Posted on 03/05/2009 8:30:15 AM PST by Alex Murphy
To the ecclesiastical historian the century immediately preceding the Reformation (1417–1517) is one of the most fascinating and also the most tragic in the history of the Church. In 1417, the Council of Constance elected Pope Martin V, putting an end to decades of schism in which there had been two, and eventually three, rival claimants to the papacy. In 1517, Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation with his Ninety-Five Wittenberg theses. In the hundred years in between, Christian Europe was a cauldron of seething conflicts: between Greek and Latin, between papalists and conciliarists, between scholastics and humanists, and between kingdoms and principalities large and small. The century was a tragedy of lost opportunities: the division among the political powers caused the loss to the Turks of Constantinople and much of Eastern Europe; the failure of every attempt to reform the Catholic Church from within led to the break-up of Christendom into separate and warring confessions. Two figures stand out who, nobly but vainly, tried in different ways to arrest the descent into the abyss: Nicholas of Cusa (or Cusanus) at the beginning of the century, and Desiderius Erasmus at the end.
The Council of Constance had deposed the schismatic Pope who convened it, and defined the conciliarist thesis that a general council was the supreme body in the Church, which popes must obey. It also called for councils to be regularly held to oversee papal activity. The first such council was convened at Basle in 1431, with Nicholas of Cusa (then a young university canonist) as one of its prominent members. On behalf of the Council he negotiated with the Hussites in Bohemia, urging them to rejoin the Church which they had left because of its refusal of the chalice to the laity. In 1433 he wrote his
(Excerpt) Read more at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk ...
OK, so the reformation, the best thing to happen to the Church in 1000 years = “descent into the abyss” according to this.
Why post stuff like this? You’re asking for trouble.
The fact this is in the “entertainment” section of a UK MSM rag should give you pause.
We have people on here that feel very strongly about it, each way. I just don’t see the point of kicking in a wedge.
This is a book review. Kenny is an expert in the history of philosophy, but not so gifted in church history. The headline is misleading. The primary reason for the failure of reform in that century was interference by the secular rulers. This is the era leading up to the triumph of royal absolutism in the 1500s (Henry VIII, Francis I in France). The popes were the only ones who took the Turkish menace seriously—the kings and princes were all eager to strike deals with the Turks.
Moreover, reform did come, in the next century, bulding on the foundations laid in the 1400s. And I don’t mean the Protestant Reformation, which was basically coopted by the kings and city governments who turned the (Protestant) churches into state churches. No, reform came under papal leadership in the 1500s, which is what Cusanus was trying to do in the middle 1400s—he saw that the Council of Basel was being manipulated by the kings and was hopelessly splintered, and he concluded that papal-led reform was the only possibility. A string of bad popes after the 1470s (though not all were as bad as some have made them out to be; some were indeed real scoundrels) interrupted the process, but the seeds planted in the 1400s bore fruit eventually.
But this book is not about reform or the Reformation in general. It’s about the life and work of a single reformer—a very important one, to be sure, but it’s a much more specialized book than the title of the article suggests.
I gave up “flame-baiters” for Lent. BIG SMILE
The folly of the article is that it presumes the possibility of perfection in institutions comprised of imperfect men. Every religious and secular institution, like the people it is comprised, of has erred and sinned. To profess that the post reformation Catholic Church is still guilty of 500 year old sins and practices is simply an ignorant position. In spite of its many historical sins, the world had been a much better place because of the the Roman Catholic Church than it would have been without it.
Thank you!
“the world had been a much better place because of the Roman Catholic Church” AND the founder of the Catholic Church, our Lord Jesus Christ!
something that the anti-Catholic crowd omits!
AND the ONLY church founded by God.
The reason it lacked the kind of structure you are looking for is that it is a review of a book. Of course, even a book review, a good one, ought to have a thesis. Book reviews in the entertainment or belles lettres sections of major newspapers often are in fact little essays. This one has a thesis but a rather vague one because the author has to tie together two books—a new translation of Erasmus’s In Praise of Folly and a book of essays on Nicholas Cusanus. These are very different kinds of books. Collections of essays often don’t have an overarching unifying thesis anyway and translations or editions of texts are just that, translations or editions, not arguments for a thesis (except, of course, whatever the thesis of the text translated might have been).
So the reviewer in this case settles for “The 1400s were fascnating times. Two people tried hard but reform failed because the popes blew it.”
The problem is that he pinpoints the failure in 1512 when Julius scuttled real reform. But that’s before Erasmus had begun to make his mark on history. In fact, a host of Catholic reformers were active after 1512 all the way to the papal reform council of the 1540s-1560s. If Kenny had concluded with the end of Erasmus’s life (1536), his thesis of “the Catholic Church blew it” wouldn’t hold. Catholic Reform had by then not yet succeeded, but it certainly was a far different situation than 1512.
In a popular newspapers’s belles lettres section, the main point is to write something witty and clever that still manages to convey something of what the book’s about. It’s not serious essay writing. This is not a particularly outstanding example of the genre.
As a Catholic, I have taken a strong look at the Orthodox Churches, at times.
I fall prey to the human tendency to hold an entire institution responsible for the acts of a very few members.
The Spanish Inquisition was horrible.
The way the Pope stood by while the Knights Templars were destroyed (actually due to the debt owed them by the French King) well, that was terrible too.
However, the Catholic Church made Christianity, in its present form, possible. The Catholic Church was the PUBLISHER and EDITOR of the first Bible.
The Catholic Church is correct, faith is best understood as a combination of tradition AND Scripture, how could it be otherwise? For the first few centuries of the Church, there was NO “scripture” as we know it today!
Martin Luther had many good points, but the end does not justify the means, as I am often told, and he was guilty of a few errors, himself.
I get upset at how the Catholic Church was once a fierce opponent of Socialism, preaching “subsidiarity” instead. Now, it seems like very few Priests even understand the moral danger of Socialism.
I get upset with how the Church handled the abuse scandal, but then, I get really angry at others who are judgmental towards the Church, on this issue, as EVERY large institution that deals with children has had similar problems. (Besides, it was a homosexual issue, not a pedophile issue. Most of the minors involved were past puberty, outside the medical definition of “pedophile”)
I wish the Church had done as the Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts got sued for not letting homosexuals in. The Church got sued for letting homosexuals into the priesthood.
Ok, so, that is my “public confession” — and
Never the less, I can find no route to salvation that looks any closer to the Church that Jesus established, than the Catholic Church who's Cathedral is built on the tomb of Saint Peter.
“Peter, you are rock, and upon this Rock I will build my Church”
I think it does Catholics and Protestants a great deal of good to discuss our historical differences. It can be done in Christian brotherhood and with an open heart.
Some of the best discussions I have ever had, in my life, were with Baptists and Evangelicals.
It is my experience that the majority of Church goers know very, very little about the history of Christianity, and the source of all our differences, from all perspectives involved.
This can be a healthy discussion.
Imagine abandoning the Church founded by Christ for a prideful substitute confected by one of those characters!
Perhaps, but
the “Reformation” was the direct result of sin within the Church and Church leadership.
Several of our own Popes, in modern times, have admitted as much and said as much.
Then there was this soldier who had both legs shattered by a cannon ball....who ended up founding an order that initiated the counter-reformation.
A big part of the Inquisition was to ferret out undercover muslims who were subverting the secular government of Spain. I am afraid Europe will soon be put in a position where it has to do this again, or perish.
“the ONLY church founded by God”
so you kick the wedge in a bit more. And if anyone responded to that, it would be “catholic bashing” I suppose?
but the day I call “protestant bashing” will be a cold day in hell.
I strongly believe we should all give this cr*p up. Including little statements like that. It’s flesh, and it should stop. We have far more important stuff going on now.
The Reformation would never have happened if the Pope could have restricted the use of the Bible by the common man. Not that they didn’t try. Just like the invention of the cotton gin gave slavery a new lease on life in the US early 19th century, the invention of the printing press made it feasible for everyone to own a personal copy of the Bible.
So, just like we blame the TV for today’s ills, we should blame the printing press for the Reformation. Outlaw the personal ownership of the Bible and watch the ranks of faithful Catholics swell.
“Perhaps anti-Catholic animus is an ugly habit that dies hard.”
Protestant, Catholic etc.....it’s the same Jesus.
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