Hi quano,
Thanks for your response.
No, Topper, this is not the case. The Church found Luther to be adequate material, or they would not have ordained him in the first place. There is nothing in the documents that indicates that the Church thought a “mistake” was made at his ordination.
Furthermore, the seal of the priesthood, like that of baptism, is permanent. The church cannot remove something that God has placed in a human soul, just as the Church cannot grant a divorce.
Excommunication is a discipline of the Church, intended to motivate the erroneous to return to the fold. It does not remove the seal of baptism, or of Holy Orders.
Actually what you say here is correct - as far as it goes. In fact, during the first year in the monastery Luther’s horrible terrors were kept in check by his keeping to the monastic regulations. During this initial period in the monastery, there was none of the extremely odd behavior which caused his fellow monks to later ‘wonder’ about him.
“To his superiors Luther seemed fitted for the career of a theologian both by his natural ability and his university training, and accordingly as soon as he had taken the vow he began to prepare himself for the priesthood.” Protestant Theologian Arthur Cushman McGiffert, “Martin Luther”, pg. 25
“seemed fitted”
However, the peace that Luther achieved during the beginning of his monastery years was not to hold.
“**Unspeakable fear issuing in bodily prostration was also at work in him on the occasion of the already related incident in the choir of the Erfurt convent, when he fell to the ground crying out that he was not the man possessed. **Not only does Dungersheim relate it, on the strength of what he had heard from inmates of the monastery, but Cochlaeus also speaks of the incident, in his “Acta,” and, again, in coarse and unseemly language in the book he wrote in 1533, entitled " Von der Apostasey," doubtless also drawing his information from the Augustinian monks: “It is notorious how Luther came to be a monk; how he collapsed in choir, bellowing like a bull when the Gospel of the man possessed was being read ; how he behaved himself in the monastery,” etc. **We may recall, how, according to Cochlaeus, his brother monks suspected Luther, owing to this attack and on account of a “certain singularity of manner,” of being either under diabolical influence or an epileptic." **Grisar VI, pg. 101
“His state of mind gave his superiors much concern. Few were able to understand him.
Some thought him unbalanced in mind; others suspected he was under the control of evil spirits.** In later days his enemies pointed to his unhappy experiences in the convent as proof of demoniacal possession**, and he himself interpreted them as assaults of his lifelong antagonist, the devil.” McGiffert, pg 29-30
When we look at the evidence of Luther’s bizarre behavior in the monastery and the reports that his fellow monks worried about his sanity, it is incomprehensible that he would be promoted to a position where he was not only a Priest, but a Professor responsible for training Priests. Staupitz is at the center of those promotions. He is also, according to Luther, the one who ‘inspired’ Luther to discover Salvation by Faith Alone (Ozment, ‘Age’, pg. 232)
In fact, it was Father Staupitz who heard Luther’s confessions, some of which lasted for 6 hours.
It was also Staupitz who (in 1518) after Luther’s ‘interview’ with Cardinal Cajetan, released Luther from his vows as a monk, the first of his three ‘excommunications’. It was also at that meeting that Staupitz told Cajetan that he had often tried to get Luther to recant and return to the teaching of the Church. However, by that time, Luther was not turning back. Staupitz ended up not returning Luther’s letters which pained him to no end.
I will agree that, though a priest may have valid Holy Orders, the Church does have the right and the privilege to direct his ministry. Exsurge Domine removed his faculty to preach, teach, and write, and Luther refused to accept this - refuled to be silent.
Actually, a priest going astray and an attempt made to reign him in is not the same as saying he never should have been ordained. Yes, there are some who may have become priests who should not have been, but the Church begins with the assumption that the seal of the priesthood is valid and appropriate.
Whether the seal of the priesthood is valid and appropriate is not the point. The point is that some men who become priests are not at all suited for it. Personally, I agree with Harvard Professor Steven Ozment, and find that “it is incomprehensible that he would be promoted to a position where he was not only a Priest, but a Professor responsible for training Priests.”
Father and Doctor Staupitz is the man responsible for the elevation of Luther to the priesthood, getting him to agree to study thelogy (against Luther’s protests), and also assigning him to teach at the University of Wittenberg. Given the fact that Staupitz released Luther from his vows after the ‘interview’ with Cajatan, and ended up refusing to return his letters, do you somehow not believe that Staupitz believed he had made mistakes in recommending Luther for these roles?
Of course in the Reformation there is more than enough blame to go around, but for me, I place a lot of blame on Father Stapitz.
It would seem that if we really want to know who Luther was, we should probably spend some more time investigating his monastery years.
