Was the Protestant Reformation, in a sense, good?

[PJM]

Yes, Protestantism did bring a lot of bad. It created multiple heretical theology’s. It divided Christianity into an uncountable number of sects. It started some wars between Catholics and Protestants and even among Protestants themselves due to so much division. But, did it also have some good effects?

Many say the Protestant reformation led to the enlightenment and help people open their minds more to new ideas. Although, this too brought some bad (Atheism, French Revolution, Napoleon) it brought much good with it. America was founded upon enlightenment ideas. These ideas include things such as separation of Church and state, freedom to practice any religion, freedom of speech, etc. In fact, Protestantism itself kind of forced certain country’s before the enlightenment took off to start allowing for religious freedom or at least limited forms of it.

Protestantism also brought attention to many of the abuses within the Church. Abuses such as the selling of Indulgences were finally stopped.

So, was Protestantism in a way kind of good? Does the good out weigh the bad or does the bad out weigh the good? Also, please do not misunderstand. I do not in anyway shape or form want to become Protestant. I love the Catholic faith and hope to practice it until the day I die. I accept all teachings put forward by the Catholic Church and do not see myself rejecting the Church any time soon.

Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that I agree with you,

How do you fit your position into the very foundation of Moral-Theology, which states that “one many NEVER do an “evil” to cause a potential good”

God Bless you,
PJM

 

[GodsGrace154]

Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that I agree with you,

How do you fit your position into the very foundation of Moral-Theology, which states that “one many NEVER do an “evil” to cause a potential good”

God Bless you,
PJM

Who was doing the evil?

The church that was SELLING INDULGENCES or
the persons trying to stop it??

GG

 

[Picky_Picky]

These are sources given by those who state the Bible was forbidden to the laity. I can’t find the originals of these councils online.

‘We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old and the New Testament; unless anyone from the motives of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.’ (Edward Peters. Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, Council of Toulouse, 1229, Canon 14, p 195.)

‘Since it is clear from experience that if the Sacred Books are permitted everywhere and without discrimination in the vernacular, there will by reason of the boldness of men arise therefrom more harm than good, the matter is in this respect left to the judgment of the bishop or inquisitor, who may with the advice of the pastor or confessor permit the reading of the Sacred Books translated into the vernacular by Catholic authors to those who they know will derive from such reading no harm but rather an increase of faith and piety, which permission they must have in writing. Those, however, who presume to read or possess them without such permission may not receive absolution from their sins till they have handed them over to the ordinary. Bookdealers who sell or in any other way supply Bibles written in the vernacular to anyone who has not this permission, shall lose the price of the books, which is to be applied by the bishop to pious purposes, and in keeping with the nature of the crime they shall be subject to other penalties which are left to the judgment of the same bishop. Regulars who have not the permission of their superiors may not read or purchase them.’ (Council of Trent: Rules on Prohibited Books, approved by Pope Pius IV, 1564).
justforcatholics.org/a198.htm

Also, why were John Wycliffe and William Tyndale burned at the stake for trying to translate the Bible to English if all were allowed to read and understand the Bible?

It was Wycliffe’s exhumed corpse, I think, that was burned at the stake. Tyndale was strangled to death at the stake, then burned. Two great men.

 

[GodsGrace154]

I would like to state that it has always confused me how the CC says that it cannot err because of the Holy Spirit. That the Pope cannot make a mistake and is even infallible when speaking ex-cathedra.

So how could it be that the church made so many mistakes back at the time of Martin Luther so as to force him to make his protests, at which time the CC kicked him out, instead of, maybe, listening.

Yes. This is confusing to me because I DO believe there should be only ONE Christian church.

But the one should have been pure and loving as Jesus wanted. In Europe, at that time and untill the late 1800’s the church was the government in many states (countries or provinces).
I don’t think Jesus would have wanted this.

I think the reformation was good because it brought spirituality back into the church. The protestant church has made mistakes too. There’s enough blame to go around for everyone. So what about the Holy Spirit?

GG

 

[pablope]

Yes, Protestantism did bring a lot of bad. It created multiple heretical theology’s. It divided Christianity into an uncountable number of sects. It started some wars between Catholics and Protestants and even among Protestants themselves due to so much division. But, did it also have some good effects?

So, was Protestantism in a way kind of good? Does the good out weigh the bad or does the bad out weigh the good? Also, please do not misunderstand. I do not in anyway shape or form want to become Protestant. I love the Catholic faith and hope to practice it until the day I die. I accept all teachings put forward by the Catholic Church and do not see myself rejecting the Church any time soon.

Two reading suggestions:
ignatiusinsight.com/features/mbrumley_bouyer1_nov04.asp
Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation | Mark Brumley

Here’s what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity (to use Jaroslav Pelikan’s expression) or it was tragic because unnecessary.

Many Protestants see the Catholic/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is “Come out from among them” and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.

Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.

Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work–for Protestantism’s principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church.

crisismagazine.com/2012/what-the-reformation-has-wrought

But one key difference separated these Catholic voices from the Protestant Reformers: The Catholics believed that the Church had her teachings right. She just needed to actually live them. The Catholics believed that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and other sacraments, in the Scriptures, in the saints, and in the Church’s historic doctrines offered an authentic, all-encompassing Christian way of life sufficient to sanctify human existence—if it was actually embraced and shorn of its abuses.

The Protestants, preaching sola scriptura, threw much of it away. The Protestants believed that the deposit and structure of Catholic faith were fundamentally flawed, that Christ no longer abided in the Roman Church, and that Scripture alone communicated God’s will. Sola scriptura changed everything for Western Christendom. The Church became the churches, and the process inadvertently, but relentlessly, fueled individual sovereignty and relativism.

With varying degrees of self-awareness, when the Reformers dismembered the sacraments, they changed the way Western culture perceived nature and the whole material world.

As an example: even today, to the extent Catholics are formed by the sacraments, we live in a world infused with God’s presence. For both the medieval and modern Catholic, the material environment is a medium for divine grace. But the Reformers’ disdain for works and sacraments inevitably made faith a more inward, abstract experience…The great Western marriage of faith and reason—the shared confidence that faith is personal but also communal, that reason isn’t against faith but extends it—that is what the Reformation cost us.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

No.

 

[pablope]

I would like to state that it has always confused me how the CC says that it cannot err because of the Holy Spirit. That the Pope cannot make a mistake and is even infallible when speaking ex-cathedra.

You are misunderstanding…the CC cannot err in its teachings on faith and morals, including the pope…that he cannot err in teaching faith and morals.

But acting in accordance with those teachings is another matter.

So how could it be that the church made so many mistakes back at the time of Martin Luther so as to force him to make his protests, at which time the CC kicked him out, instead of, maybe, listening.

 

[GKC]

You will of course find the seeds of human rights before the Enlightenment, but it was most certainly the Enlightenment that championed the rights of the individual, including political and religious rights. As to abolition, the key figures in the fight against the trade, and then against slavery itself in the British Empire, were Anglican, Baptist, Quaker and Methodist. The United States followed on.

Soapy Sam (Cardinal Manning’s BIL), leading the way, in the day.

 

[7_Sorrows]

Protestants seem to be more bold.

They are more likely to approach you on the street and ask you if you know Jesus.

I see. thanks for the followup.
whenever a neighbor of mine used to approach me, she made me feel like my faith was inadequate. I had been raised Episcopalian. I was happy for her because of her enthusiasm (she was non-denominational-heavily influenced by Calvin) and happy that she had such a love of Jesus, but I didn’t like how she used shame to make me feel I wasn’t Christian enough. I thought she was very judgmental and I didn’t register high enough on her “Christian ruler”.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Soapy Sam (Cardinal Manning’s BIL), leading the way, in the day.

Soapy Sam’s dad, I think?

 

[GKC]

Soapy Sam’s dad, I think?

Aw, drat.

Credibility shot. Henry.

Let’s never mention it again.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Aw, drat.

Credibility shot. Henry.

Let’s never mention it again.

Very well. Personally I never make mistakes.

 

[Tommy999]

Yes, Protestantism did bring a lot of bad. It created multiple heretical theology’s. It divided Christianity into an uncountable number of sects. It started some wars between Catholics and Protestants and even among Protestants themselves due to so much division. But, did it also have some good effects?

Many say the Protestant reformation led to the enlightenment and help people open their minds more to new ideas. Although, this too brought some bad (Atheism, French Revolution, Napoleon) it brought much good with it. America was founded upon enlightenment ideas. These ideas include things such as separation of Church and state, freedom to practice any religion, freedom of speech, etc. In fact, Protestantism itself kind of forced certain country’s before the enlightenment took off to start allowing for religious freedom or at least limited forms of it.

Protestantism also brought attention to many of the abuses within the Church. Abuses such as the selling of Indulgences were finally stopped.

So, was Protestantism in a way kind of good? Does the good out weigh the bad or does the bad out weigh the good? Also, please do not misunderstand. I do not in anyway shape or form want to become Protestant. I love the Catholic faith and hope to practice it until the day I die. I accept all teachings put forward by the Catholic Church and do not see myself rejecting the Church any time soon.

I have mixed feelings on this. In one respect, I think the Reformation inadvertently led to all the countless Christians denominations that sprung from it (and some quasi-Christian ones from them), so in that respect I think it is responsible to a large degree for the divisions within Christianity that exist to this very day.

On the positive side, I think the Reformation played a prominent role in prompting the Catholic Church to clean up abuses and forced the Catholic Church out of the political realm in which it was enmeshed at the time of the Reformation and focus instead on its primary spiritual mission of caring for souls and the poor.

For example, if I remember my history, the Pope was the arbiter who divided up the territory in South America between Catholic Portugal and Catholic Spain in the early 1500’s. That kind of world-wide political influence would be unheard of today in a world where most nations (with some exceptions in the Muslim world) have a separation between the state and religion.

However, Pope Francis recently helped the USA and Cuba establish diplomatic ties again after several decades of no diplomatic relations, so the Pope can still help mediate disputes in the political realm, just to a lesser degree than was the case 500 years ago.

In short, I think the results of the Reformation are a mixed bag whose effects are still being felt today.

The theoretical question for me is, *Would the Catholic Church have reformed itself and left the political realm on its own had it not been for the Reformation?, * In other words, would it still be too big for its britches had the Protestant Reformation not occurred? I truly don’t know the answer to that hypothetical question.

 

[GKC]

Very well. Personally I never make mistakes.

This is reassuring.

I’ll likely to need to sleep with a night light for a few evenings.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

I see. thanks for the followup.
whenever a neighbor of mine used to approach me, she made me feel like my faith was inadequate. I had been raised Episcopalian. I was happy for her because of her enthusiasm (she was non-denominational-heavily influenced by Calvin) and happy that she had such a love of Jesus, but I didn’t like how she used shame to make me feel I wasn’t Christian enough. I thought she was very judgmental and I didn’t register high enough on her “Christian ruler”.

Yup, the same positive from said boldness is also a downside.

Sometimes Jesus is speaking to apostles and the things being said are meant for them and their successors, not everybody reading the bible in later centuries. John 20:21-23 for example

But as a SS practicing protestant, it’s very easy to come to the false conclusion that you are appointed by God to be so judgmental and straighten everyone else out. Basically they become little popes, if you will.

I saw this is a huge problem in protestant theology…no real hierarchy and the pastor has very limited authority himself. Someone’s feelings are always being hurt in protestant churches and the turnover is high because of it. Too many chiefs in the pews.

But I do like and admire the protestants knack for speaking out for Jesus and sharing the gospel. Some protestant minister i never met prayed for me one day and it was because of that I became Christian after being agnostic most of my life.

 

[Lenten_ashes]

I would like to state that it has always confused me how the CC says that it cannot err because of the Holy Spirit. That the Pope cannot make a mistake and is even infallible when speaking ex-cathedra.

So how could it be that the church made so many mistakes back at the time of Martin Luther so as to force him to make his protests, at which time the CC kicked him out, instead of, maybe, listening.

Yes. This is confusing to me because I DO believe there should be only ONE Christian church.

But the one should have been pure and loving as Jesus wanted. In Europe, at that time and untill the late 1800’s the church was the government in many states (countries or provinces).
I don’t think Jesus would have wanted this.

I think the reformation was good because it brought spirituality back into the church. The protestant church has made mistakes too. There’s enough blame to go around for everyone. So what about the Holy Spirit?

GG

Hi GG

Do you know how many times a Pope has actually spoken ex-Cathedra, though?

We know the Pope is just a man like the rest of us. Goes to confession like everybody else.

For me, and many, I’m not that interested in the person, it’s the office I am in great reverence of.

 

[adamhovey1988]

The reformation (which I like to call the deformation, no offense to Protestants, but it did deform Christianity) was by no means a good thing. I feel like it is what lead to the rampant individualism of today. The reformation keeps reforming itself. This is why you have people that claim that the Bible doesn’t claim that marriage is a permanent life-long union between one man and one woman (it does, mark 10:2-12), and they make that claim on the Protestant belief of Sola Scriptura. So no, I don’t think the reformation was a good thing. But some great Saints, like Francis de sales and Ignatius of Loyola, were raised up during the reformation. I feel like the problem today, is that the reformation never actually ended.

 

[thephilosopher6]

Ok, yes there was bad that came out of the enlightenment. But there was also much good. Are we forgetting the philosophers such as John Locke, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel?

 

[Abu]

Picky Picky #17
You will of course find the seeds of human rights before the Enlightenment, but it was most certainly the Enlightenment that championed the rights of the individual, including political and religious rights. As to abolition, the key figures in the fight against the trade, and then against slavery itself in the British Empire, were Anglican, Baptist, Quaker and Methodist. The United States followed on.

thephilosopher6 #38
Ok, yes there was bad that came out of the enlightenment. But there was also much good. Are we forgetting the philosophers such as John Locke, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel?

Instead, let us see the reality from a giant in the Catholic Faith.

December 19, 2012
What the Reformation has Wrought
by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap
Contemporary Problems Developed Over Centuries
“Brad Gregory, the Notre Dame historian, seeks to show how we got this way in his recent book The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. His answers are surprising, and for some readers, controversial. But his book is also important – and in its explanatory power, brilliant.

“Gregory also chronicles the secular philosophers who stepped into the breach. In the place of sola scriptura, the Enlightenment offered wisdom sola ratio. From Descartes, through Hobbes, Spinoza, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, Hegel, and others, on to Heidegger and Levinas and their successors, **the great end-run around revealed religion and its traditions began, seeking truth based on human reason alone.
**
**“But as Gregory shows, the philosophers fared no better than the Reformers. Competing ideas proliferated. Truth, and answers to life’s big questions, remained disputed. In more recent times, Nietzsche, Foucault, and the post-modernists have been honest enough to say so, scorning the Enlightenment as much as they scorned Christianity. We can see the results in today’s pervasive spirit of irony and skepticism.”
**
Gregory argues that today’s relativism and cult of the consumer—what he ironically calls “the goods life”—have roots that run centuries deep. He wastes no time on nostalgia for a golden age that never existed. **But he does show with riveting clarity that in the sixteenth century, Protestant Reformers unintentionally set in motion certain ideas that eventually enabled today’s radical self-centeredness.
**
Late medieval clergy too often preached one thing and did another. Greed, simony, nepotism, luxury, sexual license, and schism in the hierarchy created an intolerable gap between Christian preaching and practice.

Many Catholics worked for reform from within. Some had success. Franciscans, Dominicans, and Cistercians owe their origins to medieval reform. Humanists such as Erasmus and Thomas More were part of an international community of letters determined to renew Christian life from the inside. Saints such as Catherine of Siena and Bernard of Clairvaux spoke truth to ecclesiastical power.

**But one key difference separated these Catholic voices from the Protestant Reformers: The Catholics believed that the Church had her teachings right. She just needed to actually live them. The Catholics believed that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and other sacraments, in the Scriptures, in the saints, and in the Church’s historic doctrines offered an authentic, all-encompassing Christian way of life sufficient to sanctify human existence – if it was actually embraced and shorn of its abuses.

The Protestants, preaching sola scriptura, threw much of it away.
**
Competing interpretations of Scripture actually intensified the confusion. Lutherans read Scripture one way, Calvinists another, with varieties of Anglicans, Anabaptists, Baptists, Puritans, Pietists, Methodists, and Quakers veering off into options beyond counting.

The Reformation has led, by gradual, indirect, and never-intended steps, to what Gregory calls the “Kingdom of Whatever.” It’s a world of hyperpluralism, where meaning is self-invented by millions, and therefore society as a whole starves for meaning. [My bold].
crisismagazine.com/2012/w…on-has-wrought

 

[R_H_Benson]

Ok, yes there was bad that came out of the enlightenment. But there was also much good. Are we forgetting the philosophers such as John Locke, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel?

I hope you are being sarcastic. All of those men found their way onto the Index Librorum Prohibitorum