That was a later installment in the Catholic Church. There was a time when the Catholic Church and secular authority were nearly inseparable. High ranking nobles could buy the Papal office with enough money. The ordination was considered valid during that time period. The buying of church offices (simony) is what led to numerous reforms in the Middle Ages along with the secular authorities being able to appoint men to church offices. The Papacy was in no means good and kind during the Middle Ages, there was lots of corruption such as a few popes who had harems and wild parties (this also led to Church reform).
Anyway, sorry for the rant, but it was a later installment for cardinals to elect the popes to office and the elections by secular authorities were still valid.
The moral deficiencies of the original Protestant so-called “reformers” were the MOTIVE, for their apostasy. It was not merely that they were sinners. They were sinners who apostatized BECAUSE of their sins.
If Henry VIII did not want to divorce his sacramentally married wife, marry his chippie mistress, steal Church lands and use the money to pay off his personal debts, England would still be Catholic. Henry VIII made himself 'head of the Church" in England. He had more mistresses than wives and he killed several of those. He used his ‘religious authority’ to ignore the teaching of Our Lord and Savior on divorce and serve his own lusts. he was also guilty of greed, egoism, cruelty, murder, extortion, and irreligion.
If Martin Luther did not suffer from severe bipolar manic-depressant illness with frank psychosis during his periods of mania, he would never have invented a purely formal definition of ‘righteousness’ that was evacuated of all moral content and inspired millions of others to settle for a sub-Christian notion of discipleship…
Luther lived with his paramour for 1 1/2 years before marrying her. He was complicit in the bigamy of Philip of Hess. He encouraged gangs of thugs to invade convents and rape the nuns therein.
If Zwingli the priest had not been a sex crazed rogue who seduced the young women in his congregation… and frequented prostitutes
If Calvin had not been an egomaniac who had murderous intent towards anyone who disagreed with him and in fact executed many people under horrendous conditions. he treated the Genevans so badly that they through him out of town, but in the social chaos that ensued they invited him back so he could use his form of dictatorial repression to stabilize the social disaster the ‘reform’ had created. And there are the credible charges of his own private vices.
If Knox had not been part of the assassination team that murdered Cardinal Beaton…
Cranmer was Henry’s foil to destroy the Church. He had a secret wife in Germany while he pretended to be a celibate priest.
All in all they were total moral reprobates and hypocrites. Forgive me for not finding them worthy to challenge Historic Christianity, especially when their false doctrines were at the service of their personal vices.
The faults of the so-called “reformers” are central to their apostasy.
To turn around and complain that some Catholics may not have been nice is besides the point. No matter how mean some of them were, they stayed in the Church. Jesus said that he had come to save sinners, not righteous people. In light of that, claiming that Catholics were sinners therefore someone needed to found a new Church makes no sense! Sinners need to be in THE Church and no other.
