Pope Leo X : The Corruption Inside The Church

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Something that really started things off for the protestant reformation was simply the corruption inside the Church. Giovani di Lorenzo de’ Medici, also known as Pope Leo x, really enjoyed his time in the papacy. He spent money like there was no tomorrow and it had greater circumstances than he have ever imagined. Pope Leo X loved to live extravagantly and he wanted St. Peters Basilica to show that extravagance. The problem was, The Pope did not have any money! He had already spent most of it on his lavish lifestyles, with shows and games and all sorts of entertainment going on all the time. Not to mention all the art he spent the papal treasury on, he had commissioned the great artist Raphael to do a portrait of himself. So when he went to rebuild St. Peters Basilica he had to find a way to make some money.
So you know what he did? He started handing out indulgences for “donations” but really he was just praying on people’s fears and telling them that if they bought these indulgences they would be able to have a shorter time in purgatory and get to heaven faster. He was even saying that people could buy indulgences for people who had already passed and who may be stuck in purgatory still making up for all of their sins. So basically Pope Leo X was telling all of these people, mostly peasants, that their family members wouldn’t go to heaven unless they gave a “donation” to the church. Not to say that this was exactly what Giovani de’ Medici was saying but it sure is the way that it appears. He just wanted to remodel St. Peters Basilica!
This was kind of like the final straw of corruption in the Church and led directly to Luther’s Revolt. Martin Luther, a German monk, decided to write the ninety five theses. The ninety five these...

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...pes for the church were being destroyed, a good amount of culture was lost during this religious turmoil but a lot was also gained. The rise in literacy and people’s new found ability to think for themselves brought a whole new aspect to the world and it is said that Luther actually started the concept of freedom of speech. So once we get passed all the centuries of wars and religious turmoil it created, which still can cause issues today, the protestant reformation, led by the ideas of Martin Luther, really paved way for a better world. Where we have the freedom of speech as well as religion, we can speak to God whenever we would like and we no longer need to live in fear of the corrupted Catholic Church, we now put more emphasis on family life and respectability to married life. And to think all of this started just because Luther wanted to start a simple debate.

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