Hi,
What an interesting thread. It is good we can discuss these things calmly and dispassionately, and that the ancient wounds are healing, so we can see ourselves as brothers and sisters instead of enemies!
I am not going to back up my assertions, because I have no sources. This is more a summary of what I have been taught, for better or for worse.
Once upon a time in a land far far away there were the popes, the bishops of Rome. They exchanged religious authority for secular power and demanded that the Orthodox recognize themselves as the rulers of the Church. They said no, and there was schism. Later there were two popes, each vying for political power, and the popes basically were totally uninterested in anything regarding spiritual authority, preferring political intrigue. One pope even had his illegitimate daughter married in the Vatican. Another, his illegitmate children made bishops. They sold the church into prostitution and bought and sold offices, including the papacy. A council rejected the two popes and selected a third man to be pope who had not been either of these.
There was a long, long time in which there was no religious guidance from Rome. The universities, especially Paris, became the centers of teaching because the Pope was off whoring and making war on fellow Christians, even making deals with the Muslims against Constantinople.
Luther was a professor of theology, a defender of the faith. The church sold indulgences to build St. Peter’s in Rome and also so bishops could raise the money to pay off the debt they incurred to buy their bishoprics. He did not teach heresy, because what he taught had not been defined one way or another as to whether it was right. He expressed what he believed was the historical teaching of the church. Instead the church was teaching superstition and the gospel was buried under the heavy weight of man-made tradition. Priests were wholly ignorant of Christianity beyond the rituals which they had learned from other priests.
Leo X was wholly and completely incompetent in his dealings with Luther. He regarded Germany as land to be sacked and pillaged so he could live in luxury. Luther came within a hairs’breath of reconciliation with Rome, but there were problems on both sides. Rome made it impossible for him to be reconciled, but he was also irreconciliable.
There was bitterness on both sides. There was chaos all around - neither the Protestants nor the Catholics were monolithic in their dealings with each other. There was war, there were martyrdoms of Catholics by Protestants and vice versa. The Reformation was wholly and completely crushed in Italy, Spain and France. The French Huegonauts (sp?) fled to Florida. where the Spanish massacred them at what is now St.Augustine. The Pope had made himself odious to deal with, treacherous and deceitful and cunning and wholly untrustworthy.
The Catholic Church has not changed. When Protestants hear Catholics say the Church has always been the same, that is what they think of - not that it is Christ’s body, but that it is the essence of political corruption. I have grown to admire whoever it was who told a pope that whereas Peter had miracles and poverty, the Pope had no miracles but riches. There have been many Catholics who have loved Christ above the political machinations of the Church. When Protestants hear of the Catholic Church, they usually think of its history with fellow Christians, and lately the sad betrayals of shepherding of bishops who again seem more interested in perpetuating the church’s political authority than in protecting the sheep.
I am telling this to help the Catholics understand where many Protestants may be coming from. I am sorry if it is offensive, but it seems to me that many of the Catholics expect Protestants to think much more highly of the Catholic Church than they do, as if it should be obvious to Protestants that the CC is some kind of shining beacon on a hill.
-Tina “Not A Historian” G
