[Gaffer]

IIRC, correctly there was a term like that back in Europe called dispensation. But that involved money to the church for sins or something like that.

[Syncro]

...that involved money to the church for sins or something like that

Yup, you could buy your way into heaven. They stopped doing that but still burden you with good works (filthy rags) to get into heaven.

[Disclaimer: Eternal life is a free gift, no amount of works can gain us salvation, we must be born again]

One particularly well-known Catholic method of exploitation in the Middle Ages was the practice of selling indulgences, a monetary payment of penalty which, supposedly, absolved one of past sins and/or released one from purgatory after death.

It was the selling of indulgences that led the Reformer Martin Luther to post his famous 95 Theses - a document challenging Roman Catholic authority in theological matters, including indulgences and many others. Luther's opposition to the selling of indulgences was not new, however. In most of the Reformation movements stress lay not upon new understandings or doctrines, but on a return to the more authentic and original excellence of tradition.

Luther, one of the main Protestant Reformers, eventually arrived at the conclusion that divine relationship and salvation come by grace through faith, not by good works, belief in dogma, or economic propitiation. One's relationship to the divine is initiated by God, and one can only participate in this relationship by remaining open to it. Therefore, Luther's theology placed him in square opposition to the Roman Catholic practice of selling indulgences.

Hmmm, it was all about money.

Same ol', same ol'...