Lutheran Ping!
Keep a Good Lent!
Posted on 03/05/2008 8:13:07 PM PST by Dajjal
The Times
March 6, 2008
That Martin Luther? He Wasn’t So Bad, Says Pope
Richard Owen in Rome
Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices.
Pope Benedict will issue his findings on Luther (1483-1546) in September after discussing him at his annual seminar of 40 fellow theologians — known as the Ratzinger Schülerkreis — at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence. According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the move would help to promote ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Protestants. It is also designed to counteract the impact of July's papal statement describing the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as defective and “not proper Churches”.
The move to re-evaluate Luther is part of a drive to soften Pope Benedict's image as an arch conservative hardliner as he approaches the third anniversary of his election next month. This week it emerged that the Vatican is planning to erect a statue of Galileo, who also faced a heresy trial, to mark the 400th anniversary next year of his discovery of the telescope.
The Pope has also reached out to the Muslim world to mend fences after his 2006 speech at Regensburg University in which he appeared to describe Islam as inherently violent and irrational. This week Muslim scholars and Vatican officials met at the pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue in Rome to begin laying the groundwork for a meeting between the Pope and leading Muslims, also expected to be held at Castelgandolfo.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Quote: “Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices.”
Nope. Not going to happen. All Pope Benedict will do is say what everyone already knows and always knew: Luther was right on some things and wrong on others. He didn’t intend a split, but did nothing, NOTHING, to stop one when it obviously was happening.
I, for one, have stated before (on FR, in fact), was as much the fault of Leo X (the pope who excommunicated Luther) as anybody else. Any Catholic who has even a modicum of knowledge of history will acknowledge that Leo X's reign was a corrupt one. Even the Catholic Encyclopedia says about him:
Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the large treasure left by Julius II was entirely dissipated in two years. In the spring of 1515 the exchequer was empty and Leo never after recovered from his financial embarrassment. Various doubtful and reprehensible methods were resorted to for raising money. He created new offices and dignities, and the most exalted places were put up for sale. Jubilees and indulgences were degraded almost entirely into financial transactions, yet without avail, as the treasury was ruined. The pope's income amounted to between 500,000 and 600,000 ducats. The papal household alone, which Julius II had maintained on 48,000 ducats, now cost double that sum. In all, Leo spent about four and a half million ducats during his pontificate and left a debt amounting to 400,000 ducats. On his unexpected death his creditors faced financial ruin. A lampoon proclaimed that "Leo X had consumed three pontificates; the treasure of Julius II, the revenues of his own reign, and those of his successor."...
The only possible verdict on the pontificate of Leo X is that it was unfortunate for the Church. Sigismondo Tizio, whose devotion to the Holy See is undoubted, writes truthfully: "In the general opinion it was injurious to the Church that her Head should delight in plays, music, the chase and nonsense, instead of paying serious attention to the needs of his flock and mourning over their misfortunes". Von Reumont says pertinently–"Leo X is in great measure to blame for the fact that faith in the integrity and merit of the papacy, in its moral and regenerating powers, and even in its good intentions, should have sunk so low that men could declare extinct the old true spirit of the Church."
Luther's initial desire: to rid the Church of the scourge of Simony was a worthy cause (as many, many Catholics here on FR have stated). The end result is altogether different.
Yes, it will be interesting to read what Ratzinger has to say about Luther this fall. But I would encourage all to actually read what he wrote/ said, rather than the MSM account of the same -- because with the track record that the MSM has, they will get it wrong.
By the way, you no doubt share Luther's views, writings and teachings on the Blessed Virgin Mary, don't you?
Keep a Good Lent!
Thanks for the ping lightman. Very interesting. I have to email this to our past congregation president, since he also teaches our adult Bible class each Sunday.
The mainstream press has a batting average of approximately .000 with regard to the Pope and certain claims they make about what he’s going to say or do.
The press is trying to weaken the Church’s standing by claiming that the Pope is going to come out and say the Church made a mistake by claiming Luther was a heretic. That’s nothing but a fantasy.
There’s no way Luther wasn’t a heretic, unless someone can prove that he didn’t take it upon himself to reject Pope Damasus’ decree that the so-called “apocrypha” are inspired Scripture, and devised his own personal biblical canon which he used to lure the faithful away from the Church of Rome. If that doesn’t qualify as heresy, I don’t know what does.
Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X, who dismissed him initially as “a drunken German who will change his mind when sober”.
Looks like poor old Leo is 0-for-2. :)
"To alcohol! The cause of--and solution to--all of life's problems." -Homer Simpson
Mark -
Luther’s formal rejection of Pope Damasus’ decree on the canon of inspired Scripture is a show-stopper, with regards to any attempts to repeal his label as a heretic.
The angle of this study will likely tend towards relieving the notion that Luther was pointedly trying to destroy the Church, but that applies to a lot of heretics who at least wanted to remain in the Church but refused assent to particular teachings.
Better late than never, I guess.
I wonder what that is going to do to my ex-Mother-in-Law who considered me as Lutheran to be a heretic?
Actually, I really don't care. :-)
Jesus will think, “FReepers can be mean.”
I think He trolls the threads taking names. Blessed Be God and Blessed be His people.
And some of the best Christians here are horribly hateful. We all know who they are. Bet He does too.
It is going to take a heck of alot more to counteract that statement! What he is basically saying is the Martin Luther did the right thing, but in doing so, created a "defective and not proper" church!
I’m with you, vlad. One needs to consider the source here: The London Times. While it is certainly less overwrought and error-prone about Catholicism than, say, The London Telegraph or the Daily Mail, it still has a long way to go by way of self-education about things Catholic.
I doubt that Benedict will go anywhere near as far as this story claims. He will likely simply say that Luther did not “intend” to cause a split. It is likely that that is quite true - at the beginning - but, as you say, vlad, he did nothing whatsoever to either reconcile his own “movement” with the Church, or try, through his influence, to stop the quick proliferation of even more extremist views. He might have had, based on his writings, some regrets about the course of events after October 31, 1517, but nothing came of them even within Lutheranism.
This is the Times’ wishful interpretation of the subject; Benedict has many times in the past discussed Luther; he is a scholar, and his opinions are quite well known and not likely to change.
Aside from whatever the Pope is going to say, everybody has always acknowledged that Luther never set out to leave the Catholic Church. But his doctrines led him further and further afield (and we won’t even discuss the bizarreness of the end of his life, when his moral compass seems to have gone haywire and he began advocating things like polygamy and the early equivalent of “free love”). Like all heresies, Luther’s thought picks one or two points of orthodox doctrine and exaggerates them to a point where they take off on their own and leave orthodoxy behind.
And of course, the people who followed him, such as Calvin, each picked their own special favorite doctrine to distort and set in a central place as the keystone of “their” religion. This is simply the standard course of heresies - whether or not the person in question initially intends to leave orthodoxy, he inevitably ends by doing so. And the people who follow them then feel free to pick some doctrine of their leader which they think is particularly important (or even particularly wrong) and build “their” new, improved church on that doctrine and their thoughts about it. This is the reason there are so many Protestant churches; it’s a never-ending cycle of splintering.
Growing up, my Catholic friends thought Luther was the DEVIL on earth. Walk into a Lutheran church?? Nothin’ doin....the walls would crash in upon them.
Doubt the pope can undo umpteen years of indoctrination.
Maybe the pope has recognized that it’s not the Prots that are the enemy of church.
I couldn't agree more. I'm on your side (and Martin Luther's) in this dispute. Perhaps if the RC Church can admit an error on Martin Luther, they could someday admit error concerning justification by faith alone. Like you, I am doubtful.
And how exactly was the unity of the Church a responsibility of his? Especially a Church that was selling sin (indulgences), etc. I don't recall Jesus making any comments about mandating unity amongst churches.
Folks, this line right here tells you that the author is being a little creative with "facts". BXVI is not in the "image" business.
The Pope's motives for whatever is coming out are motivated by a charitable desire to heal the wounds of 500 years. It is also undoubtedly true that many of the heretical planks of Protestantism which are popular today had no place in Luther's theology but were the works of "reformers" who followed Luther.
A closer examination of what Luther really intended would be good for both Catholics and Protestants. It would help Protestants to see that Luther never envisioned nor intended today's alphabet soup of "churches" and it would help Catholics to understand the true nature of how the Reformation began and then progressed.
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