SIMONY
From CATHOLIC DICTIONARY, Imprimatur, Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York. Page 891, "The word is derived from the name of Simon Magus, a converted magician, who tried to buy the Gifts of the Holy Ghost from St. Peter . . . Simony is the sacrilegious vice of purchasing ecclesiastical offices and benefices to which spiritual jurisdiction is attached. It was common during the Middle Ages . . . Episcopal sees were bought by profligate men without training and even without Orders." (Ed - this means not having received the Sacrament of Holy Orders, by which they become priests.)
It is true that this has been vigorously condemned by later popes, and specific instances are never precisely mentioned in Roman Catholic textbooks. It is admitted, however, from sources as diverse as Richard McBrien's ROMAN CATHOLICISM (Volume I, page 1146) and the 1910 edition of the CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA (Volume XIV, page 2).
Peter de Rosa's VICARS OF CHRIST has a paragraph about Leo X. "To bolster his income, Leo invented offices around the palace. These posts brought power and prestige and proved to be popular. Sixtus IV had only 650 offices for sale; Leo had 2,150. He auctioned them. Most in demand were cardinal's hats which went, on average, for example, for 30,000 ducats. Their Eminences recovered their money by corrupt sales of their own."
De Rosa claims to be a loyal, practicing Catholic, and if his book somewhat exaggerates the simony practiced regularly in Middle Ages papacies, it serves to balance out the scant amount of specific information admitted to by Rome.