On a high shelf in the oubliette of my study, between the shaker of sand (for calligraphy), a silver box full of oddments and a mortar & pestle currently being used to hold quills, sits an odd little bit of history. This, my friends, is my own personal indulgence. Every good Lutheran boy should own one.
Why?
Because on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther affixed to the door of the Wittenberg castle chapel, his famous (or infamous if you're Catholic) 95 Theses, a shot across the bow of the earthly conceits which the Church had interposed between man and God. One of these unwelcome impositions was the selling of indulgences, or forgiveness for sins in exchange for cash to fund the building programmes of the Holy See. It was the dyspeptic Dominican friar Johan Tetzel coming to town to hawk his holy wares that served as the final straw that found Luther sneaking into the churchyard that cold autumn morning and driving a nail into the heart of Holy Mother Church. The first crack in the monolithic church and its hierarchical stranglehold on both Christianity and the principalities of Europe. Soon, Calvin, Henry VIII and others would slip through and widen the cracks that emanated from the nail Luther drove into that door in Wittenberg.
So you see why - when given the chance - I just had to buy one. In this case the money didn't go to build St Peter's (It's already finished, though a suppose a tithe might've gone to its upkeep, I honestly don't know) it went to a bunch of very nice monks at a Discalced Carmelite shrine & Monastery in Wisconsin.
It's commonly thought - as you'll see if you click the 'indulgence' link that the practice of selling indulgences is a thing of the best-forgotten past. Alas, no. It remains a part of Catholic Doctrine, just a part that isn't talked about all that much...
See? You learned something today.
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