**You here it said all the time by mostly Catholics. But what really are Protestants? What are they protesting?
I know originally they were members of the Catholic religion and protested against the many false teachings of Catholicism which they were involved with.
So I ask… are non-Catholics really protesting Catholicism and therefore Protestants as this religion has label every relgion save themselves?**
Laudatur Iesus Christus.
I do not believe this is an accurate statement of the origin of the term “Protestant.”
Here is the discussion from the
Catholic Encyclopedia (1911):
I Origin of the Name “Protestantism”]
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.
In course of time the original connotation of “no toleration for Catholics” was lost sight of, and the term is now applied to, and accepted by, members of those Western Churches and sects which, in the sixteenth century, were set up by the Reformers in direct opposition to the Catholic Church. The same man may call himself Protestant or Reformed: the term Protestant lays more stress on antagonism to Rome; the term Reformed emphasizes adherence to any of the Reformers. Where religious indifference is prevalent, many will say they are Protestants, merely to signify that they are not Catholics. In some such vague, negative sense, the word stands in the new formula of the Declaration of Faith to be made by the King of England at his coronation; viz.: “I declare that I am a faithful Protestant”. During the debates in Parliament it was observed that the proposed formula effectively debarred Catholics from the throne, whilst it committed the king to no particular creed, as no man knows what the creed of a faithful Protestant is or should be.
Spiritus Sapientiae nobiscum.
John Hiner
