Corruption of the Church in the Middle Ages

Near the end of the Middle Ages, corruption in the Catholic Church was a serious dilemma. The clergy is supposed to be a good education, but many priests were illiterate and barely knew how to conduct religious services in common. In addition, the priest and nuns, despite taking the vows of chastity engaged in sex. Even the popes, Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, father of the children and raised. Many of the abbots and bishops exploited their positions to lead a life of luxury and leisure. Princes were like before the humble servants of God. The cardinals of Rome lived in magnificent palaces and wore jewel-encrusted gold robe.

The Church became corrupted several methods to pay for these lavish lifestyles. The church told his people that the pilgrimages to the sites of relics and sacred sites were the most appropriate ways to repent of their sins. During the last years of the Middle Ages, some clergy took advantage of this tradition and the accused to see the sacred relics. Frederick I, a prince in northern Germany, had a collection of more than seventeen thousand relics that allegedly included a piece of Moses' burning bush, thirty-three fragments of the cross of Jesus, and some straw from the manger of Jesus. The money from pilgrimages to these relics paid for the construction of a cathedral, a castle, and a university in the reign of Frederick. Simony (the practice of selling items from the church to the highest bidder regardless of their religious background of the buyer or teachings) was another of the practices that made money for the church.

The most profitable and controversial of corrupt practices to raise money for the Church was selling indulgences. At first, an indulgence was only certified by the Pope to a person whose sins had been forgiven. This certificate is intended to remove part or all of the sentence of a person suffering after death for their sins. Although never officially told by the church, many clergy teach that salvation is achieved simply through the purchase of indulgences enough.