Are you fiction? You’re not mentioned in the Bible so you must be fiction, right?
A former Protestant explains indulgences: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1994/9411fea1.asp
Also, please note, no one here yet has offered a single scrap of evidence that the Church or any pope even ever approved of the sale of indulgences as a proper act. How much you hate indulgences is irrelevant as to that point.
By the grace of God alone, I am mentioned in the Bible several times.
Aren't you referenced here by Paul, too?
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." -- Eph: 2:1-10"And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Sale of Indulgences Affirmed (1343)
It was on this date, January 27, 1343, that Pope Clement VI issued a bull, Unigenitus, officially reaffirming that the Catholic Church can grant remission of sin through indulgences. The bull says,
Upon the altar of the Cross Christ shed of His blood not merely a drop, though this would have sufficed, by reason of the union with the Word, to redeem the whole human race, but a copious torrent ... thereby laying up an infinite treasure for mankind. This treasure He neither wrapped up in a napkin nor hid in a field, but entrusted to Blessed Peter, the key-bearer, and his successors, that they might, for just and reasonable causes, distribute it to the faithful in full or in partial remission of the temporal punishment due to sin.[1]
In other words, says the Catholic Encyclopedia, “the source of indulgences is constituted by the merits of Christ and the saints.” The scheme is fortuitous on a number of levels: the Christian can avoid the expense of a journey to Rome in a Jubilee Year (first instituted by Boniface VIII in 1300 and carried into the modern era by John Paul II as recently as 2000); the horrific doctrine of Hell is mitigated (except for non-Catholics) by the invention of Purgatory, where minor sins can be expunged before going to heaven; and the Catholic Church can make piles of money by “taxing” the granting of “remittance” of sin: that is, granting a partial pardon, or shortening of torture, in the afterlife.
The sale of indulgences was the chief concern of Martin Luther and the chief cause of the Protestant Reformation. But, protests one apologist website,
One never could “buy” indulgences. The financial scandal around indulgences, the scandal that gave Martin Luther an excuse for his heterodoxy, involved alms — indulgences in which the giving of alms to some charitable fund or foundation was used as the occasion to grant the indulgence. There was no outright selling of indulgences.[2]
A priest selling indulgences to superstitious townspeople
Since apologists can have difficulty with reality, a look at the historical record is instructive. From the Middle Ages one could pay money, get change, and receive a piece of paper with which one got remission of sin. The price is stipulated and there is no indulgence without “alms.” By any reasonable definition that is, outright, “buying” an indulgence. The practice was current to the middle of the 20th century in Spain and Latin America, and may continue to this day.
As historian and ex-priest Joseph McCabe observed, the Council of Constance (1414-1418) “’sold’ absolution from ‘sin’ as well as from the purgatorial punishment of sin (a pœna et culpa). The Council is rude enough to call it a ‘sale.’”[3] Furthermore, the Council of Trent (1545-1563) placed the doctrine close to infallibility when it stated that the Church “condemns with anathema those who either assert, that they are useless; or who deny that there is in the Church the power of granting them.”[4] The Council recommended “moderation,” but not regulation, in granting (that is, selling) indulgences.
The chief abusers, after indulgences were instituted in large measure by Boniface, were the anti-pope John XXIII (1400-1415), described by the Council of Constance as a seller of benefices, bulls, sacraments, ordinations, consecrations and anything else that would bring in money, Leo X (1513-1521), who condemned Luther and dispensed indulgences to build St. Peter’s in Rome[5], and Clement VIII (1592-1605), a notorious nepotist, who showered his relatives with gold from sold indulgences.
http://www.ronaldbrucemeyer.com/rants/0127b-almanac.htm
God is not mocked by the use of evasive vocabulary.