The Reformation is over. Catholics 0, Protestants 1

triablogue ^ | April 13, 2015 | Jerry Walls

[RnMomof7]

I'm going to transcribe an article that Jerry Walls wrote when he was a grad student at Notre Dame:

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I am nearing the end of three very happy (with a brief interlude) years as a graduate student in the philosophy department at Notre Dame. The philosophy department is quite lively and stimulating and I have learned a great deal about my discipline.

Along the way, I have also acquired an education of another sort–namely in the ways of the Roman Catholic Church. My education in this regard has been informal and piecemeal, to be sure. My insights have been gathered from diverse sources: from lectures, from letters to the Observer, from articles in the conservative magazine Fidelity, from interaction with undergraduates I have taught. But most of all, I have learned from numerous conversations with students and faculty in the philosophy and theology departments, many of which have involved a friend who is a former Roman Catholic seminarian. While my informal education in these matters hardly qualifies me to speak as an authority, Roman Catholics may find interesting how one Protestant in their midst has come to perceive them. I can communicate my perceptions most clearly, I think, by briefly describing three types of Catholics I have encountered. 

First, I have met a fair number of conservative Catholics. Those who belong to this group like to characterize themselves as thoroughly Catholic. They stress the teaching authority of the Church and are quick to defend the official Catholic position on all points. For such persons, papal encyclicals are not to be debated; they are to be accepted and obeyed. Many conservative Catholics, I suspect, hold their views out of a sense of loyalty to their upbringing. Others, however, defend their views with learning, intelligence, and at times, intensity.

At the other end of the spectrum of course, are the liberal Catholics. These persons are openly skeptical not only about distinctively Roman doctrines such as papal infallibility, but also about basic Christian doctrine as embodied in the ecumenical creeds. It is not clear in what sense such persons would even be called Christians. Nevertheless, if asked their religious preference, on a college application say, they would identify themselves as Catholics. I have no idea how many Catholics are liberals of this stripe, but I have met only a few here at Notre Dame.

It is the third type of Catholic, I am inclined to think, which represents the majority. Certainly most of the Catholics I have met are of this type. I call this group "functional protestants."

Many Catholics, no doubt, will find this designation offensive, so let me hasten to explain what I mean by it. One of the fundamental lines of difference between Catholics and Protestants, going back to the Reformation, concerns the issue of doctrinal authority. The traditional Roman Catholic view, as I understand it, is that its official teachings are guaranteed to be infallible, particularly when the pope or an ecumenical council exercises "extraordinary magisterium" when making doctrinal or moral pronouncements. Protestants have traditionally rejected this claim in favor of the view that Scripture alone is infallible in matters doctrinal and moral. This was the conviction MartinLuther came to hold after he arrived at the conclusion that both popes and church councils have erred. After this, his excommunication was all but inevitable.

When I say most Catholics are functional Protestants I simply mean that most Catholics do not accept the authority claims of their Church. In actual belief and practice, they are much closer to the Protestant view.

This is apparent from the fact that many Catholics do not accept explicitly defined dogmas of their Church. For example, I have talked with several Catholics who are doubtful, at best, about the Marian dogmas, even though these have the status of infallible doctrine in their church. Such Catholics have often made it clear to me that they believe the basic Christian doctrine as defined in the creeds. But they frankly admit that they think their Church has taken some wrong turns in her recent history. Where this is the case, they do not feel compelled to follow. As one of my functional Protestant friends put it: "I am a Roman Catholic, but I am more concerned about being Catholic than about being Roman."

That many Catholics are functionally Protestant is also evident in their attitude toward the distinctive moral teachings of their Church. The obvious example here is the Roman Catholic teaching that all forms of "artificial" birth control are immoral. The official view was reaffirmed explicitly by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae, and has been reiterated again and again by Pope John Paul II. Nevertheless, as the article on Humanae Vitae in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religion noted, "the papal ban is simply being ignored," and "a concrete authority crisis has thus emerged."

I attended the recent debate on abortion between Fr. James Burtchaell and Daniel Maguire. It is interesting to me that Fr. Burtchaell who eloquently defended the conservative view on abortion, admitted to a questioner that he rejects his Church's teaching on birth control. I could not help but wonder: is Fr. Burtchaell, Catholic statesman though he is, also among the functional Protestants?

This raises, of course, the deeper issue here: to what extent can a member of the Roman Catholic Church disagree with the official teachings of his Church and still be a faithful Catholic? Can one reject the teaching of a papal encyclical while remaining a faithful Catholic? If so, can he also reject a doctrine which the pope has declared infallible?

I have put these questions to several Catholics. Conservative have assured me that the answer to both the latter questions is no. Others insist the answer is yes.

This brings me to a final point concerning functional Protestants: they do consider themselves faithful Catholics. I have  often pointed out in conversation with such Catholics that their views differ little from mine. Why then remain Catholic I ask. In response, these Catholics make it clear to me that they love their Church and intend to remain loyal to it. More than one has compared the Church to his family. One's family makes mistakes, but one does not therefore choose to join another family.

I am not sure what to make of this response. It is not clear to me that one can line up behind Luther in holding that the Popes and councils have erred in their doctrinal and moral pronouncements, and still be a faithful Catholic.  But on the other hand, things have changed since the 16C. It is no longer the case that a Catholic will be excommunicated for holding what Luther held. Perhaps this is just another sign that the Reformation is–despite the pope's best efforts–finally taking hold within the Roman Church. 

Jerry Walls, "Reformational Theology found in Catholicism," The Observer, Thursday, April 23, 1978, p8.

[RnMomof7]

Clinton’s interpretation of scripture, adultery, and fellatio was provided to the Arkansas State Troopers; it’s Sola scriptura.

And?? let me ask you..are two people unable to have children that are married.. just committing mutual masterbation ??

[agere_contra]

Why did you omit to mention Pope Pius XII saving 860,000 Jews from the Holocaust? Oh right, it would have shot your whole post down.

Here's the thing.

It's not Catholic doctrine to burn or rob Jews.

When princes used the office of the Inquisition to extort money from/confiscate the holdings of Jews - they weren't acting according to Church doctrine. They were committing sin.

However - if those same princes had been strict followers of Luther then they would have been acting according to a religious philosophy that sanctioned their actions completely.

They would have been acting not only in accordance with Luther's vile jew-hatred, but with his equally horrific theological support of the most brutal state oppression.

Look at Luther's actions during the Peasant's Revolt of 1525.

He was the avowed champion of the most oppressed classes in Germany. He put the common hatred of the Junker princes into words and threatened action against them. To his followers he seemed the born leader of a great movement of liberation that would recreate Germany as a free Christian nation.

And then what happened?

When the revolt broke out Luther immediately took the side of the brutal German princes and encouraged the wholesale slaughter of the peasants whom he had previously supported and encouraged.

I've mentioned his pamphlets before - these are quotes from the ones that were most instrumental in crushing the revolutionary movement and exposing its adherents to unbelievably brutal retaliation:

Our princes must in the circumstances regard themselves as the officers of the divine wrath which bids them chastise such scoundrels. A prince who failed to do so would be sinning against God very badly. He would be failing in his mission.

A prince who in such circumstances avoided bloodshed would become responsible for the murders and all the further crimes which these low swine might commit. It is no longer a question of tolerance, patience, pity. It is the hour of wrath and for the sword; the hour for mercy is past.

The peasants serve the Devil. . . . I believe that there are no devils left in hell, but all of them have entered into peasants.

Strange times are these when a prince can enter heaven by the shedding of blood more certainly than others by means of prayer!

Come, dearly-beloved lords and nobles, strike them, transfix them, and cut their throats with might and main. Should you find death in so doing, you could not wish for one more divine, for you would fall in obedience to God and in defending your like against the hordes of Satan.

The effect of Luther's pamphlet was terrible. It was exactly what the princes had hoped for. His words took the heart out of any who would have supported the peasantry, and made it clear that God supported the Junkers and aristocracy.

The German princes put Luther's inhuman orders into practice with a terrifying speed. Overlords vied with each other in the ferocity of their punishments they inflicted.

Tongues were torn out, fingers lopped off. Executions were carried by the axe, by mass-asphyxiation in castle dungeons and by use of artillery at close range on close-packed huddled prisoners. The victorious landowners amused themselves by playing bowls with peasant's heads

Historians estimate the death-toll from this brutal campaign of theologically-backed revenge to be about 100,000.

That's about sixteen times more than the 6000 deaths by judicial execution from all 500 years of the medieval and Spanish Inquisition - but all compressed into a few terrible months.

The (surviving) German peasants had learned a harsh lesson from Luther. Might makes right. The rebellious must be put down in the name of God.

The German peasants attempted a reasonable accommodation between state and people - and Luther betrayed them and laughed as they died. Meanwhile: the German overlords learned that God loves tyrants.

Is it any wonder that the kultur of the Germans proved such a fertile ground for Hitler 400 years later?

Luther did that. He tore out the soul of Germany and left it a power-worshipping husk. He also left it seeded with his special brand of Jew-Hatred.

Let's hear from the experts - the Nazis who emulated him.

Walter Buch, the head of the Nazi Party court, spoke of Luther's influence on Nazi Germany:

When Luther turned his attention to the Jews, after he completed his translation of the Bible, he left behind "on the Jews and their Lies" for posterity.

-cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich]

Many people confess their amazement that Hitler preaches ideas which they have always held.... From the Middle Ages we can look to the same example in Martin Luther. What stirred in the soul and spirit of the German people of that time, finally found expression in his person, in his words and deeds.

-"Geist und Kampf" (speech), Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf,

Bernhard Rust served as Minister of Education in Nazi Germany. He wrote:

Since Martin Luther closed his eyes, no such son of our people has appeared again. It has been decided that we shall be the first to witness his reappearance.... I think the time is past when one may not say the names of Hitler and Luther in the same breath. They belong together; they are of the same old stamp [Schrot und Korn].

-Volkischer Beobachter, 25 Aug. 1933

Erich Koch, the Reich Commissioner for Ukraine and President of the East Prussian Protestant Church Synod wrote:

Only we can enter into Luther's spirit.... Human cults do not set us free from all sin, but faith alone. With us the church shall become a serving member of the state.... There is a deep sense that our celebration is not attended by superficiality, but rather by thanks to a man who saved German cultural values.

-Konigsberg-Hartungsche Zeitung, 20 Nov. 1933

Hans Hinkel, a Nazi who worked in Goebbels' Reich Chamber of Culture said:

Through his acts and his spiritual attitude he began the fight which we still wage today; with Luther the revolution of German blood and feeling against alien elements of the Volk was begun.

-cited from Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich

Hans Schemm: Bavarian Minister of Education and Culture:

His engagement against the decomposing Jewish spirit is clearly evident not only from his writing against the Jews; his life too was idealistically, philosophically antisemitic. Now we Germans of today have the duty to recognize and acknowledge this.

-"Luther und das Deutschtum," Bundesarchiv Berlin-Zehlendorf (19 Nov. 1933: Berlin)

Julius Streicher (one of Hitler's top henchmen and publisher of the anti-Semitic Der Sturmer) was asked during the Nuremberg trials if there were any other publications in Germany which treated the Jewish question in an anti-Semitic way., Streicher put it well:

"Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In the book 'The Jews and Their Lies,' Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them.

And lastly - of course - there's the man himself. This from one of Hitler's speeches

“I do insist on the certainty that sooner or later—once we hold power—Christianity will be overcome and the German church, without a Pope and without the Bible, and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing

Adolf Hitler, The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, edit. by Norman H. Baynes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1942), 369

This is your guy. Are you still wearing his t-shirt?

[LurkingSince'98]

I think I am going to decide that you’re not Catholic, you know like ex-communicated, anathema, etc...

It is amazing that you concern yourself with what I think.

AD Majoram Dei Gloriam

[CynicalBear]

Why are Catholics so obsessed with Luther?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Eeeek! All of the original figures of the Reformation were former Catholics! A fact that probably motivates some to cut off all history, all roots, all ties with everyone. Da**ed humanity! Christ didn't build a Church!

Or it was an invisible church without authority. A headless hammer without a handle.

[LurkingSince'98]

They are not Catholic!

Don’t you find people of all stripes claiming to be something that they are not?

Just saying something is so - does not make it so.

AMDG

[Elsie]

Why are Catholics so obsessed with Luther?

Because of THESE and many more 'problems' in their chosen religion.

Hey!

Look over THERE!!

Pope Stephen VI (896–897), who had his predecessor Pope Formosus exhumed, tried, de-fingered, briefly reburied, and thrown in the Tiber.^[1]

Pope John XII (955–964), who gave land to a mistress, murdered several people, and was killed by a man who caught him in bed with his wife.

Pope Benedict IX (1032–1044, 1045, 1047–1048), who "sold" the Papacy

Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303), who is lampooned in Dante's Divine Comedy

Pope Urban VI (1378–1389), who complained that he did not hear enough screaming when Cardinals who had conspired against him were tortured.^[2]

Pope Alexander VI (1492–1503), a Borgia, who was guilty of nepotism and whose unattended corpse swelled until it could barely fit in a coffin.^[3]

Pope Leo X (1513–1521), a spendthrift member of the Medici family who once spent 1/7 of his predecessors' reserves on a single ceremony^[4]

Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), also a Medici, whose power-politicking with France, Spain, and Germany got Rome sacked.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Popes

[Mrs. Don-o]

Gotta agree with you on that.

[Elsie]

It's not Catholic doctrine to burn or rob Jews.

Neither is it Protestant doctrine.

[LurkingSince'98]

Because he is the poster child for protestants .... and protestants were the ones who made the poster.

If he does not reflect what you believe then why don’t you reject him?

AMDG

[agere_contra]

I rather like to focus on our mutual love of Christ.

Good for you Roos_Girl.

It's getting late this side of the pond. I'm going to bed (after some chores). Sweet dreams to all here.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Catholics have no hope..."

Why do you say things like this, which are not true and which you couldn't possibly know?

[HossB86]

Let's try this on for size:

"841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330"

Explain, please, how this does not mean Catholics and Muslims worship the same "God"?

"together with us (us meaning Catholics) they (meaning Muslims) adore the one merciful God."

Please. Explain that away.

"together with us" -- Muslims and Catholics together.

Go ahead. Try.

Hoss

[HossB86]

Yeah; problem is apparently some Catholics have been mercifully spared from the ability to read and reason.

:D

Hoss

[HossB86]

Shallow reasoning ...part of what makes catholics..

:D

Shallow is right. Mud puddle shallow. Or teardrop shallow.

Hoss

[amihow]

Catholics make fine distinctions and your post reveals that you fail to do that. All those “examples” have to be measured as to their status as opinion, heresy, certain, infallible etc.

For instance, a lot of what Pope Francis says is just opinion. Nothing more.

[CynicalBear]

>>Or it was an invisible church without authority.<<

No, Christ is head of the ekklesia.<<

>>A headless hammer without a handle.<<

Why the hyperbole? Luther isn't the head of the ekklesia of Christ.

Colossians 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

1 Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

No pope in there either. No pope, no Luther, no Calvin or any other man. Christ is the head of the ekklesia and He said He would be in their midst.

Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

I'll not put any man as a replacement for Christ in our midst.

[metmom]

That’s more than four.

[englishprof302]

Thanks for the prayers—but don’t pray for me to give up my Roman Catholic faith, the beauty of its liturgy and its traditions, the priestly tradition, the beauty of Mary and her answer; the papacy. Pray for my arthritic hip; pray that my lung cancer does not return; pray for my son to find a job; pray for the millions of aborted babies. If I am in such a state of sin and apostasy, why should God answer my prayers and the prayers of any Catholic? Jesus died on that cross for me, and you, and all. It’s time for these condemnations to stop.

[Mrs. Don-o]

If your church is 2 or 3 gathered in His Name --- I do believe that there you will find Christ --- but if two of you have a dispute, where do you go for a judgment that will resolve the conflict?

Matthew 18:17
If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax-collector.