Tetzel!. for example. The sale of indulgences, for example. Revenues that were used to build St. Peter’s.
Jon
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Jon
po18guy
Well-known member
Oh, that wascally Tetzel! The bogeyman of all Christendom! Question: Since the Pope was not accused of selling indulgences, and is believed to be the antichrist - yet Tetzel did sell them, but is NOT the antichrist, how do we reconcile this with reality?
Tell you what! Let’s train our microscopes on the reformers!
(uncomfortable pause…)
Couple of mistakes.
- The pope is not the anti-Christ.
- Tetzel is not the Bogeyman of all Christendom.
I think we have too often trained our microscopes on men dead 500 years, Catholic and Evangelical, instead of focusing our microscopes on what we today are doing to fix what they together handed down to us.
Jon
po18guy
Well-known member
I may be wrong, but until or unless that portion of the confessions is rescinded or countermanded, he certainly seems to be so declared. Or, has that been turned back?
C
chero23
Guest
And I believe that as Catholics we are
There are three things by which the confessions claim that the office of the papacy is anti, or opposed to Christ. they are:
1] The Roman Pontiff claims for himself [in the first place] that by divine right he is [supreme] above all bishops and pastors [in all Christendom].
2] Secondly, he adds also that by divine right he has both swords, i.e., the authority also of bestowing kingdoms [enthroning and deposing kings, regulating secular dominions etc.].
3] And thirdly, he says that to believe this is necessary for salvation. And for these reasons the Roman bishop calls himself [and boasts that he is] the vicar of Christ on earth.
The second one is moot. It is the remaining two by which we believe that the office of the papacy is anti, or opposed to Christ. We make no claim regarding any individual pope. In fact, we believe that in particular recent popes are God fearing, good Christian men. We also honor popes of old with feast days on our calendar. Finally, we are not speaking of THE Anti-Christ in the way that modern Dispensationalists do, an end-times beast, as it were.
Jon
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Randy_Carson
Guest
Oh?
Protestants are PROTESTING against something - that is the essence of the cause…and the lack of unity among you and your fellow protesters weakens your argument against that something, IMO.
P
pablope
Guest
But to begin fixing the past…isn’t a reflection of how we got here helpful? And an acceptance of the sins of the past…of the mistakes…be a starting point?
P
pablope
Guest
Out of curiosity…I did some research on Tetzel:
newadvent.org/cathen/14539a.htm
History presents few characters that have suffered more senseless misrepresentation, even bald caricature, than Tetzel. “Even while he lived stories which contained an element of legend gathered around his name, until at last, in the minds of the uncritical Protestant historians, he became the typical indulgence-monger, upon whom any well-worn anecdote might be fathered” (Beard, “Martin Luther”, London, 1889, 210). For a critical scholarly study which shows him in a proper perspective, he had to wait the researches of our own time, mainly at the hands of Dr. Nicholas Paulus, who is closely followed in this article. In the first place, his teaching regarding the indulgences for the living was correct. The charge that the forgiveness of sins was sold for money regardless of contrition or that absolution for sins to be committed in the future could be purchased is baseless. An indulgence, he writes, can be applied only “to the pains of sin which are confessed and for which there is contrition”. “No one”, he furthermore adds, “secures an indulgence unless he have true contrition”. The confessional letters (confessionalia) could of course be obtained for a mere pecuniary consideration without demanding contrition. But such document did not secure an indulgence. It was simply a permit to select a proper confessor, who only after a contrite confession would absolve from sin and reserved cases, and who possessed at the same time facilities to impart the plenary indulgence (Paulus, “Johann Tetzel”, 103).
If Tetzel was guilty of unwarranted theological views, if his advocacy of indulgences was culpably imprudent, his moral character, the butt of every senseless burlesque and foul libel, has been vindicated to the extent of leaving it untainted by any grave moral dereliction. These would hardly be worth alluding to, did not some of them have Miltitz as the source. But Miltitz has been so discredited that he no longer carries historical weight. “All efforts”, writes Oscar Michael, a Protestant, “to produce Miltitz as a reliable witness will prove futile” (Münch. Allg. Zeit., 18 April, 1901). “The circulated reports of Miltitz about Tetzel deserve in themselves no credence”, writes another Protestant author (ibid., 14 March, 1910).
The charge of embezzling the indulgence funds is also legendary. The precautions adopted to safeguard the alms were of a character that precluded all chance of misappropriation. The chest to receive the money always had two or three locks, the keys of which were in the custody of different persons, including a representative of the banking-house of Fugger. It could never be opened save in the presence of a notary. The ecclesiastical injunction was that the faithful had to deposit their contributions in person. To give it to the confessor or indulgence subcommissary invalidated the indulgence (Paulus, op. cit., 76-77). The Tetzel indulgence chests exhibited at Jüterbog and other German towns, are counterfeits, according to the Protestant writer Körner (Tetzel’s Leben, 73). The latest Catholic biographer of Luther, Grisar, writes: “To ascribe to the unhappy monk the ‘cause’ of the entire apostasy that set in since 1517 . . . is an untrue legend” (“Luther”, Freiburg, 1911, I, 281).
So Jon…what does the Lutheran stories say of Tetzel? (So as to compare the two stories side by side).
You know, Randy, I have never “protested” in front of a Catholic Church. I wasn’t raised to believe we were protesting anything. I was catechized in the catholic faith from Luther’s Small Catechism to start with. I will, however add my support to those who protested at the Second Diet of Speyer, a protest against government oppression of religious activity, which is where the term comes from.
I think you will find that few protestants live out their faith with the idea that they are, somehow, protesting against the Catholic Church, and that is the essense of their faith.
Randy, most protestants today see the Catholic church down the street as just another church, and couldn’t care less beyond that. When I was a kid, there was St. Anne’s Catholic Church nearby, and Christ UCC, and Wesley Methodist, and they were all churches I wasn’t a member of.
As for the unity, why would you think that various groups from various roots would necessarily be unified? We’re not in communion with protestant groups because we believe in the catholic understanding of Baptism, we believe in the real presence, and in Confession/Holy Absolution, among other things. I for one am not willing to give that up in order that we appear unified.
Jon
I agree 100%. Interestingly, our leaders seem to be beyond that now, and have moved on to trying to fix it. They recognize the past, the frankly sometimes ugly past. And they look to the future, in prayer and hope. I think that’s a good model for us.
Jon
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Randy_Carson
Guest
We Americans declared our independence from England, but none of us alive today personally dumped tea into the Boston harbo. Of course, but we live with the consequences of that act, and we are taught a lot about the history of the Revolutionary War beginning in grade school. I think few Protestants today are being taught much about the Reformation, but they live with the consequences nonetheless.
You haven’t protested in front of a Catholic Church, but you have worshiped elsewhere; thus, you maintain the protest tacitly.
Agreed. And the lack of thought about these things contributes to the status quo. Henry Newman said it best: “To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant.” Unfortunately, most of the folks down at Calvary Baptist are more interested in getting to Shoney’s before the crowd so they don’t miss kickoff.
Nor should you. Lutherans are definitely a unique group in many respects as I am coming to understand.
But “various roots”? That sort of confirms Catholic suspicions.
Randy,
They wouldn’t consider it consequences at all, and their communion may have no or little connection to the Reformation.
Actually, I have, at times, worshipped in a Catholic church. But that said, does that mean that since you don’t worship in a Lutheran church, you are protesting as well?
Well, I’m not going to judge the hearts of those at Calvary Baptist, but my parish started Divine Worship at 10:30 instead of 11:00, just to be safe.
“Unique” we are, indeed. Thanks.
Well, all of them back to the Catholic Church at some point, just not coming out of the CC together.
Jon
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