Weekend extra

I did some research on Martin Luther for a bio that I am writing...I found some interesting things.

Martin Luther was a priest/teacher in a Catholic university in Germany in the middle of the 16th Century. In those days the Catholic church disallowed anyone other than the clergy to learn Latin. All the Bibles were written in Latin which made it illegible to anyone other that the clergy. This meant that the average person had to rely on the clergy to tell them what was in the Bible. The Catholic church took advantage of this by telling the populous that if they contributed to the church an individual sin would be forgiven. This was called "indulgences" and made the church tons of money for centuries. Martin Luther saw this as wrong and refused to tell his students that and indeed told them it was not in the Bible. Not only that he published several pamphlets detailing his convictions.

The Vatican hit the roof and sent a representative to have a chat because millions was at stake. They demanded that he recant everything he had said and published and promised him a visit with a torture chamber if he didn't. The next day he said that he would only teach what was in the Bible, no more and no less. This put the Pope and the Catholic hierarchy between a rock and a hard place because if they insisted that he teach what the Church wanted an ignore the Bible that would make them guilty of heresy. They let him go but put a contract out on him and Luther and his followers knew it. A wealthy follower of his secreted him in his castle where Martin Luther translated the Bible into German and had it published. That was the beginning of the end of Catholic church domination and abuse of the parishioners. Martin Luther lead us out of a dark and evil place.