The following is from the book, Vicars of Christ, by a former Jesuit professor at Gregorian University in Rome, Peter DeRosa:
Code:
"It was in the area of indulgences that (Pope) Sixtus showed a touch of genius. He was the first pontiff to decide that they could be applied to the dead. Even he was overwhelmed by their popularity. Here was an infinite source of revenue that even his greediest predecessors had not dreamed of. It was breathtaking in its implications: the pope, creature of flesh and blood, had power over the regions of the dead. Souls in torment for their misdemeanours could be released by his word, provided their pious relatives dipped into.their pockets. And which of them wouldn't if they had a spark of Christian decency? Widows and widowers, bereaved parents spent their all trying to get their loved ones out of Purgatory, painted in ever more lurid colours.
Praying for the dead was one thing, paying for them another. Simple folk were led to believe that the pope, or those who came to their village and sold the pope's pardon, guaranteed their dead would go to heaven on the wings of indulgences. The potential for abuse was considerable. The sale of relics from the tenth century had been bad enough. . . Martyr's bones, like oil, were not a renewable commodity, but indulgences were limitless and could be priced to suit every pocket. Nothing was required of the donor or recipient, not love or compassion or prayer or repentance - only money. No practice was ever more irreligious than this. The pope grew rich in the measure that the poor were duped."
Purgatory had no justification, whether in Scripture or in logic. Its real basis was papal avarice. An Englishman, Simon Fish, in A Supplicacyion for the Beggars, written in the year 1529, was to point that out irrefutably:
'There is not one word spoken of it in all holy Scripture, and also if the Pope with his pardons may for money deliver one soul hence, he may deliver him as well without money. If he may deliver one, he may deliver a thousand: if he may deliver a thousand, he may deliver them all; and so destroy purgatory. And then he is a cruel tyrant, without all charity, if he keep them there in prison and in pain, till men will give him money.' "
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Oh my. You might want to go read some stuff by the Early Church Fathers;
here might be a good place to start.
I’ve considered responding to some of the earlier posts, N2, yet I can’t bring myself to acknowledge them for one fact: you are never going to accept what I say simply because I, and every other Catholic here, speak from
paradosis, the Sacred Tradition handed through the ages.
Until you realize that there is no such thing as “self-attesting Scripture” and that Sacred Tradition is
an absolute necessity in interpreting Scripture, then this argument may as well be for naught. I prayerfully ask you, in all charity and good faith, to seriously examine your views. “Test everything, hold on to the good.”
Ask yourself
“why do I interpret the Bible the way I do? Is this not also a tradition?” Arians once tried to disprove the Trinity
with Scripture, and did so almost successfully; yet the Holy Spirit led our Church in to Truth. When Christ says, “The Father and I are one,” the Arians argued that He meant
one in purpose, not in being. The early Church faught long and hard to cast out this heresy, and did so
only because the doctrine of the Trinity had been handed down through Tradition.
In fact, it was this Apostolic
paradosis with which the Catholic Church has always interpreted Scripture, and through this very same
paradosis was the early Church able to defend itself against those who would
throw out what had already been held to be true by the faithful.
Beliefs concerning purgatory, veneration of the Saints (
dulia) and Mary (
hyperdulia), and other things that heretics might deny have been around since the very beginning of the Church, though as time progressed, the beliefs became better defined and understood. To deny this is to embrace ignorance of the history of Christianity; the same people who honored Mary were the same people who were blessed with martyrdom for His sake. These same people, who lived during the Apostolic period (ending with the death of John the Evangelist), were those who defended the Church from paganism. St. Nicholas of Myra (270-343 AD) opposed Arius, St. Polycarp of Smyrna (69-155 AD) opposed Marcion, and the list goes on.
Yet even with compelling historical arguments, you most likely will not accept the Truth that you have been exposed to. At one time, I was on your side of the fence; yet through the very grace of God, I opened my heart to the Lord. And when I did that, I could only find Truth in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
I pray that through the intercessions of Mary and all the Saints you may be brought to truth in Christ; truth which only the Church most rightly and fully-ordered through time may expound, by the light of Sacred Scripture through the lens of Sacred Tradition.
Can you forgive me? Uuhhhhhh… unless that’s considered a work. 
Rhetorical propaganda at its worst…