What did the first Protestants protest?

[lindsaypace]

I always thought the term protestant meant to protest the Catholic Church. After surfing the web it turns out the word orginated in 1529 at the Diet of Speyer. At the Diet the majority were Catholic who opposed Luthern teaching and wanted to return to the edit of the Diet of Worms which did not allow for tolerance for Luthern theology. The Diet of Speyer 1526 allowed for tolerance which was overturned in 1529 by the Catholic majority. The Luthern who opposed the lack of tolerance were called “Protestant”
I have read on a Catholic web site “are they aware of the fact that the very word Protestant is derived not from mere protest against Catholicism, but from protest of toleration of Catholic worship”.

Yet I find it was the Catholic at the Diet of Speyer that opposed tolerance. "Ascendant Roman Catholic forces prevailed to reverse the policy of religious tolerance adopted in 1526. The Edict of Worms was to be enforced after all, without waiting for a General Council. This was opposed by members that supported Lutheran teachings and practices, who vigorously protested the decision. Their action created the term Protestantism still used today as a name for this religious movement.

So it seems that the protest was due to a lack of tolerance for Lutherens and not the other way around.

This is very important to me as a three year old Catholic. I thought the term protestant was bad. Any anwsers?

 

[Fr.Vincent_Serpa]

Dear L,

You’ve got it somewhat backwards. Even Random House’s Webster College Dictionary disagrees with you. Its second definition of the word “Protestant” reads: any of the German princes who protested against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which had denounced the Reformation.” Actually, it was a little more complicated that this as the Original Catholic Encyclopedia shows:

“The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, assembled at Speyer in April, 1529, resolved that, according to a decree promulgated at the Diet of Worms (1524), communities in which the new religion was so far established that it could not without great trouble be altered should be free to maintain it, but until the meeting of the council they should introduce no further innovations in religion, and should not forbid the Mass, or hinder Catholics from assisting thereat.

Against this decree, and especially against the last article, the adherents of the new Evangel — the Elector Frederick of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Margrave Albert of Brandenburg, the Dukes of Lüneburg, the Prince of Anhalt, together with the deputies of fourteen of the free and imperial cities — entered a solemn protest as unjust and impious. The meaning of the protest was that the dissentients did not intend to tolerate Catholicism within their borders. On that account they were called Protestants.”

Those who protested did not want the Catholics to be allowed to have Mass in those areas where the “new religion” had been established. For more, see:

%between%Protestantism

Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.