This week in Christian history: Bob Marley baptized; Billy Sunday dies; pope defends indulgences
Pope Leo X defends indulgences – Nov. 9, 1518
This week marks the anniversary of Pope Leo X issuing a papal bull defending the practice of indulgences in response to the declarations of Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther.
The year before, Luther nailed his 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg, protesting indulgences, a practice that involved people paying Catholic Church officials in return for forgiveness of sin.
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In response, Pope Leo X issued the edict “Cum Postquam,” which translates to “when after” in English, which argued that indulgences came “from the abundance of the merits of Christ and the saints.”
“And for this reason all those, whether living or dead, who have properly obtained all these indulgences, will be freed from that debt of temporal punishment they owe according to Divine justice for their present sins, as the equivalent of the indulgences granted and acquired,” added the decree.
“And we decide by virtue of the Apostolic Authority on the basis of this very present [letter] that it must be so accepted and proclaimed by all under penalty of excommunication, according to which it is impossible to obtain the benefits of absolution from any but the Roman [Pontiff] unless [one is] in imminent danger of death.”
