Who is Martin Luther and why was he excommunicated?

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Inariga said:
Why was he excommunicated and ordered to be burnt by Pope Leo X. What did he do wrong that deserved being burnt?
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Really? Sorry, but this really is a ridiculous statement that you could have answered for yourself in about 2 seconds on the internet. Have you seriously never heard of Martin Luther?
 
Stilldreamn said:
Let’s not forget John Huss who preceded Luther by a century. John Huss (Jan Hus) was a Bohemian (Czech) priest who also attempted to reform the Church and he WAS burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415. Huss’ teachings were influenced by John Wycliff who died in 1384. So Luther was hardly the first to call for reform, but perhaps is better known because his followers are still so numerous today.
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And lets not forget the Cathars, the Iconoclasts, the Monophysites, the Nestorians, the Arians or the Gnostics. Or satan. They are all heretics that wanted to re-form the faith into their own. I didn’t say that Luther was the first to call for “reform”, I said that perhaps no other man in history has done more damage to the faithful than him. Unfortunately his numerous followers today really is the lingering result of this.
 
POJIUJH said:
And lets not forget the Cathars, the Iconoclasts, the Monophysites, the Nestorians, the Arians or the Gnostics. Or satan. They are all heretics that wanted to re-form the faith into their own. I didn’t say that Luther was the first to call for “reform”, I said that perhaps no other man in history has done more damage to the faithful than him. Unfortunately his numerous followers today really is the lingering result of this.
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Are you saying Luther espoused the positions advocated by the Cathars, Iconoclasts, Monophysites, Nestorians, Arians and Gnostics? I am not seeing that.

I do see similarities between teachings of John Huss and John Wycliffe to some teachings of Luther (communion under both kinds, Bible translated into vernacular, abuse of indulgences). I apologize if my point was not clear.

Many of these were later addressed by the Catholic Church itself through councils. I regard the separation between Luther and the Catholic Church as a tragic wound to unity. I pray for us to be one in Christ, that the Holy Spirit move us to this goal.
 
The bishop I studied ecumenism with alluded to the temperment of Luther. I think that Guanaphore’s link here is what I am seeking about Luther vs. the upbringing of St. Francis who did not have a bad temper, more a vice of enjoying all the pleasures of the world and not taking life seriously until his conversion.

I look at the damage Sola Scriptura has done to Christianity and likewise I acknowledge the great good many non Catholic Christians do as well.

Pope Leo XII was the one responsible for the Cardinal Towers…where he had them killed. The reasoning behind this is something I would like to learn and my pastor had the lowest opinion of this pope. The Church was plagued by clericalism and this disdain for the common lay Catholics hundreds of years. The question is why Catholics tolerated it for so long.

Yet we had many great saints from the 900’s all the way up to the 1500’s.

About Luther’s later behaviors and use of language, I read that many were expunged by his followers. Additionally, Luther later lamented the behavior of his own who left the Church and followed the Gospel even less than the Catholics.

It was a very unfruitful time it seems in many places in Europe, a counter witness of faith.
 
Catholic_farmer said:
However, Martin Luther also allied himself with German princes that controlled about half of Germany and those princes were quite eager to seize the property that belonged to the Church in their kingdoms. Seeing obvious personal gains, they encouraged ML to separate from the Church. As a result, ML created his own denomination. I’m not certain he knew that he did, nor if he would be pleased or not that it was named “Lutheran”.
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Luther did not want his followers to take the name “Lutheran.” He did not really want to establish a new church, although the tenor of the times made that happen.
Another factor, which makes me question ML’s motives, is the fact that he married a nun. How far would a man go for love? Or lust?
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According to the accounts I have read, Luther became a sort of guardian for a number of women who left a convent. He managed to find husbands for all but one – Katherine von Bora – whom he finally married.
I actually read the Book of Concord, when I was a Lutheran, and was alarmed at many of the things ML wrote. Just because you may have some good ideas (many of which the Church changed on her own over time) doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have tact. Nevertheless, I decided that despite the origins, the Lutheran church made some good points and I stuck with them for about 14 year. That is, until I realized Catholicism was nothing like I was told by my Lutheran friends. 😉
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You have to remember that of all that is in the Book of Concord, Luther wrote only the Small Catechism, the Large Catechism, the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, and the Smalcald Articles. The three ecumenical creeds (Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) were written long before Luther’s time and are confessed by Lutherans and Catholics alike. The Augsburg Confession and its Apology were written by Phillip Melanchton, although Luther was no doubt involved in the content of those writings. Finally, the* Formula of Concord* was written some thirty years after Luther’s death.
No, he was not burned at the stake. He died of natural causes after a long marriage and several children. I think I remember something about his burial, like he wasn’t allowed to be buried in a Catholic churchyard, which would make sense.
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Agreed.
 
Thanks for clarifying those aspects, Pastor Gary.

Does anyone know why those nuns left their convent? I can’t imagine during that time that they would be safe doing so and simply striking out on their own. Were they encouraged or influenced to leave?
 
Catholic_farmer said:
Thanks for clarifying those aspects, Pastor Gary.

Does anyone know why those nuns left their convent? I can’t imagine during that time that they would be safe doing so and simply striking out on their own. Were they encouraged or influenced to leave?
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Most of them were only there because their families wanted them to be there. I would imagine they left when the opportunity presented itself.
 
Inariga said:
Why was he excommunicated and ordered to be burnt by Pope Leo X.
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Hi Ina,

Catholic Apologist Dave Armstrong once wrote an article which documented 50 Catholic doctrinal issues that Martin Luther refuted/denied/’reformulated’ etc., all by the end of 1520, meaning before he was excommunicated.

In essence, it wasn’t the Church which excommunicated Luther but Luther who excommunicated himself. All the Church did was confirm what Luther had already established in writing, that he was FAR outside of the boundaries of Catholic teaching. This is not to say that the Church was wrong to excommunicate him, far from it. If anything it should have been done earlier. Had the political situation been different, it would have taken place earlier.

In those 50 refuted issues, Luther was in effect claiming that he was right and that the whole of the Church at large prior to him was wrong. Is it reasonable to believe that this one man had gotten all of these things ‘right’ while so many had gotten them wrong? IOW, are we supposed to believe that he was that much better a Theologian/Exegete than the compilation of all who came before him? Or is it more reasonable to conclude that he was simply another in a long line of people who presumed FAR too much about their own abilities and authority?

This leads to two much more basic questions:

Was Martin Luther a ‘good Theologian’?

By what ‘right’ or authority did Luther claim that his teachings were superior to that of the Catholic Church?

I would suggest that the record shows that Luther was not at all a ‘good Theologian’ and that he didn’t at all have the ‘authority’ to challenge the doctrines of the Church on the basis of his own Private Interpretation of Scripture. The Lutheran Church would not put up with what Luther did if one of their pastors, Theologians, or Professors were to rebel against their church. In fact, Luther’s use of his Private Interpretation on doctrinal matters is expressly prohibited by Lutheranism. There is no reason to expect that the Church should have reacted differently than it did.

Roland Bainton, who was normally willing to give Luther the “benefit of the doubt”, at least was realistic about the magnitude of his separation from the Church and admits that the Church had no choice.

“….even so they (the Church) could scarcely have suffered the reduction of the number of sacraments, the emasculation of the mass, the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, let alone the rejection of papal infallibility, even though as yet it had not been formally promulgated. And Luther did nothing to placate them. His work of reconstruction commenced with further demolition.”, “Here I Stand”, Bainton, pg. 249

Long before his excommunication, Luther had made it very clear that his goal was as Bainton puts it – “demolition”.

As for Luther being ‘ordered to be burnt’ – it never happened. In fact, from the time of his excommunication until his natural death, there was never any kind of substantial threat on his life (that I am aware of). The closest that he came to a death threat and it was probably more in his imagination than anything real, was from the peasants, both prior to and after the Peasant’s war.

God Bless, Topper

PS, if anyone is interested in the list of 50 things, I can post them. What is astonishing is the sheer number of matters on which Luther chose to refute.
 
POJIUJH said:
And lets not forget the Cathars, the Iconoclasts, the Monophysites, the Nestorians, the Arians or the Gnostics. Or satan. They are all heretics that wanted to re-form the faith into their own. I didn’t say that Luther was the first to call for “reform”, I said that perhaps no other man in history has done more damage to the faithful than him. Unfortunately his numerous followers today really is the lingering result of this.
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Well that escalated quickly.

You forgot Peter Waldo and his followers; the pure evil “give up everything and preach the gospel at all times” group that were hunted down and eliminated.

Tip for the future, Catholics; when someone calls out the CC for being all burney to heretics, don’t try to justify it. A better strategy perhaps would be to say they were acting sinfully but it doesn’t change the truth of the core doctrines.
 
dronald said:
Well that escalated quickly.

You forgot Peter Waldo and his followers; the pure evil “give up everything and preach the gospel at all times” group that were hunted down and eliminated.

Tip for the future, Catholics; when someone calls out the CC for being all burney to heretics, don’t try to justify it. A better strategy perhaps would be to say they were acting sinfully but it doesn’t change the truth of the core doctrines.
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Simple Google/Wiki search:
Waldensians held and preached a number of truths as they read from the Bible. Some of these were:

The atoning death and justifying righteousness of Christ
The Godhead
The fall of man
The incarnation of the Son
They denied purgatory and said it was the ‘invention of the Antichrist’.[30]
Valued voluntary poverty
They held that … temporal offices and dignities were not meant for preachers of the Gospel; that relics were simply rotten bones which had belonged to one knew not whom; that to go on pilgrimage served no end, save to empty one’s purse; that flesh might be eaten any day if one’s appetite served him; that holy water was not a whit more efficacious than rain water; and that prayer in a barn was just as effectual as if offered in a church. They were accused, moreover, of having scoffed at the doctrine of transubstantiation, and of having spoken blasphemously of the Roman Catholic Church as the harlot of the apocalypse.[31]

The “La nobla leyczon” written in Occitan language dated between 1190 and 1240,[32] is a sample of the medieval Waldensian belief. It is housed at University of Cambridge.[33]
 
dronald said:
Tip for the future, Catholics; when someone calls out the CC for being all burney to heretics, don’t try to justify it. A better strategy perhaps would be to say they were acting sinfully but it doesn’t change the truth of the core doctrines.
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Tip for the non-Catholics, don’t use Jack Chick as a source.
 
dronald said:
Tip for the future, Catholics; when someone calls out the CC for being all burney to heretics, don’t try to justify it. A better strategy perhaps would be to say they were acting sinfully but it doesn’t change the truth of the core doctrines.
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Great answer 👍

I noticed Donald you have a certain respect for Catholics. Is there hope that we may see you coming home to the Catholic Church?
 
SyroMalankara said:
Simple Google/Wiki search:
Waldensians held and preached a number of truths as they read from the Bible. Some of these were:

The atoning death and justifying righteousness of Christ
The Godhead
The fall of man
The incarnation of the Son
They denied purgatory and said it was the ‘invention of the Antichrist’.[30]
Valued voluntary poverty
They held that … temporal offices and dignities were not meant for preachers of the Gospel; that relics were simply rotten bones which had belonged to one knew not whom; that to go on pilgrimage served no end, save to empty one’s purse; that flesh might be eaten any day if one’s appetite served him; that holy water was not a whit more efficacious than rain water; and that prayer in a barn was just as effectual as if offered in a church. They were accused, moreover, of having scoffed at the doctrine of transubstantiation, and of having spoken blasphemously of the Roman Catholic Church as the harlot of the apocalypse.[31]

The “La nobla leyczon” written in Occitan language dated between 1190 and 1240,[32] is a sample of the medieval Waldensian belief. It is housed at University of Cambridge.[33]
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As you can see there were some strong beliefs held against the CC well before Luther. Any idea what happened to all of these people?
 
Augustine3 said:
Do you feel a calling at all?
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It was about this time last year that I felt very convicted. I went to Mass (even dragging my then girlfriend, now fiancé there), met with a Priest and signed up for RCIA. I kept praying about it, but I was left feeling out of place within the walls of a Catholic Church.

No one says hi, no one talks about their faith, I couldn’t find one young person, I could never kneel before a statue (no matter what it means to a Catholic), I couldn’t dip my hands in holy water, and there was so much more.

I felt God saying in His own way that He would like me where I am, at least for now.
 
Razanir said:
IIRC, many of his 95 Theses were legitimate concerns that did need reformed. And if he had stopped there, he could have wound up heralded as this saintly reformer. But then he committed hubris and took things far enough to be excommunicated and wound up causing the Protestant Reformation.

(Or at least I think I remember reading as such on the CAF once)
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I think it is a bit much to credit Luther with “causing” the Reformation. Although he did play a key role, there were many factors involved, most of them political and economic that had nothing to do with Luther or his doctrines.
 
Pastor Gary,

Thanks for more context.

I am reviewing the first text given to Catholic seminarians on church history. Dominican Tetzel really fueled alot of the trouble. Luther wanted to put some of his opinions…he wasn’t submitting his opinions to the Church, and wanted to put beliefs, such as purgatory into proper perspective.

The book I have been referencing is, ‘A Concise History of the Catholic Church’, by Thomas Bokenkotter.

Luther did not intend to break away from the Church. He denied that the pope had any power over souls in purgatory or that the pope ‘could control the merits of Christ and the saints.’

‘Luther at first spoke out as a loyal Catholic, and when the controversy about his ideas erupted he was ready at first to submit them to the ultimate judgment of the Church. He did not see his theses as a revolutionary manifesto or as a call to the German nation. But he did strike a strong anti-Roman note, and there was a certain demogogic appeal in some of his caustic statements…’

'Thesis 50, for instance, reads: 'Christians are to be taught that if the pope knew the exactions of the indulgence preachers, he would rather that the basilica of St. Peters were burned to ashes than built up with the skin, flesh, and bones of his sheep." Or No. 2: “Why does not the pope empty purgatory as infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church!”

‘There was a public debate about this, but no one showed up…One of the tragedies of this…was that from the beginning Luther’s opponents refused to meet him on theological and spiritual grounds.’

I am still learning, but wonder what happened to Fr Tetzel who it seems this one man likewise was responsible for the Reformation.

The text also states that Pope Leo X had no interest in theology, unbelievable for his duty as the pope.

What I am also taken back Luther, which was also reflected in his 2 theses that caused so much division, was what followed and his own sense of nationalism and gift of hyperbole…‘To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and On the Freedom of the Christian Man’…these writings ‘setting Germany ablaze’.
 
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