What's up with this?
Martin Luther died a natural death.
Even during the period when the Catholic Church is assumed (by the ignorant) to be at its "deadliest" in terms of power and its abuse, Luther survived.
Kinda ruins your spin on history, doesn't it?
What an absurd comparison!
Luther only survived because he was protected by a sympathetic German prince. To argue that the Church didn't want to get their hands on him, so to speak, is simply not true. If Luther had ever traveled to Rome to plead his case in person, he would have never left alive.
I'm all for saying the West has grown beyond this type of behavior, but it doesn't do us any good to pretend that executing heretics and repressive punishment of public impiety didn't happen in Christian countries.
Luther was lucky in that he had a protector, Frederick the Wise, the powerful Elector of Saxony, who had a lot of influence with the Church. After Luther had been excommunicated, Frederick arranged for Martin Luther to defend his theses at the Diet of Worms under guarantee of safe passage. Luther left before judgement was passed, the judgement branding him a heretic and vogelfrei, meaning anyone could kill him without penalty.
Frederick had him kidnapped on the way home from the Diet of Worms and hid him in Wartburg castle. He then used his influence to protect Luther.
Frederick is also the only reason that the Pope didn't clamp-down on Luther after Heidelberg in 1518 (only a year after Wittenberg).
The Reformation owes a lot to Frederick, without whom Martin Luther probably would have died within a couple of years after nailing his theses to the Wittenberg castle church door, with his point of view barely heard.