Luther vs. Rome

Praise God, that we are saved by grace alone. Works without faith are utterly without merit. This is not merely a Protestant notion.

Such has been the persistent teaching of the saints throughout the ages. Yet a whitewashing of Martin Luther has led to many people, even Catholics, fundamentally misunderstanding the Catholic Church's criticism of him.

Please understand that what I write here is no ad-hominem attack on Luther for any purpose, including the slander of Protestantism. Attacking the moral character of Martin Luther is gainless, for no-one supposes Luther to be imbued with the gift of infallibility. But when the counter-reformation is known by most people only by what it opposes, it becomes necessary to clarify what it was that it opposes. Further, given the whitewashed history of Martin Luther, it is imperitive to remember the context of the Catholic Church's language and actions, which seem terribly strident, presented out of the context.

The Catholic Church does not believe that one could merit salvation by doing good works. Nor could one avoid sin by one's own strengths. In fact, the Catholic position is one held by most people who believe they follow Luther's principle of sola fides. We are saved by grace alone, by which we have faith, which necessarily leads us to righteous works, and the avoidance of sin.

This is not Luther's position. Luther held that it was impossible to avoid sin. “As long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin.” (Letter to Melanchthon, 1521) "They are fools who attempt to overcome temptations by fasting, prayer and chastisement. For such temptations and immoral attacks are easily overcome when there are plenty of maidens and women" (Luther's Works, Jena ed., 1558, 2, 116; cited in P. F. O'Hare, "The Facts About Luther", Rockford, 1987, 311).

As such, it was not necessary to avoid sin. “If grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly, for he is victorious over sin, death, and the world.” In fact, the way to conquer sin, he taught was to indulge it: “The way to battle a tempting demon was to “in-dulge some sin in hatred of the evil spirit and to torment him.” Even the greatest sin was permissible, so long as one believed in Christ.: “Sin shall not drag us away from Him, even should we commit fornication or murder a thousand times a day. (all quotes from Letter to Melanchthon, 1521)

These quotes are often brushed aside as being hot-headed rhetoric. (Ironically, one passage to suggest that such intemperate statements were righteous is Jesus' warning that should one's eyes cause him to lust, he should cast the eye into Gehenna. How diametrically opposed to Jesus' teaching is Luther's!) But they were not said in a harmless context. Luther counseled Prince Phillip that it would be fine to take a mistress. And his comments that peasants were born to be cannon fodder is horrific in light of the deaths of 100,000 peasants in a rebellion of which he spoke, “I said they should be slain; all their blood is upon my head... My little book against the peasants is quite in the right and shall remain so, even if all the world were to be scandalized at it.” (Luther's Works, Erlangen ed., 24.299)

Such beliefs are not incidental to Luther; they are a major part of the reason for many princes siding with him against the Catholic church. Without such support, his movement would have no base. But he also appealed to their financial motives, arguing that they had no obligation to fight Muslims. In fact, Luther preached that Islamic domination was superior to Catholicism. His horrors at the excesses of Rome were pure fiction, aimed at weakening Rome's military strength. His lies are betrayed by his ignorance of Rome's geography. (He mistakenly thought that the Vatican was built on one of the seven hills of Rome, an assertion he'd make time and time again in asserting that the Papacy was Babylon.) Again, the context is horrifying: Belgrade fell in the very same year as the Council of Worms, 1521. By 1529, the Islamic horde had reached Vienna.

Luther even attacked the Holy Bible, itself. Nowhere does the bible say we are saved by “faith alone.” In fact, those words exist only in the Letter of James. So, Luther sought to have that book struck out of the bible. At the Council of Worms, he was shown how the 1st Letter of Peter refers to purgatory, how Revelations depicts the saints in Heaven praying for the souls below, how James explicitly states that “faith alone is dead, if it has not works.” Later Protestant apologists offered alternate explanations for these difficult passages, but Luther simply declared that they were false: “Many sweat to reconcile St. Paul and St. James, but in vain. 'Faith justifies' and 'faith does not justify' contradict each other flatly. If any one can harmonize them I will give him my doctor's hood and let him call me a fool “

His violence to the Word of God was worse still regarding the Old Testament. In condemning the Ten Commandments, he said Moses should be “damned and excommunicated; yea, worse than the Pope and the Devil.” Yet this man argued that the bible alone was authoritative?

When confronted by the Catholic church over his statements, Luther never disavowed these statements, or claimed they were exaggerations, or apologize for putting his foot in his mouth. Instead, he boasted, “Not for a thousand years has God bestowed such great gifts on any bishop as He has on me.”

Thus, the Catholic church was in the position of defending Western Civilization militarily against the Islamic horde, when an outrageous heretic preached all manner of hatred against it, instigating insurrection, and leading political forces to align against it. In doing so, he attacked not only the Church, but the historical and biblical under-pinnings of the bible. Could there be any wonder that the church responded harshly? Luther is dead, and he has never been held to be infallible or sinless. This is not an attack on him, but a defense on the Catholic Church, which he assailed.

It's 1529. The Muslims are in Bavaria. There's a madman boasting that he's responsible for 100,000 dead peasants, and he sides with the Turks. Can you really say that the Church treated him too harshly?

I talked to my friend to verify that what I said was true and he said yes, that he was probably 40 years old before he knew there was a Bible.

He said he grew up in the Catholic Church and went to CAtholic school and never heard anything about the Bible.

As a cradle Catholic, who went to Catholic schools, is not yet 40, and was brought up during an incredibly lax time of catechesis, that is rather incredulous. The first class I can remember being required to have a bible was freshman Old Testament, but before that we read stories and parables from it. We knew what it was, but hadn't really begun to study it. And daily Mass - there's more scripture there than not. We had a number at home, and my grandparents had a few. Anybody who grew up Catholic and can make that claim is a victim of lax schools, catechesis and parenting, IMO.

You wrote:

“I talked to my friend to verify that what I said was true and he said yes, that he was probably 40 years old before he knew there was a Bible.”

Wow, what a man soaked in his own desire for ignorance he must have been.

“He said he grew up in the Catholic Church and went to CAtholic school and never heard anything about the Bible.”

Which, of course, is impossible. You’re saying he went to Catholic school and never ONCE went to Mass? Not once? He went to Church for decades and never once heard any of the readings even though they are an integral part of the Mass? Impossible. Again, that is a man who is either outright lying or had a strong desire to be ignorant. Let me put it to you this way. Here are the readings for today’s Mass (according to the 1970 Missal): http://www.usccb.org/nab/readings/062109.shtml

If you friend attended Mass BEFORE 1970, this would have been the readings for today: http://mysite.verizon.net/missale/3pent.html

There is no way a man of average intelligence could go to Mass on anything like a routine basis and not know about the Bible. It is logically impossible.

Illiterate people in the third world, who never went to Catholic school, but attend the Mass, know about what the Bible is and what’s in it - especially the gospels, yet your buddy, living in the richest nation on earth, who attended Mass, attended Catholic school and living in a society crammed with libraries and bookstores never saw the most commonly printed, bought, sold, and read book? Sorry, but your friend is either a horrible liar or one of the most grossly ignorant men who ever walked the face of the earth.

Again, look at those two links I posted. Now you tell me how a man could hear and or read those Bible passages, and much more from the Bible besides, and not know something about the Bible? It simply isn’t possible unless someone CHOOSES to be grossly ignorant.

“He said the reason he learned about the Bible when he did was because he met the woman that he married and she had a King James Bible.”

And again, that’s not realistically possible if he ever went to Mass.

Sounds a lot like this (look at the 7th paragraph down): http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2006/01/how-do-catholics-hear-gospel-gary.html

It would also help if women would quit displaying their bodies so as to get the attention.

I definitely hear you Desdemona. Dangus is also correct, to a certain extent, but it is definitely an act of mercy when a woman dresses modestly (and she need not be fully veiled Islamic-style either).

You both might appreciate this article which I recently read that was written by a priest of the Franciscans of the Immaculate (which I read originally on Dawn Eden's blog): Damsels in Distress.

You wrote: "Vatican II? How about the Imprintur from the Douay-Rheims in 1582 & 1609. There was an encyclical from Pope Leo XIII in the 19th century, too." Right!. About the Bibles: that's why I said, "and so did every Catholic Bible itself." I was referring to the indulgence notice on the inside cover in most old Catholic Bibles in the 19th century and later with modifications until now. Here's the oldest one I could find quickly: "An indulgence of 300 days for reading the Holy Gospels is granted to all the Faithful who read these Holy Scriptures for at least a quarter of an hour, with reverence due to the Divine Word and as spiritual reading…. A Plenary indulgence under the usual conditions is granted once a month for the daily reading." Pope Leo X111. December, 1898, Preces et Pia Opera, 045. (Enchiridion Indulgentiarium, 694). "So long as people have been literate and properly catechized, it's been encouraged." Yep!

Oh, but it did convince Luther. His response was to throw 14 books out of the bible, including James, Hebrews, 1 Peter... and parts of Daniel and Esther.

Um, not to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but you might want to checkout the history of the Council of Carthage and the deuterocanonicals. Your research on Luther is far more in-depth than anything I've ever known or attempted, but it is my understanding that Luther removed the Deuterocanonicals (the Old Testament ones for sure) due to the arguments when the Canon was closed. The Old Testament books are: 1&2 Maccabbees, Wisdom, Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus), Tobit, Judith and Baruch along with parts of Daniel and Ruth. The New Testament ones are, yes, Hebrews, James, 1&2 Peter, Revelation and one of the epistles of John. This is what Sts. Augustine and Jerome got into a big argument over and what the bishop of Rome at the time settled when the statement "Rome has spoken" was made.

In the Old Testament case, Jerome was living in Jerusalem at the time and was very much influenced by the Jews there. The seven deuterocanonicals are not from the Hebrew canon, but from the Helenistic tradition of Judaism. Sort of interesting when there are more parallel quotes of Christ from Sirach than almost any other NT book. Essentially, Augustine won the argument.

I don't remember the details as well on the NT books. But they were called into question and I know Revelation was one of the last ones approved.

That's one Council that's worth studying. St. Augustine's intellect is so very much on display.

Wow, that’s an impressive bit of spin, you dug up. No facts, all spin.

>> If he had remained a Catholic, he might have been able to secure an annulment on the grounds of some defect in the marriage; but since he had become a Lutheran, he could expect no consideration from the pope. Nor would Luther permit recourse to the Catholic device. <<

The irony is at this very moment, the Pope was recognizing Henry VIII as Defender of the Faith. Boy, I bet HE’d get granted an annulment for the asking, huh?

>> But Luther AT THIS POINT (emphasis mine) interpreted the Gospels rigidly and held to the word of Christ as reported by Matthew that divorce is permissible only for adultery. <<

IOW, the author acknowledges that this is inconsistent with Luther’s statements.

>> Luther’s final comment was that if anyone thereafter should practice bigamy, let the Devil give him a bath in the abyss of hell. <<

CYA

Not sure what your source is, but it’s deeply mistaken. St. Jerome commented that he could not prepare a translation of the Deuterocanonicals because he did not have an original Hebrew text, and this, in his bible published as a translation from the Hebrew, he only included them in an appendix of sorts. His enemies used that action as an excuse to oppose him, alleging that he denied the authenticity of scripture. He responded by explaining his actions, and stated that anyone who insisted he had denigrated the canonical status of the Deuterocanonicals, “a fool and a slanderer.”

Martin Luther rejected 14 books, not just 7, for the reasons I stated. He was unable to convince other Protestant groups (Calvin, Henry, etc.) to disregard the New Testament deuterocanonicals, but presented Jerome’s comments (yet not his explanation) as a basis for rejecting the OT deuterocanonicals, plus the reason you cite. Since the Jews did not receive the NT at all, that explanation also couldn’t cover the NT. We now understand that the Jews adopted a canon rejecting the deuterocanonical OT books but including all other OT books only after Christ, in direct opposition Christ.

“The irony is at this very moment, the Pope was recognizing Henry VIII as Defender of the Faith. Boy, I bet HE’d get granted an annulment for the asking, huh?”

Since you have obviously spent more time researching this than I have, you undoubtedly are aware that Catherine was the youngest child of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile. She had been married to Henry VIII for, I believe, 16 years and had multiple children by him, with only Mary surviving.

When Henry VIII asked for an annulment, the Pope (Pope Clement VII) was the prisoner of Catherine’s nephew, Emperor Charles V.

Given Catherine’s importance politically, and the number of children she bore over the many years of their marriage, it speaks volumes that Henry VIII felt capable of ASKING for an annulment.

Of course, that wouldn’t happen in modern times, would it - unless your name is Kennedy?

You are quick to claim others are biased, when your own thought reeks of it.

"Initially Luther had a low view of the books of Esther, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. He called the Epistle of James "an epistle of straw," finding little in it that pointed to Christ and His saving work. He also had harsh words for the book of Revelation, saying that he could "in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it."[6] He had reason to question the apostolicity of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation because the early church categorized these books as antilegomena, meaning that they were not accepted without reservation as canonical. Luther did not, however, remove them from his editions of the Scriptures. His views on some of these books changed in later years.

Luther chose to place the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. These books and addenda to canonical books are found in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Masoretic text. Luther left the translating of them largely to Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas.[7] They were not listed in the table of contents of his 1523 Old Testament, and they were given the well-known title: "Apocrypha: These Books Are Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read" in the 1534 Bible.[8]"

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible#View_of_canonicity

I would point out I've become fond of quoting Hebrews in support of Protestant positions, so MAYBE his concerns were not with content.

From the 1911 Enc Brit:

"Between January 1510 and November 1518 Catherine gave birth to six children (including two princes), who were all stillborn or died in infancy except Mary, born in 1516, and rumour did not fail to ascribe this series of disasters to the curse pronounced in Deuteronomy on incestuous unions. In 1526 the condition of Catherine's health made it highly improbable that she would have more children. No woman had ever reigned in England, alone and in her own right, and to avoid a fresh dispute concerning the succession, and the revival of the civil war, a male heir to the throne was a pressing necessity. The act of marriage, which depended for its validity on the decision of the ecclesiastical courts, had, on account of the numerous dissolutions and dispensations granted, not then attained the security since assured to it by the secular law. For obtaining dissolutions of royal marriages the facilities were especially great. Pope Clement VII. himself permitted such a dissolution in the case of Henry's own sister Margaret, in 1528, proposed later as a solution of the problem that Henry should be allowed two wives, and looked not unfavourably, with the same aim, on the project for marrying the duke of Richmond to Mary, a brother to a sister. 3 In Henry's case also the irregularity of a union, which is still generally reprobated and forbidden in Christendom, and which it was very doubtful that the pope had the power to legalize, provided a moral justification for a dissolution which in other cases did not exist. It was not therefore the immorality of the plea which obstructed the papal decree in I Cal. of State Pap., England and Spain, i. 469.

2 Letters and Papers, iv. 6627, 6705, and app. 261. Ib. iv. 5072. Henry's favour, but the unlucky imprisonment at this time of Clement VII. at the hands of Charles V., Catherine's nephew, which obliged the pope, placed thus "between the hammer and the anvil," to pursue a policy of delay and hesitation. Nor was the immorality of Henry's own character the primary cause of the project of divorce. Had this been so, a succession of mistresses would have served as well as a series of single wives. The real occasion was the king's desire for a male heir. But, however clear this may be, the injustice done to Catherine was no less cruel and real."

Hmmm...maybe Luther's idea wasn't original?

There has been in the American Catholic church a crisis of annulments. Part of the justification of these has been the woeful state of catechesis, leading to many marriages in which one partner or the other claims to be incapable of understanding the theological basis of marriage. The Kennedy who wanted to run for Governor of Massachusetts, for instance, was granted an annulment... on the grounds of mental incompetence. But clearly, there are many abuses of annulments, where weak-wristed or even heretical magistrates have dispensed them far too easily.

Such was not the case in 16th century Europe. Annulments were very rarely given, and only for specific instances. The truth is Henry VIII might well have had grounds for annulment, on the basis of affinity, but Henry, fearing at the time that some would perceive the marriage as invalid, went to great lengths to ensure that there could be no grounds for illegitimizing the marriage.

The charge that annulments could easily be purchased is simply completely ahistorical. Everyone then knew what the valid reasons for an annulment was, and absent those, granting an annulment to a prince without grounds would be as politically impractical as the 1980 Democratic House of Representatives declaring Jimmy Carter the winner of the presidential election. This is not to say for certain that invalid grounds could not be deceitfully trumped up, or to concede or deny that no bishop had ever been influenced by political or financial pressure to accept false evidence. But isn’t it interesting that the defenders of Luther’s rationalization of adultery have never put forth grounds under which Phillip might have attempted annulment, especially considering that lying was plainly on the table?

And let’s not miss some of Luther’s moral depravity. The whole notion of “secret bigamy” is a perversion of the notion of marriage that would make a New Hampshire judge blush. A marriage is a public covenant that protects the rights of the woman by ensuring that she will be financially cared for when child-bearing and maternal responsibilities inhibit her need to provide for herself. (The name “marriage” refers to an oath.) There’s no such thing, therefore, as a “secret marriage.” He was adding legalistic terms to what was nothing more than adultery, plain and simple.

Annulments were given as needed for political expediency in medieval times. Henry VIII’s problem was that he was asking a Pope who was under the thumb of his wife’s nephew, and granting it would have affected the politics of France and Spain.

I’m not supporting Luther here. His behavior on this was shameful. But please do not cite Henry VIII as evidence that annulments were difficult to come by for the mighty - either in medieval times, or now.

I don’t approve of divorce, but it is more honest than annulling a marriage of many years, with many children. THAT is a shame on the Catholic Church!

Augustine and Jerome did not quarrel over the canon of the Old Testament, but over whether it was fitting to translate the Latin bible from the Hebrew scriptures, rather than the Greek. The 3rd Council of Carthage had settled the matter of the canon long before then, which is why Jerome was so alarmed at the accusation that he desired to assert the Hebrew canon. You can find Augustine’s letters to Jerome over the translation here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102071.htm and here. This lists all letters received by or sent from Augustine, including to and from Jerome: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102.htm

How strange it would be for Augustine and Jerome to quibble over wordings in such letters, and not reveal the much greater issue of canonicity?

I should note that I do not doubt the validity of your sources. The 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia, a lay publication, credulously states the conventional wisdom established by Martin Luther’s lies, ignorant of Jerome’s own denials of Luther’s interpretation of his introduction to the deuterocanonicals.

I don’t approve of divorce, but it is more honest than annulling a marriage of many years, with many children. THAT is a shame on the Catholic Church!

As someone who knows quite a number of people with annulled marriages, don't be so quick to judge. One of the most extreme cases I know is someone who was coerced into marriage and then mentally abused by the spouse. Yes, there were children, but one parent could not function as one as this individual was a wreck - and psychiatrists testified to that in the annulment process. I've seen marriages annulled for women lying about being pregnant, husbands having no intention of remaining faithful, one spouse or the other refusing to have children (a violation of the marriage contract), more than one case of a husband who was incapable of making a commitment (either multiple marriages or left the priesthood), and even those where the husband decided that, well, he really was homosexual after all.

There are still plenty that are refused, but don't be so quick to judge what is a marriage and what isn't. The process is long, painful, and invades every aspect of life before and after the marriage. I even know of one case where the Church granted the annulment because they believed the petitioner based on the uncooperativeness of the spouse. That one was kept rather quiet, but the process is there for a reason.

If annulment was so commonly granted as Luther’s modern apologist claims, name an annulment from that era.

Annulments are granted all the time, by the state and by Protestant churches, for any reason which invalidates a marriage. They are not at all a Catholic invention. What is unique to the Catholic church is that, in modern America, due to the commonplace nature of divorce and the lack of recourse to divorce, many annulments have been granted by the Catholic church for reasons outside the legal norm.

Grounds for annulment (or declaring marriages void ab initio) in Protestant churches and by the state include being discovered to have been under legal age, duress, bigamy, impotence, refusal to consummate, mental incompetence, consanguinity, and, in many states, subsisting venereal disease or third-party impregnation.

Annulment outside of the United States is exceedingly rare. The United States accounts for 67% of the world’s annulments. But as recently as 1962, there were only 338 annulments in the United States, compared with 352,000 marriages. IOW, that year, less than 1 in 1000 Catholic marriages ended with an annulment. In many states, the rate of annulments among Protestants exceeds 1 in 100.

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