Looking Back at what the Reformation has Done

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I think, if alive today, Luther would have gone to the doctor, gotten a prescription or two and entered therapy. I’m not saying that facetiously. He had things driving him which would have been dealt with medication.

As others have said though, if not Luther, then someone else. Reform did need to happen.
 
I guess the other side of the question would be, if the Catholic Church saw the disunity it would bring, would they have dealt differently with Luther, or started the reforms of the counter-reformation earlier?
 
I would add that I think Luther was dealing with issues that, if he were around today would have been helped by medication and interaction with a mental health professional.
 
ChurchSoldier said:
I guess the other side of the question would be, if the Catholic Church saw the disunity it would bring, would they have dealt differently with Luther, or started the reforms of the counter-reformation earlier?
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That is also a good point.
 
Martin Luther was a very troubled person who seemed to vacillate between wanting complete obscurity and wanting to feed his ego. Let’s not forget that he was appointed to teach Theology at a prestigious college when he was still a very young man. Straight from a cloistered existence where he was constantly troubled by his own demons concerning his sinful nature and the possibility of eternal damnation, he had no concept of the mercy of God. A college thesis he had developed in his studies eventually was sent to his bishop and later became known as the 95 Theses. Luther was by then only 34 years old. Others were bolstering him in his position and in fact helped to cement his total obstinacy. Expecting the Catholic Church to immediately bow to his authority and turn on a dime in a time period of very slow communication, his fury was stoked to the point of no return. The Church excommunicated Luther only after a four year period of time. By then, Luther had come up with so many objections having absolutely nothing to do with his original fury over the selling of indulgences, he stated that the Pope had no authority and began to set himself up as the true authority by interpreting scripture with only his own troubled mind as the true authority, disavowing apostolic succession as if Jesus himself had not set up the hierarchy of the Church as the governing body of the faithful. By 1521, Luther was indeed excommunicated and only two years later, he married a runaway nun. Troubled, indeed.
 
Hi hn,
hn160 said:
From my own point of view of Luther and the conditions of the Church and the political conditions of his time, I really think that Luther would have stayed the course. Rome wasn’t interested in reform, they thought that Luther was a threat and Rome used the power of the state against him and his followers. Reform in the Roman Church didn’t come until the Council of Trent and by then it was too late. Lutherans were not invited to the party.
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Actually that it not true. The ‘Myth’ is that the Church refused to allow Protestants at Trent, which of course means that the Catholics are ‘more responsible’ for our divisions than the Protestants, who presumably wanted to attend but were not allowed to. In fact the Protestants WERE invited to Trent but didn’t attend. Luther advised against it. From a previous thread:

You state that the Lutherans were not invited to Trent. The facts are quite different, and they are facts that I have never read in any Protestant account.

**“In 1536 [Pope Paul III] issued a call for a general council to meet at Mantua on May 23, 1537, and he invited the Protestants to attend. He assumed that all parties in attendance would accept the conclusions of the conference; but the Protestants, who would be in the minority there, could hardly accept such an obligation. Luther advised against attending, **and the congress of Protestants at Schmalkalden returned the Pope’s invitation unopened. The Emperor still insisted that the council should meet on German soil, on Italian soil, he argued, it would be crowded with Italian bishops and become a puppet of the Pope. After many negotiations and delays Paul agreed to have the council meet at Trent, which though predominately Italian, was in Imperial territory and subject to Charles. The council was summoned to meet there on November 1, 1542.” Will Durant, “The Reformation”, pg. 927

In regards to the session held 9 years later:

“Pope Julius III “summoned the Council to meet again at Trent in May 1551, and agreed that the Lutherans should be given a fair hearing………On January 24, 1552, the Protestant deputies addressed the assembly. They proposed the decrees of the Councils of Constance and Basel on the superior authority of councils over the popes should be confirmed; that the present; that the members of the present body should be released from their vows of fealty to Julius III, that all decisions hitherto reached by the Council should be annulled; and that fresh discussions of the issues should be held by an enlarged synod in which the Protestants would be adequately represented. Julius III forbade consideration of these proposals. The Council voted to postpone action till March 19, when additional Protestant delegates were expected. During this delay military developments supervened upon theology. In January 1552, the King of France signed an alliance with the German Protestants; in March Maruice of Saxony advanced towards Innsbruck; Charles fled, and no force could prevent Maurice, if he wished, from capturing Trent and swallowing the Council. The bishops disappeared one by one, and on April 28 the Council was formally suspended.” Durant, pg. 930-31

In other words, they refused to attend the earliest session and then show up and demand that all of the decisions made by the earlier session be nullified, the very session that they had refused to attend.
**
“In the winter of 1562 it was still not clear how much – if anything significant – the new session of the Council of Trent would be able to accomplish. …………The Protestants were invited and assured safe-conducts, but few expected them to come; most of the German (Catholic) bishops so feared the Lutherans that they stayed away themselves,** despite the best efforts of Emperor Ferdinand I, the Catholic brother of Charles V who was as firm in the Faith as he had been, to persuade them to attend.” Warren H. Carroll, “The Cleaving of Christendom”, pg. 286
 
In regards to the conclusions of that 1562 session, Carroll continues:

“All of the decrees of the previous sessions were re-read and their approval was confirmed. All 225 Council Fathers present signed them, and 39 proxies from absent Fathers were recorded in their favor………

**The homilist at the opening Mass of this last day of the final session of the Council of Trent directly addressed the Protestants:

“We have chosen this city, at the entrance into Germany, on the very threshold, so to speak, of their house,; in order to remove all suspicion from their minds, we have refused to be guarded by troops, we have issued letters of safe conduct which they themselves have framed; we have waited for them, we have begged and implored them to come and gain knowledge from the light of truth.” **

Yet they had not come’, without significant exception, they had indeed not shown the slightest inclination to come; they had cut themselves off from the Church Christ founded.** There could be no more attempts at negotiation or compromise with them, which over almost half a century had given every possible opportunity to happen and to succeed. **There must then be, in each country, a fight to the finish. For nearly everyone in that age, Catholic or Protestant, believed unquestioningly that in the end all churches of a nation must preach the same doctrine and acknowledge the same head……With no compromise or reconciliation possible, the great issue could therefore only be settled on the battlefield, and to the battlefield it was now committed…………

**Almost miraculously, those still loyal to the Church had in the end spoken with virtually one voice in proclaiming both doctrine and reform, despite all the differences and mutual suspicions dividing them. The contrast with the bitter divisions that had developed among the Protestants - between the Lutherans and the Calvinists especially, but also between Flacius Illyricus and his followers in Germany and other Lutherans, as well as among Anabaptists, mainline Protestants and Unitarians - was very impressive and well noted. The Catholic Church was essentially reborn at the Council of Trent, resurrected from the dead, now the true Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, could and did begin. ** Carroll, pg. 299-301

A summary of these quotes is as follows and it is VERY different than the standard Protestant “Legend” which portrays Protestantism as being kept from Trent by the Church.

The Pope invited the Protestants to an Ecumenical Council in Mantua in 1537 (which was to become the Council of Trent.) The Protestants returned the invitation unopened. Still though the Pope agreed to the Protestant demand to have the Council on German Soil. In 1551 the Pope agrees to give the Lutherans a fair hearing. The Protestants attend and demand that the Council its renounce its vows to the Pope, annul all prior decisions of the Council, and that new discussions be initiated. Rather than destroy the Church, Julius refuses. The Protestants threaten Trent militarily and Trent closes for the time being. In 1562 Protestants are again invited to the Council and even the Emperor is unable to convince them to attend. After this last session, Trent is closed. Europe descends into a series of wars in which, overall, tens of millions are killed.

Those are the historical facts – facts that I have never read in a Protestant account of either the Reformation or of Luther’s life. It seems pretty obvious at this point that Luther, while he was still alive, was wrong to recommend that the Protestants reject the invitation to attend the Council.

God Bless You hn, Topper
 
hn160 said:
From my own point of view of Luther and the conditions of the Church and the political conditions of his time, I really think that Luther would have stayed the course. Rome wasn’t interested in reform, they thought that Luther was a threat and Rome used the power of the state against him and his followers. Reform in the Roman Church didn’t come until the Council of Trent and by then it was too late. Lutherans were not invited to the party.
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I agree with you on that. 👍
 
ChurchSoldier said:
I guess the other side of the question would be, if the Catholic Church saw the disunity it would bring, would they have dealt differently with Luther, or started the reforms of the counter-reformation earlier?
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Yes that is an interesting question.

Sometimes I consider visiting a “protestant” forum to see if they are having “mirror image” (or whatever you might call it) conversations to the ones we find here … But then I decide it’s best to leave it to my imagination. 😃 😉
 
ChurchSoldier said:
I guess the other side of the question would be, if the Catholic Church saw the disunity it would bring, would they have dealt differently with Luther, or started the reforms of the counter-reformation earlier?
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I agree.
 
It certainly seems like the Catholic church did everything to include the Protestants to hear their voice. Interesting. I did not know that. Thanks for the info.
 
Peter_J said:
Yes that is an interesting question.

Sometimes I consider visiting a “protestant” forum to see if they are having “mirror image” (or whatever you might call it) conversations to the ones we find here … But then I decide it’s best to leave it to my imagination. 😃 😉
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On most Lutheran forums that I’ve seen - we’re more interested in tacking on Calvinists et al. Catholics are rarely argued about.

There’s some “protestant” forums out there that make me reach for the dynamite.
 
7_Sorrows said:
It certainly seems like the Catholic church did everything to include the Protestants to hear their voice. Interesting. I did not know that. Thanks for the info.
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As with history, it’s a bit more complicated.

There were honest attempts at reconciliation early on - Luther was given save passage to several debates even though he was marked by the Church and Government for immediate murder for example.

But for Trent, Lutheran’s were invited only as observers.
 
ChurchSoldier said:
I guess the other side of the question would be, if the Catholic Church saw the disunity it would bring, would they have dealt differently with Luther, or started the reforms of the counter-reformation earlier?
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Point taken. And I think so, yes. And perhaps they would have treated Luther a bit better. He was, after all, quite Catholic, despite his heresies.
ChurchSoldier said:
I would add that I think Luther was dealing with issues that, if he were around today would have been helped by medication and interaction with a mental health professional.
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Agreed. And a good, solid, modern spiritual director.
 
I find attempts to picture Luther as the sole cause of the Reformation absurd and myopic. Would Leo X or his predecessors have acted any differently had they known what lay ahead? To be fair, that question, at least, must asked along with the one about Martin Luther.

I find Catholic attacks on Luther to be a little like trying to take the speck out of someone else’s eye while ignoring the log in their own. There is the old saying “if you point one finger at someone, you are pointing four back at yourself.”
benjohnson said:
As with history, it’s a bit more complicated.

There were honest attempts at reconciliation early on - Luther was given save passage to several debates even though he was marked by the Church and Government for immediate murder for example.
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I don’t really know how honest those attempts were - that is between those living then and God the Judge.
But for Trent, Lutheran’s were invited only as observers.
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You can’t fault the Catholics on that one, given the idea that the bishops are the custodians of doctrine, and from a Catholic framework it might even have been considered generous to invite non-bishops to discuss theology at a council.
 
Tomyris said:
You can’t fault the Catholics on that one, given the idea that the bishops are the custodians of doctrine, and from a Catholic framework it might even have been considered generous to invite non-bishops to discuss theology at a council.
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Agreed!

The notion that Trent was a detente that the Lutherans failed to take advantage of is what I was trying to counter.
 
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