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mozart-250
Guest
Me in “The Turks Saved Protestantism” thread.
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Mannyfit75
Guest
In my personal opinion, the Pope should have listen to Martin Luther’s concern about indulgence abuses, and Luther shouldn’t have never break and form his own Church.
Instead of these men being selfish, they should have work towards a common goal without the need for a Reformation. I do think the response of Protestantism by the Council of Trent was rather late but it did its purpose to counter the Reformation.
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mozart-250
Guest
OK. So you disagree then that the Church should have acted more “forcefully” against the great heresy of Protestantism. Maybe do what it did a little more promptly. And BTW it should have listened to Martin Luther concerning indulgeneces.
That’s quite different than Crusades 2.0.
B
BrewMax
Guest
I really don’t believe there could have been a “stamping out” of Protestantism.
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mozart-250
Guest
Well I agree. But apparantly some Cathlics think the Church could have and should have stomped it out.
H
Hesychios
Guest
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
The system was set up to fail. There is a reason no comparable movement erupted in the east, mostly that can be explained by the fact that the abuses in the west were not known in the east, and the eastern church was extremely conservative by nature.
Secondly, the Patristic era had long passed in the west (it was not a living tradition, but a museum piece), replaced by an emphasis on rationality from the scholastic period. It is as if the early church was hidden behind a screen and the reformers had to “think” their way through the crises. They had lost their connections to the past and could not trust many of the corrupted Patristic manuscripts (and forgeries) that were still available. This gave the impression that the whole basis for the Catholic religion was rotten to the roots.
The highly centralized governing structure of the Roman Catholic church allowed for systematic corruption, the sale of offices and very clever ways to raise money. Circumstances of birth and family had much more to do with rising in the church than holiness.
Is it any surprise that the first leaders of the various Protestant movements were either trained as priests, or in the law? They were able to see the problems close up, like a physician examining a diseased patient.
We put corrupt politicians in jail in Illinois, governors and judges are not exempt. There were no controls in place then because the bishops of Rome had placed themselves above even a church Council, and acted as if they were answerable to no one. Their support network ran wild.
So basically I am of the opinion that the Reformation was due in any case and probably could not have been stopped. The tonic for this can most likely be found in the Council of Basle, if anyone cares to read about that sad story.
Pax…
The system was set up to fail. There is a reason no comparable movement erupted in the east, mostly that can be explained by the fact that the abuses in the west were not known in the east, and the eastern church was extremely conservative by nature.
Secondly, the Patristic era had long passed in the west (it was not a living tradition, but a museum piece), replaced by an emphasis on rationality from the scholastic period. It is as if the early church was hidden behind a screen and the reformers had to “think” their way through the crises. They had lost their connections to the past and could not trust many of the corrupted Patristic manuscripts (and forgeries) that were still available. This gave the impression that the whole basis for the Catholic religion was rotten to the roots.
The highly centralized governing structure of the Roman Catholic church allowed for systematic corruption, the sale of offices and very clever ways to raise money. Circumstances of birth and family had much more to do with rising in the church than holiness.
Is it any surprise that the first leaders of the various Protestant movements were either trained as priests, or in the law? They were able to see the problems close up, like a physician examining a diseased patient.
We put corrupt politicians in jail in Illinois, governors and judges are not exempt. There were no controls in place then because the bishops of Rome had placed themselves above even a church Council, and acted as if they were answerable to no one. Their support network ran wild.
So basically I am of the opinion that the Reformation was due in any case and probably could not have been stopped. The tonic for this can most likely be found in the Council of Basle, if anyone cares to read about that sad story.
Pax…
M
mozart-250
Guest
Ah coming from the fine Eastern perspective I see.
Which gets me to thinking (sorry for my ignorance), did the Church try to stomp out Orthodoxy? Could it have?
Which gets me to thinking, this could have been a poll question. I can think of three possible ways the Church could have acted more “forcefully” to stomp out the great heresy of Protestantism, but maybe there are others.
(1) Some nice public burnings a la William Tyndale and Jon Hus might have put the fear of God into these great heretics. One poster on the other thread hinted at this possibility.
(2) Why not apply the inquisition here since it worked in Spain.
(3) Crusades 2.0.
Any other possibilities that I did not think of that the church could have acted more “forcefully” in?
R
rr1213
Guest
The Catholic Church did stamp out the Reformation in a number of countries, that was one result of the Counter-Reformation.
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mozart-250
Guest
Ah, so maybe the fault was simply that the Church did not apply what it did in some countries elsewhere (in programming this would be like failing to apply the latest fixpack to all clients). So this would be just a failure to complete the task issue. Yup, another possible way that the church could have acted more forcefully.
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ChadS
Guest
Without the interference of Prince Frederick and his stealing Luther away the Reformation may have never gotten off the ground after the Diet of Worms. I suspect a majority of the faithful would have heeded the Pope’s pronouncements against Luther and some civil authorities were prepared to arrest Luther.
As was mentioned in the other thread there were many, many things that were occupying the attention of rulers at the time: the Turks and territorial squabbles over northern Italy etc.
Perhaps an armed response to the Reformation was impossible but the complicity of civil authorities in spreading the Reformation was also a major contributor to its success.
ChadS
As was mentioned in the other thread there were many, many things that were occupying the attention of rulers at the time: the Turks and territorial squabbles over northern Italy etc.
Perhaps an armed response to the Reformation was impossible but the complicity of civil authorities in spreading the Reformation was also a major contributor to its success.
ChadS
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mozart-250
Guest
So perhaps Luther should have been arrested and have had the same sentence applied to him as was applied to William Tyndale and John Hus. That certainly would be acting more “forcefully”.
Yup, I can see how perhaps that could have stopped the spread of the great heresy. Nothing like a good old public frying to put the fear of God into the population.
C
ChadS
Guest
You are now putting words into my mouth. I didn’t say Luther should’ve been burned alive.
More often than not the punishments used in the Middle Ages are far different than anything modern Americans would recognize. Pickpockets were hung regardless of age, horse thieves were drawn and quartered, torture was a common method of extracting confessions regardless of guilt. There are plenty of other areas to spread indignation around if you want to talk about how medieval Europeans dealt with crime, criminals and heretics.
ChadS
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mozart-250
Guest
No you did not. But you did suggest he should have been arrested.
If that had been the case, he would have been tried for heresy and certainly conviced. And what was the usual punishment for heresy?
A
allischalmers
Guest
No human can stomp out what the Lord has ordained
V
VWcrazy
Guest
Please site book, chapter, and verse where the Lord has ordained this.
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bengal_fan
Guest
as a protestant myself, i would like to see where the Lord ordained us to split as well.
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mozart-250
Guest
Well most certainly if God has ordained “Protestantism”, there is a Scripture in Acts that states attempting to stomp it out would be equivalent to opposing God.
But we then could be sidetracked into arguing whether God ordained “Protestantism” or not. Which was not my attempt here.
So for now let us assume that “Protestantism” is the great heresy that Catholicism claims it is. And the statement was made that the Church should have acted more “forcefully” against the great heresy of Protestantism.
So I am curious just what the Church should have done to act more “forcefully” against Protestantism.
C
ChadS
Guest
To be honest I don’t know what the usual punishment for heresy was? I’m sure it varied by time and place and situation. The Spanish Inquisition didn’t burn as many people as everybody seems to think they did. They didn’t even kill as many people as previously thought. I’m sure there were people convicted of heresy that were burned, I’m also sure there were those that were left alone.
Yes, the Catholic response could’ve been more forceful and that word doesn’t entail violence necessarily. The authorities at first coddled Luther and treated his theses as if they were questions for the debate club. They then let him equivocate his answers about his writings at the Diet of Worms. Then Frederick III was allowed to take him away without any further problems.
The Church authorities could’ve done much more. What more do you want me to say?
ChadS
C
Cat
Guest
I just finished reading a fascinating and informative book analyzing the Reformation.
How The Reformation Happened by Hilaire Belloc (TAN publishing).
I really need to read it several times so that I can roll the explanations off the tip of my tongue.
From what I read in the book, the Catholic Church really couldn’t have done much.
Briefly, a lot of why the Reformation happened had to do with national politics.
The Black Death (plague) also contributed to the onset of the Reformation.
And the influence of the Muslims cannot be discounted, either.
From what Belloc says, Martin Luther didn’t have as much to do with the rise of Protestantism as did John Calvin. Calvin was the one who actually sat down and wrote out a “new religion” which we today call Calvinism, and which is the basis of many Protestant sects.
Belloc’s analysis of the effect of Calvinism is chilling. He describes the similiarities between Calvinism and paganism. Brr.
Anyway, I highly recommend this little book. It’s not that hard to understand. I learned a lot and plan to go back and study the book to ingest all the information. .
How The Reformation Happened by Hilaire Belloc (TAN publishing).
I really need to read it several times so that I can roll the explanations off the tip of my tongue.
From what I read in the book, the Catholic Church really couldn’t have done much.
Briefly, a lot of why the Reformation happened had to do with national politics.
The Black Death (plague) also contributed to the onset of the Reformation.
And the influence of the Muslims cannot be discounted, either.
From what Belloc says, Martin Luther didn’t have as much to do with the rise of Protestantism as did John Calvin. Calvin was the one who actually sat down and wrote out a “new religion” which we today call Calvinism, and which is the basis of many Protestant sects.
Belloc’s analysis of the effect of Calvinism is chilling. He describes the similiarities between Calvinism and paganism. Brr.
Anyway, I highly recommend this little book. It’s not that hard to understand. I learned a lot and plan to go back and study the book to ingest all the information. .
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