What three things did Luther dislike about the Catholic Church?

This was the subject of the 95 Theses, and it was the disagreement that started it all.

As Oxford professor Diarmaid MacCulloch writes in A History Of Christianity: "An argument about a side alley of medieval soteriology [the study of salvation] escalated into the division of Europe."

If you don't know what indulgences are, the Catholic Church's definition is a good place to start:

"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven."

Joel Hodge, from ACU's School of Theology, says the belief is that indulgences can reduce believers' need for purification from the effects of sin in Purgatory before they can enter heaven.

The sale of indulgences helped pay for the rebuilding of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

The sale of indulgences helped pay for the rebuilding of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.(ABC News: Mary Gearin)

To this day they've been given out by the Church for acts of charity or the recital of prayers, as examples. You can use them for yourself or loved ones who have died.

Luther had a problem with the fact the Catholic Church of his day was essentially selling indulgences — indeed, according to Professor MacCulloch, they helped pay for the rebuilding of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Later, Luther appears to have dropped his belief in Purgatory altogether. Certainly, he denied that a person's actions had any role to play in salvation, saying faith alone was what counted.

The sale of indulgences was abolished by the Pope in 1567.

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