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When a "religion" sets up the claim that it can pardon sins, educate the children to believe it, destroys those who deny it, and fixes a scale of money-payments for the pardon of sins, what sort of fruit is that kind of tree likely to bear?
If penance and payment rids me of sin, my conscience, like an unused muscle, becomes enfeebled, and my proneness to sin is encouraged.
Pope Leo X. was the Vicar of Christ who ordered lists of sin to be drawn up, with the price of the pardon opposite each sin.
(See History of Auricular Confession, by Count C. P. De Lasteyrie, Vol. II., p. 132.)
I will quote only a few of these tariff rates established by this Infallible Pope.
For allowing a ship to sail to convey merchandise to infidels, 100 d.
For the absolution of any one practising usury, 7 d.
For concubinage, 7 d.
For intimacy with a woman in a church, 6 d.