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From here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indulgence

“It is commonly believed that the Catholic Church was in the business of selling indulgences for money. What actually happened was that the Church granted indulgences to those who gave alms to a charitable fund or foundation.[56] There has never been any direct sale of indulgences; nonetheless, the Council of Trent took steps to remove these appearances.”

This is the equivalent of those Christian radio programs that offer a free book for a “donation” of $20. They will absolutely deny they are “selling” books. ;-)

And from here:http://www.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_sale_of_indulgences

“If I remember my history, this is one of the things that Martin Luther got his hackles up about, and caused one of the more monumental splits within the medieval Christian Church.”

“He rightly thought that the church should have been doing more to stop the pardoners from selling indulgences but unfortunately it was a good source of revenue so they were turning a blind eye as the pope of the time had envisioned the building of St Peter’s in Rome. This was a dreadful error and it was right that Martin Luther spoke out about it...so did many churchmen of the time but Luther was the lucky one who had his printed and distributed.
It was one of many corruptions which had set in at the time.”