They were invited many times to discuss their issues with the heirarchy. They refused. They promulgated various heresies, and found themselves excommunicated.
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Where do you get your history from? This is false and misleading. I’ve read Philip Schaeff’s series on the history of the Christian Church, articles in the Catholic encylcopaedia, McGrath’s Intellectual Foundations of the Reformation (not the exact title) and am currently reading Bainton’s book on Luther.
Hus was burned at the Council of Constance despite having been granted a safe package.
Luther debated Eck at Leipzing. There were other meetings with
the Church as well as much heated correspondence.
They were burning Calvin’s friends when he fled France. Not much of a dialog there. I don’t recall dialogs regarding Bucer or Zwingli, but the picture you give does not line up at all with what I know of history.
There were a great many things going on at the same time - the Muslims were attacking Spain from the south, and it seemed like a higher priority to save Spain than to cuddle the egos of what seemed to them like a few errant monks to the north - they read over the demands, found them to be heretical, and forthwith excommunicated the lot of them, because there were other pressing matters at hand - guys in turbans with guns and knives trying to break down the front door - so yeah, they were a little rushed, and probably didn’t nuance their responses in the most diplomatic fashion.
I think you are referring to the siege of Vienna. But you seem content to brush it off as the bad behavior of some naughty monks, with no guilt at all on the Catholic side. What happened was a lot more complex than you portray. The Reformation may have been the most complex series of historical events that has ever happened, and this is a depressingly poor portrayal of it.
What more would you have had them do? The Inquisitions were in full swing already, and the politically/religiously corrupt were being rooted out and burned at the stake. St. Teresa of Avila was making her women go around in bare feet and take no visitors whatsoever, to avoid being polluted by this world. St. Ignatius of Loyola was sending his men to the Americas and to Japan to convert the heathens, often at the cost of their own lives.
Are you in denial of the need for reformation? Why then did Trent require that priests be trainied, and make other salutory reforms? And I believe Teresa had some sharp things to say to the popes of her day.
Had the pope actually led the church, instead of partying, and responded to Luther in a timely manner, or displayed any sense of competence in his office, the possibility exists that the Reformation would have occured entirely within the Church without schism,
The captain of a ship is responsible for what happens on that ship. Curiously, you blame the “mutineers” when one who would believe the captain is answerable should blame, first and foremost, the captain. A more Catholic answer is to lay the blame first and foremost with Leo’s handling of things.
And yet, he was responsible for the Sistine Chapel
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The Sistine Chapel is a monument to the rapacity of the popes. Monies were extracted from the Germans, in particular, owing to the fact that while other nations were developing national governments and could resist the Roman kleptocracy, Germans were mainly small city-states and in their disarray were taxed more than anyone else.
I wouldn’t boast that the Medici popes collected more artwork and spent more money than any others. Leo spent the income of three papacies: his predecessor’s, his own, and his follower’s. I suggest you read up on him before attempting to portray him as some kind of a saint. He was not. He may have been the worst trial the Church has ever been through.
Well, he was not interested in heresy, nor of being falsely accused of things he wasn’t actually doing.
Mainly he was hunting and partying and attempting to increase his political power. As bishop he should have been teaching and leading by example, not living a life of opulism.
I doubt that - yes, there were the problems that occur when a poor region suddenly becomes rich through industrialization, but the Church was already dealing with them, well before the Protestants came along.
There were historical trends the Church simply missed. The rise of nationalism, for example, and that of the middle class. The old medieval model of the nobility, the clergy and the peasantry was breaking down. Nothing in its responses, including through the time of the Council of Trent, indicated that it had a clue as to what it was dealing with. There was a leadership vacuum, except as regards the Church’s sole interest in maintaining and increasing its political power.
Leo X is actually a strong argument for the papacy. If God could allow him as pope, and the Church actually survive, maybe there is something to this Roman Catholic claim after all. But I seldom hear Catholics taking that position.
)… Pain and suffering lead one to Christ… or back to Christ… or to closer union with Christ…