Martin Luther's Corruption In The Catholic Church

764 Words4 Pages

Martin Luther
In the 16th century the Catholic Church experienced a lot of disruption and corruption. Martin Luther challenged its numerous evil and unlawful activities. Luther was a basic Catholic priest in 1518, in Germany, yet as he saw that the Congregation was "offering salvation" to individuals, his thoughts about the Catholic Church began to change. At first, he wrote 95 Theses to the German bishop of Mainz to ask him to stop him from selling people their forgiveness of sin. As his popularity increased and the bishop rejected his request, he gave different reasons why he disagreed. Many of them oppose the Church's corruption.The pope was blaming everyone and everything who opposed him. He wanted everyone and everything to be under solely his rule, which angered Luther so he fought once more, presently having more power. …show more content…

Luther believed that faith alone was enough for a person to be saved, or justification by faith. This was the beginning of Luther's revolution in the Church, which would later become known as the Protestant Reformation. In his 95 Theses, Martin Luther urged the Archbishop of Mainz to investigate what was going on in the Church and specifically argued against the practice of self-indulgence. As it turns out, these statements angered Pope Leo, who asked Luther to abandon his 95 Theses, which he refused to do. He spoke very simply, but he made sure he was prioritizing the authority and knowledge of the bishop over himself. He made himself appear unworthy to talk to the bishop while clearly stating his opinion. Later in 1520, the Pope banned Martin Luther from the congregation, calling him a blasphemer. When Luther got excommunicated he was summoned by Emperor Charles V to appear before the imperial diet of the Holy Roman Empire. However,