Martin Luther: Similar to Judas?

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Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.
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Obsequium religiosum. See Lumen gentium 25a .

The above shows that this submission is not restricted to infallible pronouncements.

You can only disagree if you have the theological creds to do so, and then only in a particular way. I don’t think you do.
 
SojournerOnEarth said:
Obsequium religiosum. See Lumen gentium 25a .

The above shows that this submission is not restricted to infallible pronouncements.

You can only disagree if you have the theological creds to do so, and then only in a particular way. I don’t think you do.
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Since when has the character of Martin Luther become a matter of Faith and Morals?
 
When it Catholics are directed to approach ecumenical matters in a certain way, via numerous documents coming out of the Vatican.

I get the feeling people just want to beat on Luther. Did you read the document I linked to/ Your question suggests you didn’t.
 
SojournerOnEarth said:
When it Catholics are directed to approach ecumenical matters in a certain way, via numerous documents coming out of the Vatican.

I get the feeling people just want to beat on Luther. Did you read the document I linked to/ Your question suggests you didn’t.
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This. I think technology and better scholarship has enabled us to really understand what occurred-but many people want to hold on to the old notions that things are black and white.

It might be a good feeling, but it really makes Catholics look ignorant to rely on 100+ year old documents that have basically been proven false or at least misleading.
 
I repeat again, that is not a matter of faith and morals. If the Church says that Martin Luther was a good man the Church is saying nothing about morality or dogmas of the faith. Catholics are free to disagree.

Even if they were speaking on faith and morals, the Catholic Lutheran Commemoration is neither an ex cathedra decree from the Pope nor an Ecumenical Council. Actually, Francis’ name isn’t among the Catholic members of the delegation. Of course, that doesn’t mean the Pope doesn’t agree with what what said. However, his signature is not among the members.
 
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I think you have to put both Martin Luther and the Catholic Church in the context of the medieval time period, while taking into account the political realities of that period.

Martin Luther, as many have already mentioned, never wish to break with the Catholic Church. Martin only wished to reform the Church.

Here are some important factors to keep in mind for this time period:

-The medieval Catholic Church was extremely corrupt. (Cardinal Dolan recently said as much in the new Luther PBS documentary)

-Most of the Cardinals and the Popes of the time were not different than secular princes and their goals were mostly focused on the secular.

-Germany, especially some of the princes, were tired of so much Catholic Church control and were looking for an excuse to break-up or weaken that control.

-Those who challenged or looked to reform the Church were often viewed as heretics and burned. (Not making a judgement, this is just a reality of the time)

-Pope Leo X needed funds for his building projects and though indulgences as the answer to the money troubles. This practice was greatly abused at this time.

-Laity and even Church officials alike were often extremely poorly trained in Church doctrine.

-Martin Luther was a brilliant theologian, yet troubled by conscience and salvation issues.

-Martin Luther was disgusted by the various “sects” that formed after his excommunication and by those who took the reforms way too far. Luther actually spent the last ten years of his life very ill and very depressed.

So, you have a Church with a largely secular focused leadership and a political power keg just ready to burst. If not Luther, it would have been someone else. Had a more charitable approach been taken between Luther and Church leadership, it is certainly possible that the reformation that we know today could have been put off. However, I think some sort of reformation, given the political realities, was going to happen. Many like to blame Pope Leo X as being too harsh and handling Luther poorly. This is true, but this is how things were done back then and it is hard to totally fault Pope Leo X for doing what had always been done before him during this period. Heretics were usually burned and armies quelled the rebellions.
 
Well said. If one wanted to play a blame game, there are certainly many people on both sides one could blame for the disintegration of the Medieval Christian Church on an administrative and doctrinal scale. Certainly, one could blame Martin Luther, or people on the other side could blame Pope Leo X. Others could blame Elector Frederick the Wise for protecting Luther or Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin for taking Luther’s ideas and pushing them even further. The Thirty Years War was fought on an international scale to try to quell and reverse the spread of the Lutheran and Reformed ideologies.

Blame serves little purpose, though. The Reformation did happen and except for Ireland, Belgium and parts of Germany and the Netherlands, it succeeded throughout Northwestern Europe. A lot of blood was spilled on both sides before the new status quo was reached. Today, we do recognize each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. Here’s something from the LCMS site regarding the matter: QUESTION: A non-Lutheran Christian friend of mine recently stated he believes Catholics are not saved and should not be considered Christians. What is the Synod’s belief regarding the salvation of Catholics who adhere to Roman dogma?
ANSWER: The LCMS recognizes all Trinitarian church bodies as Christian churches (in contrast to “cults,” which typically reject the doctrine of the Trinity and thus cannot be recognized as Christian).
In fact, a primary “objective” listed in the Synod’s Constitution (Article III) is to “work through its official structure toward fellowship with other Christian church bodies” — which explicitly assumes that these “other church bodies” are “Christian” in nature. Denominations - Frequently Asked Questions - The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

Jesus Christ as our Risen Lord and Savior is the cornerstone of our Church, even as St. Peter’s Confession of Faith was the Rock by which Jesus built His Church and continues to do so. May God bless you all.
 
So you feel that you can continue to bash Martin Luther, despite recent official Catholic teaching on the subject?

It sounds to me like you are looking for loopholes. “Oh, how can I continue to beat this dead horse?”

There are more documents, by the way, that you really should be aware of if you want to do ecumenical work and speak about Luther as a Catholic. I take the view that this is the Catholic Answers Forum, with the amusing idea that what Catholics post should be in line with Catholic teaching. Funny idea and I sometimes get the feeling few Catholics agree with it but view it as a platform to spout whatever. People do come here to find out what the Catholic Church is teaching, and here we have an example of Catholics stating things opposite, in some cases, to what the Church is teaching. This smacks, at best, of the sin of scandal.

Have you read Apostolic Journey to Germany: Meeting with representatives of the German Evangelical Church Council in the Chapter Hall of the Augustinian Convent (Erfurt, 23 September 2011) | BENEDICT XVI ?

Or the joint statement between the Lutherans and the Catholics on justification?

Are you familiar with http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_...ecree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html?

Frankly I am very, very tired of cheap gutter apologetics directed against Martin Luther that seem to be in the same league as what this gutter apologetics wants to display about Martin Luther. You become what you say he was. And you condemn him for the same sins you are doing against him, and against the church you claim you love and believe in.

Get with the program. The times have changed. It is WAY past time to be indulging in incendiary slander against Martin Luther that serves to deepen and widen the wound in the body of Christ that you say you abhor, but your actions say you are feasting on. THAT is what your church is saying. Go ahead and ignore it.
 
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LutheranScholar said:
John Calvin for taking Luther’s ideas and pushing them even further.
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Just to show that I argue with everyone 😄, the Reformed view this differently. There were many reformation movements all across Europe, unconnected, but doubtless communicating with each other. The Reformed do not consider our theology to be derived from Luther. I have never heard any Reformed say our ideas came from Luther, ever… Both came from the ideas bouncing around Europe before the Reformation. Alistair McGrath discusses this some in his “Christianity’s Dangerous Idea”. He is an Anglican, so sort of impartial in Reformed/Lutheran ping pong.

The Reformation would have happened similarly if Luther had never lived.
 
I don’t doubt that if Luther had never lived, there would have been some sort of Reformation/ Renewal movement that would have emerged as a result of the scholastic and humanist movements ( Jan Hus, for example, would have still been touted as an example to follow, as his movement preceded the Reformation by over a hundred years) that emerged with the overall Renaissance of the period. Would it have been similar? Possibly, but there is no way to know how similar, or if iconoclasm would have been mainstream rather than sectarian. The Bible would have inevitably been translated into the vernacular in any case and perhaps the Catholic Church would have absorbed the Reformation, or maybe Christianity would have become even more fragmented.

I do thank you for giving me the Reformed perspective on this, though. 🙂
 
We call him the wild boar in the Lord’s vineyard. He is admired for his courage and criticized for his stubborness, respected for his theological insights and otherwise not really paid attention to.

I never heard so much about Luther before I started reading CAF. There is a weird obsession. I think there is a Catholic myth that Luther was some sort of pope to Protestants and he caused us all to fall away. But there were many reformation movements inside the Catholic Church. Accurate speculation is never possible. McGrath is of the opinion that Luther destroyed the reform movement that was inside the Church after his rupture, as anyone who wanted reform was now suspect as a Lutheran, so nothing could be done until Trent.

I think every city had people calling for reformation and people with plans, proposed theological and liturgical changes. The apathy from Rome was a considerable factor. Catholics have yet to face the fact that the chief blame should be laid at the pope’s feet as recognized head of the church. Leo X and his predecessor and follower didn’t help the situation at all.

A council in 1485 would have contained the Reformation in the church. By 1515 it was far too late. The horse was on its way out the door.
 
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Luther’s, shall we say, vivid language drew him an enormous amount of attention. Many of the quotes we see fail to take into account his use of hyperbole and sarcasm.
 
Catholics continue to be bashed from the right for “following everything the pope says” and when we dont we get slammed from the left.

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One of the things I admire about Dr. Luther was his passion in standing up for what he felt was right. An unfortunate side effect of that was his vocal and written attempts to silence his opponents in the most vitriolic language he had. Of course, he did have a price on his head for most of his life and he was desperately concerned with the success of his vision of the Reformation throughout Christendom.

The influential friends he cultivated were in a large part responsible ( together with Luther himself) for the success of Evangelical Lutheranism in Saxony and ( thanks to the efforts of Bugenhagen) Scandinavia. The Colloquy of Marburg pretty much drew the line between Lutherans and Zwingli’s Swiss Reformation ( the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in Holy Communion isn’t something Luther could- or should- have backed down on) and the Anabaptists were another issue altogether.
 
Are you aware that the Reformed and Zwingli are separate? He was Constance, we were Geneva. He was symbolic presence, we were real presence. We don’t claim him as a forebearer but a co-runner. I’ve seen Lutherans attack Reformed for denying the Real Presence (which we affirm - but deny transubstantiation).
 
I was NOT aware of that, to be perfectly honest with you! I thought that Calvin refined Zwinglian ideas and developed his own ideas in concert with them. How interesting!
 
I was aware that the Reformed held to the Real Presence, but it was regarded as a spiritual presence rather than a real, Sacramental Union with the real Body of Christ present in, with and under the bread and the real Blood of Christ present in, with and under the wine during the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
 
I agree. In my earlier post I had made it sound like those who took Luther’s reforms too far were trying to build upon Luther, but that is not exactly how I meant it. Many of these reformation movements during Luther’s reforms were very much separate and developed in their own way. However, I would say that John Calvin certainly wanted to bridge the gap between Luther and Zwingli. That said, the differences between Reformed theology and Lutheran theology are certainly a testament to how the reformation developed differently in certain areas and the differences that exist today go beyond the Lord’s Supper.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know the 14 points that Luther and Zwingli actually agreed upon?
 
Calvin was one of those people who seemed to have read every early church father, every theologian, every writing he could get his hands on and then use it in developing his theology, either via incorporation or refutation. It would astonish me if he had not obtained an understanding of Zwingli’s theology - Zwinglians are mentioned in two places in his Institutes by count in the index of my copy. By no means does that mean approval, because he could be downright scornful and nasty in invective. Luther gets some abuse in all likelihood but the sharpest and strongest was directed, like a compass magnet, to the pole of the Pope.
 
Calvin did try to put it together and bridge the gap.

The Reformed were ready to sign and have one Reformed church except that Luther got stubborn and so did the Zwinglians, leaving us saying “Whaaaaa? We were THIS close” holding up two fingers next to each other.
 
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