On January 3rd, 1521, 501 years ago today, Pope Leo the 10th, born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, excommunicated Martin Luther from the Catholic Church.
In 1517, Leo had launched a costly war to secure his nephew the title of Duke of Urbino, dipping into Vatican finances to fund the war. He was also committed to recontructing St. Peter’s Basilica on a grander scale, and that required yet more money.
To raise it, he resorted to selling indulgences, a sort of “get out of purgatory free” card that supposedly reduced the punishment of those who were saved but still needed to suffer for their sins in Purgatory. Since this whole concept is un-biblical as well as venal, corrupt, and cruel, Luther challenged it with his 95 Theses.
Luther’s arguments cut the legs out from under the indulgence commerce, interfering with an important source of revenue for the pope. This brought Luther into a collision course with Leo that would spark the Protestant Reformation.
Interestingly, although Luther had been called to defend his views at an ecclesiastical trial at Worms, Leo did not even wait for the outcome, excommunicating Luther weeks before the hearing began. At the end of the Diet of Worms, a decree was issued stating:
“we forbid anyone from this time forward to dare, either by words or by deeds, to receive, defend, sustain, or favor the said Martin Luther. On the contrary, we want him to be apprehended and punished as a notorious heretic, as he deserves, to be brought personally before us, or to be securely guarded until those who have captured him inform us, whereupon we will order the appropriate manner of proceeding against the said Luther. Those who will help in his capture will be rewarded generously for their good work.”
Luther was unfazed by the thunderings of pope and emperor, because he had found something so much more valuable than anything within the gift of earthly rulers:
To a crowded assembly he spoke from the words of Christ, “Peace be unto you.” “Philosophers, doctors, and writers,” he said, “have endeavored to teach men the way to obtain everlasting life, and they have not succeeded. I will now tell it to you.” “God has raised one Man from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ, that he might destroy death, expiate sin, and shut the gates of hell. This is the work of salvation. Christ has vanquished! This is the joyful news! And we are saved by his work, and not by our own.... Our Lord Jesus Christ said, ‘Peace be unto you! behold my hands’—that is to say, Behold, O man! it is I, I alone, who have taken away thy sins, and ransomed thee; and now thou hast peace, saith the Lord. GC88 152.2
Pope Leo died 11 months later, on December 1st, 1521, but the Reformation his aggressive peddling of indulgences provoked is still unfolding today.