Not too many people realize that the papacy in the middle ages had little regard for the spiritual welfare of the peasants.What Luther thought of the masses:
“As to the common people, ... one has to be hard with them and see that they do their work and that under the threat of the sword and the law they comply with the observance of piety, just as you chain up wild beasts.”
The peasants had misunderstood Luther's reforms. They thought it was a secular reform. He was setting the record straight, telling them that his reform was of a more everlasting one. A spiritual one. One that would draw them closer to Christ.
“As to the common people, ... one has to be hard with them and see that they do their work and that under the threat of the sword and the law they comply with the observance of piety, just as you chain up wild beasts.”
Luther thought highly of the peasants. He was deeply concerned about their spiritual well being that had atrophied under years of domination of the Papacy. He translated the Bible into the vernacular so the peasants could understand it. Luther wrote a Large and Small catechism so that peasants could learn the Christian faith. (In fact, the faith of the peasant was so bad that he named his first catechism, "A catechism to the Pagan Germans.") He destroyed the Canonical Law -- enabling people to focus on Christ, not on the church's edicts which were not tied to the Bible. He also went around to each church and ensured that there were pastors who were trained to preach christ -- not just collect money for the church. He set up a method to train pastors so that the peasants could be spiritually cared for.
I guess we’ll never know exactly how much the decades of slavish RCC misunderstandings beat into Luther’s head (and back) resulted in this very bad perspective. What we do know is that the oppressive organization of Rome owns centuries of the wrong-headed theology of the papacy, the priesthood, indulgences, self-importance about the “keys” and the like.