Posted on 10/30/2017 4:58:34 PM PDT by ebb tide
October 31 marks precisely five hundred years since the symbolic beginning of the Protestant Reformation. And on the part of the highest officials of the Catholic Church, the celebrations so far have been practically a one-way street: a chorus of praise for Martin Luther. “A medicine for the Church,” Pope Francis said of him in taking stock of his ecumenical journey in Sweden exactly one year ago.
“L'Osservatore Romano,” however, or “La Civiltà Cattolica” have been cautious not to republish what Jorge Mario Bergoglio wrote about Luther and Calvin before he was elected pope.
Only one of his texts on the Protestant Reformation has been preserved, from about thirty years ago. But it was republished in 2014 with a preface by the Jesuit Antonio Spadaro, director of “La Civiltà Cattolica” and one of Pope Francis’s closest confidants, without the slightest disclaimer of the crushing anti-Protestant invectives contained in it.
When the text came back to light, in fact, the eminent Protestant theologian Paolo Ricca, a Waldensian, expressed his consternation in an editorial for the magazine “Riforma”:
“I ask myself how it is possible to have still today, or even thirty years ago, such a deformed, distorted, mistaken, and substantially false view of the Protestant Reformation. It is a view with which it is impossible to begin a dialogue, or even an argument, it is so far and divergent from reality.”
Going so far as to doubt whether the anniversary of the Reformation could be celebrated together with the current pope.
“One thing is certain: on the basis of such a view, an ecumenical celebration of the five hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, in 2017, appears to be literally impossible.”
However, as is well known, Pope Francis has succeeded and then some in retying the threads of dialogue and in establishing in public opinion the image of a Catholic Church friendlier than ever with Luther and grateful for what he did.
Naturally, setting aside entirely that text of his. Which it could be useful to read and is linked here:
> Luther At the Stake. No, At the Altars. The Double Vision of the Jesuit Pope
*
But this censure of the anti-Lutheran Bergoglio is not the only one of this season of ecumenism. To it can be added another: on an author who is among the most prominent writers for "L'Osservatore Romano,” Marco Vannini, a renowned expert on theology and mysticism, especially that of Germany, and a scholar of Luther.
Vannini published a book this year that says right from the title what side he takes: “Against Luther and the false Gospel.”
Vannini calls himself “perhaps heretical but Roman Catholic,” although in an article in 2004, under the reign of pope Karol Wojtyla, "La Civiltà Cattolica" adjudged that he “excludes transcendence, suppresses the essential truths of Christianity, and by way of Neoplatonism inexorably arrives at a modern Gnosticism.”
The fact remains that with Pope Francis he has become a regular writer for "L'Osservatore Romano.”
But not this time. Not even one line on his erudite book against Luther. Curiously, it was noted in Italy only by the magazine “Il Regno,” an authoritative voice of progressive Catholicism, with an interview of the author.
An interview in which Vannini begins like this:
“My familiarity with the texts of Luther dates back to my youth; then I moved on to my predominant interest, German mysticism before and after the Reformation. The controversy over Luther is certainly ‘outdated’, because in my view the Catholic or ex-Catholic world has incorporated ideas, tendencies, and ways of being from the Lutheran Protestant world. Lutheranism and the Reformation in general are responsible for one of the gravest evils of our world: individualism, the primacy of the subject who centers himself on self-love, which is ‘radix omnis mali et peccati’, the root of all evil and sin, as Saint Augustine said and Meister Eckhart often repeated. This is the reason for my hostility toward Lutheranism. It is no coincidence that Luther is so beloved by self-proclaimed secularists who have no affection for Christ or Christianity.”
Further on in the interview Vannini doubles down on his criticism. Both against the use that Luther makes of Sacred Scripture:
“I really do not forgive the use that Luther makes, at his pleasure, of Scripture, for example when he defines one text as absolutely the word of God, separating it from all the rest, or when he takes what he needs from Scripture and throws away what doesn’t work. Years ago, when I edited the prefaces for Luther’s Bible, his manipulations against the pope seemed intolerable to me.”
And against his rejection of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle:
“The authentic Gospel consists in the fact that the light of God, the eternal light, is always and no matter what on every man. In Luther I find instead something diabolical, there is a spirit of deceit that contrasts with the nobility of the spirit, with the truth and with the profound honesty that one experiences in reading the great philosophers. When Luther lays into philosophy, calling it a ‘prostitute of dialogue’, I perceive a radical hostility: here his false Gospel is going strong. It is false because it does not arise from the universality of reason, which is the most precious thing we possess, but is the fruit of his particular decisions.”
Vannini goes so far as to sweep away, together with Luther, even the apostle Paul:
“The Christian faith without the lesson of ancient philosophy would be defunct. Today perhaps it could be a form of gnosticism or one sect among the many if it had not met on its way those great and honest philosophers who were also Christians, and whom Luther insults and despises. Christianity would not have survived with Paul alone, whom Luther however loves so much. On this it would be necessary to read Nietzsche, a powerful psychologist who unmasks the profound self-affirmation of Paul, who begins the letter to the Romans by shamelessly insulting the classical world: something that is absolutely dishonest.”
Ideas worthy of discussion, as can be seen, all the more so at a commemoration like the present one. But the official Vatican organs have carefully held back from commenting on them, as if the only applicable watchword were to say that the Protestant Reformation was “an event of the Holy Spirit.”
In fact, poor Cardinal Gerhard L. Müller, the ousted ex-prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, has no platform left but a “foreign” blog to repeat the elementary and enduring differences that divide the Catholic Church from Protestantism:
> Quella di Lutero? Non fu riforma, ma rivoluzione
(English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.)
>>An interview in which Vannini begins like this:
>>“My familiarity with the texts of Luther dates back to my youth; then I moved on to my predominant interest, German mysticism before and after the Reformation. The controversy over Luther is certainly ‘outdated’, because in my view the Catholic or ex-Catholic world has incorporated ideas, tendencies, and ways of being from the Lutheran Protestant world. Lutheranism and the Reformation in general are responsible for one of the gravest evils of our world: individualism, the primacy of the subject who centers himself on self-love, which is ‘radix omnis mali et peccati’, the root of all evil and sin, as Saint Augustine said and Meister Eckhart often repeated. This is the reason for my hostility toward Lutheranism. It is no coincidence that Luther is so beloved by self-proclaimed secularists who have no affection for Christ or Christianity.”
So, Milli Vannini just makes stuff up.
No, but I see you do.
Shattered the Church. Brought on barbarous wars, smashing of images, looting of the Church, and the destruction of monasteries and charities for the poor. Deprived millions or even billions of the sacraments and the consolation of communion with the saints. Promoted catastrophic moral decline (which he himself lamented). Deleted books from the Scriptures.
Nothing to celebrate.
Padre Pio said he had a vision of Luther in Hell.
Prayers up for Holy Mother Church.
“Deprived millions or even billions of the sacraments and the consolation of communion with the saints.”
Are you saying those millions or billions are going to hell forever?
“Deprived millions or even billions of the sacraments and the consolation of communion with the saints.”
Millions or billions gained eternal life and escaped hell. They gained the consolation of God and the inheritance of Christ.
Great trade.
Set millions ffee from the Tyranny of the Roman church. Brought the focus back to Christ alone. Brought the Gospel of Grace rather than works to people and gave them confidence in their salvation that depends on Christ not works. Rid people of the burden of trying to literally buy their salvation in the form of indulgences when it was already freely given by God. Brought to an end the stranglehold of the Roman church on interpreting scripture to the masses and brought the Word to the common man. That was enough for starters
‘Kill them all and let God sort them out’ was the Catholic slogan during the Albigensian Crusade in France.
Entire cities put to the sword, man, woman and child.
So much for sacraments and the consolation of communion with the Saints.
Pope Innocent III was anything but.
“Albigensian Crusade in France.”
Slaughter of 200,000 to 1,000,000 Cathars - men, women, children - by the pope and his peeps. Crime? Bad theology.
In the first significant engagement of the war, the town of Béziers was besieged on 22 July 1209. The Catholic inhabitants of the city were granted the freedom to leave unharmed, but many refused and opted to stay and fight alongside the Cathars.
The Cathars spent much of 1209 fending off the crusaders. The Béziers army attempted a sortie but was quickly defeated, then pursued by the crusaders back through the gates and into the city. Arnaud-Amaury, the Cistercian abbot-commander, is supposed to have been asked how to tell Cathars from Catholics. His reply, recalled by Caesarius of Heisterbach, a fellow Cistercian, thirty years later was “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius”—”Kill them all, the Lord will recognise His own”. The doors of the church of St Mary Magdalene were broken down and the refugees dragged out and slaughtered. Reportedly at least 7,000 innocent men, women and children were killed there by Catholic forces.
Elsewhere in the town, many more thousands were mutilated and killed. Prisoners were blinded, dragged behind horses, and used for target practice. What remained of the city was razed by fire. Arnaud-Amaury wrote to Pope Innocent III, “Today your Holiness, twenty thousand heretics were put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex.”
The permanent population of Béziers at that time was then probably no more than 5,000, but local refugees seeking shelter within the city walls could conceivably have increased the number to 20,000.
Pope Innocent III started both the Roman Inquisition and two Crusades, including the one against the Albigensians. Although he was one of the most influential Popes in history, he is far from being considered a saint.
Here's an interesting item from his personal history.
Somebody who IS a canonized saint --- St. Lutgarda of Brabant -- received a vision of him being in the fires of purgatory on the very day he died in Perugia, Italy. Engulfed in flames, he declared to her, “I am Pope Innocent”. He continued to explain that he was in purgatory for three crimes grievously offensive to Our Lord. He said --- according to St. Lutgarda--- that he had repented on his deathbed and was saved by the grace of God, but still had to make reparations for his grave faults.
"Alas! It is terrible; and will last for centuries" he is reported to have said to Lutgarda.
This was reported by St. Robert Bellarmine, a highly trained jurist who saw documentary proof (Lutgarda's written testimony of her vision, written days or weeks before before anybody in Brabant --- 880 miles from from Perugia --- knew that the Pope had died.) So do not make the mistake of supposing that evil men and their henchmen---- even wicked Popes --- are regarded as "true believers."
It is debatable whether they, being heretics, are even canonically Catholic.
Luther was a heretic who was excommunicated from the church and Bergoglio is a heretic who should also be excommunicated.
Well now there's a surprise! A Catholic hating on St. Paul.
I guess the Holy Spirit made a mistake in inspiring him to write most of the New Testament. /sarc
There is the more recent ‘beatified’ Pius IX.
John Paul II finally Beatified him in 2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ghetto
Who re-established the Jewish Roman Ghetto in 1850, they weren’t freed until the unification of Italy in 1870 and the walls were torn down in 1888.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortara_case
The Mortara case (Italian: caso Mortara) was an Italian cause célèbre that captured the attention of much of Europe and North America in the 1850s and 1860s. It concerned the Papal States’ seizure from a Jewish family in Bologna of one of their children, six-year-old Edgardo Mortara, on the basis of a former servant’s testimony that she had administered emergency baptism to the boy when he fell sick as an infant. Mortara grew up as a Catholic under the protection of Pope Pius IX—who refused his parents’ desperate pleas for his return—and eventually became a priest. The domestic and international outrage against the pontifical state’s actions may have contributed to its downfall amid the unification of Italy.
In late 1857, Bologna’s inquisitor Father Pier Feletti heard that Anna Morisi, who had worked in the Mortara house for six years, had secretly baptised Edgardo when she had thought he was about to die as a baby. The Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition held that this made the child irrevocably a Catholic and, because the Papal States forbade the raising of Christians by members of other faiths, ordered that he be taken from his family and brought up by the Church. Police came to the Mortara home late on 23 June 1858 and removed Edgardo the following evening.
YAWN! Such predictable lies about Luther. Did Catholicism delete the commandment against bearing false witness???
Correction: a heretical Catholic.
Vannini calls himself “perhaps heretical but Roman Catholic,” although in an article in 2004, under the reign of pope Karol Wojtyla, "La Civiltà Cattolica" adjudged that he “excludes transcendence, suppresses the essential truths of Christianity, and by way of Neoplatonism inexorably arrives at a modern Gnosticism.”
The fact remains that with Pope Francis he has become a regular writer for "L'Osservatore Romano.”
If I’m not mistaken, Pio himself didn’t say he had that vision, but rather someone who claimed he knew the priest said that.
Given that ALL of the historically Protestant countries of Europe have, for all intents and purposes, left Christianity altogether and embraced secular hedonism on their way to Islam, I think the devil is quite pleased with the bargain overall.
The Protestant triumphalists on FR never mention that. Sorrow and horror at the degree to which Protestantism has been replaced by open apostasy never makes a dent in their eagerness to condemn Catholics and Catholicism. Think about that.
I’ve almost totally avoided religion threads on FR now for years for obvious reasons. I looked at this one however. Can you tell me has reignited the flame wars this time?
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