My Life with God in and out of the Church

The following excerpt from chapter 11 pages 153-160
  shows the Church's fallibility when Pope Leo X exchanged Indulgences for donations 

Pope Leo X
portrait by Raphael 

Weeks later on a solitary evening walk, I wondered how I could raise money to build a school for the children of Masaka in Uganda, Africa. I looked at the stars above. The Southern Cross pointed south away from Rome where, as I recalled, the medieval popes established a successful system of raising funds.

          Around 1515, when Pope Leo X needed money to rebuild Saint Peter’s Basilica, he embraced the practice of many bishops and popes. During the last four centuries, these clergymen had raised fortunes by selling indulgences. Pope Leo X asked Johann Tetzel, the renowned Dominican preacher of indulgences, to offer a plenary indulgence to whoever donated funds for the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

          In eloquent sermons, Tetzel first explained the need and efficacy of indulgences. Even after a sin had been forgiven, an obligation remained to repair or compensate for the wrong done. This debt was called the temporal punishment due for sin. If it were not fully satisfied before death, a person’s soul would suffer in purgatory for an unknown time before entering heaven.

          Then Tetzel informed the people that they could make satisfaction for all their past sins and also for the sins of their beloved lingering in purgatory. This they could do by performing good deeds, such as prayers, fasting and almsgiving.

          The Pope now offered a faster and surer way to erase the temporal punishment due for sins. He controlled the treasury of infinite merits accumulated by Jesus, Mary, and the saints. The Pope was now granting a plenary indulgence to anyone who contributed towards the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Since the indulgence was plenary, each donation guaranteed the immediate release of a soul from purgatory and its entrance into heaven. These donations would build Saint Peter’s basilica and empty purgatory.

          It did not bother Tetzel and the Pope that Jesus and Peter never preached indulgences. It did not bother Tetzel and the Pope that the first claim that indulgences benefited souls in purgatory appeared only in 1476. It did not bother Tetzel and the Pope that the theories of indulgences, the temporal punishment for sin, and the Church’s treasury of merits had no basis in Scripture. But it bothered Martin Luther, a renowned Scripture scholar. What disturbed him even more was that those theories were being preached not for the spiritual benefit of Christians but for the grandiose building plans of Pope Leo X. That also disturbed me a lot.

          Like the southern cross, these reflections pointed me away from Rome. I surely would not raise funds for the school by selling indulgences. At that moment, like the shooting star above, a thought crossed my mind: why not get the money by selling lottery tickets. These would not release souls in purgatory but they could build schools for the children in Kimanya.

          The following day, I planned a lottery based on my experience in Hyde Park. I would offer a substantial first prize, a dozen medium prizes and many smaller prizes. The seller of every 12 tickets could keep the revenue of two. Moreover all the sellers of winning tickets would receive a cash reward, one-fifth the value of the prize money. More than half of the revenues from sales went back to the buyers and sellers of winning tickets.

          The monthly drawing attracted huge crowds. When I announced the winners of the large prizes, cheers rent the air and echoed through the valley. Later, happy winners collected their money and celebrated. Some school children lingered and asked me, “How did we do?” I answered, “Enough to build one classroom.” Clapping their hands, the children ran home to tell their parents. After every drawing, I gave a progress report to the children who quickly spread the good news through the village.

          Within two and a half years, we built a school complex of red brick walls and clay tile roofs. Fifteen classrooms equipped with individual desks accommodated 600 children. Toilets with running water and safe drinking water were luxuries that none enjoyed at home. In a large pavilion, the children ate a mid-day lunch cooked in electric cauldrons. After school, the boys played soccer on their school field. They would have liked to play basketball in their new gym but agreed to let the parish use it as a church temporarily.

          There was no comparison between Pope Leo X’s project and mine. To raise funds, the Pope granted spiritual indulgences whereas I sold mundane lottery tickets. He promised the remission of temporal punishment due for sins while I guaranteed cash prizes. His project supposedly liberated thousands of souls lingering in purgatory; mine benefited only six hundred kids in Kimanya. The Pope’s revenue from the sale of indulgences rebuilt the glorious basilica of St. Peter; the profit from our sale of lottery tickets built a humble school. But neither I nor my children would have exchanged our project for his.

          During the day, I managed the construction of our children’s school. After sunset, under the stars that had witnessed all the blunders of the Church, I recalled those that had troubled me the most during my earlier studies of Church history. In the seminary the priest professors had brushed them aside, saying that the Church’s survival proved God’s special protection. At that time, I accepted their explanation. But now I believed that if God had truly protected the Church from error, it would never have committed those humongous blunders. How reconcile them with the Church’s claim that the pope is the chief representative of Christ and the infallible authority on his teaching? That question haunted me.

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