X is also famous for sparking the wrath of Martin Luther   ` who, posted his  famous "95 Theses" on the church door on October 31, 1517.   Luther's theses attacked Pope Leo's practice of selling indulgences and triggered the European revolution know as the Reformation. 

**1    Accordance with Catholic teaching, purgatory (Lat., "purgare", to make clean, to purify)  is a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.

**2    Now we can't say with absolute, provable certainty that Pope Leo X was a homosexual; however, when we read descriptions of naked young boys coming out of cakes at his parties, one could reasonable apply the same criteria to Pope Leo X the has been applied to former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover:  "If he wasn't gay, he certainly gave a good impression of someone who was."

.

Reference:  http://www.ReligionAndReality.com

.