It’s a shame Martin Luther isn’t around to read the news about the Vatican’s recent pronouncement that Catholics can reduce their time in purgatory by following the Pope’s tweets about his trip to Rio. Five hundred years after Luther called the Catholic Church out for letting worldly goods and activities get between God and His people, they’re still at it.

Indulgences were at the heart of Luther’s beef with the Church in the early 16th Century. Back then, indulgences were a significant source of income for the Church. Here’s how it worked, theologically:

• If you commit a mortal (like, really bad) sin and die before repenting of it, you go to hell forever. Period.
• If you die without un-repented mortal sins, you get to go to heaven—but not before a layover in purgatory. The length and severity of your stay depends on how shitty you were during your mortal life.
• Just being sorry for your sins is good, but it’s not enough. You need to show how sorry you are via works on Earth.
• An excellent way to show your remorse is to say a lot of prayers, go on a pilgrimage, or donate money to the Church.

Sure, God would look favorably upon you if you just left some coinage in the collection plate—but if you really wanted to seal the deal, you’d want an official indulgence. Since Catholic theology holds that the Church is the official agency of God on Earth, getting a priest—or, better yet, a bishop or the Pope—to grant you an indulgence was regarded as tantamount to getting a gold pass from God Himself.

In Luther’s time, Church representatives were selling indulgences like government agencies sell bonds, to pay for new churches and other various projects—sometimes including public works like roads, bridges, and leper colonies. Unlike bonds, though—which are paid back in earthly currency, with interest—indulgences are paid back in divine currency, from the Exchequer of the Slightly-Less-Sucky Afterlife. Convenient, right?

Suspiciously convenient, thought Luther, who took umbrage at then-contemporary aphorisms like, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul into heaven springs.” Luther detailed his issues with the Church in a proto-BuzzFeed list of 95 theses, the overall theme being that your relationship with God was between you and God. An earthly community could help provide fellowship and wisdom, but shouldn’t be selling tickets to paradise.

Unsurprisingly, the Catholic Church revoked Martin Luther’s ticket entirely, excommunicating him in 1521. That means that, if the Church is as valid as its believers consider it to be, Luther is currently suffering eternal torment, and the world’s 800 million Protestants are following the lead of a literally God-damned man. That excommunication has never been lifted, but just a couple of decades after Luther’s death, Pope Pius V ended the practice of selling indulgences for money.

For Twitter follows, though? Well, Pius never said anything about that…

– Jay Gabler