Posted on 11/02/2012 7:17:23 AM PDT by marshmallow
(Reuters) - It's rare to be invited to an event five years off and even rarer to bicker about its details, but Germany's Catholic Church finds itself in that delicate situation thanks to an overture from its Protestant neighbors.
German Protestants are planning jubilee celebrations in 2017 to mark the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's launching of the Reformation, a major event in the history of Christianity, of Europe and of the German nation, language and culture.
The Protestants have invited the Catholics to join in, a gesture in harmony with the good relations the two halves of German Christianity enjoy and the closeness many believers feel across the denominational divide.
But even after five centuries, being asked to commemorate a divorce that split western Christianity and led to many bloody religious wars is still hard for some Catholics to swallow.
"It's not impossible in principle, but it depends on the character of the events planned," Bishop Gerhard Feige, the top Catholic official dealing with Protestants, said in a statement for the Protestant Reformation Day holiday on Wednesday.
"Catholic Christians consider the division of the western Church as a tragedy and - at least until now - do not think they can celebrate this merrily," he wrote in the text outlining Catholic doubts about the event.
LUTHER, A GERMAN GIANT
The Reformation began in 1517 when German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to a church door to denounce corruption in the Catholic Church, especially the sale of indulgences to help build the lavish new Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
Excommunicated by Rome, he won support from German princes who soon battled others who remained Catholic. The ensuing wars of religion killed about a third of Germany's population over the next century and spread to neighboring countries as well.
After............
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Huh? Luther's princes battled Catholics? When? Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor ordered that Luther and his followers all be arrested and burned at the stake--along with all of his books. The year after Luther died, in 1547, Charles tried it in the Smalkaldic war--and nearly succeeded.
In the 1570s the French systematically murdered TENS OF THOUSANDS of Calvinist civilians there (and even about 500 were murdered in what is now Jacksonville, Florida, by Spanish Roman Catholics--who went on to establish St. Augustine, FL.).
Throughout the 1500s it was clearly the Roman Catholics who had the upper hand...with vast amounts of money, and most of Europe's Royalty...and Protestants were nearly always defensive, not offensive.
The 30 Years War of the 1600s...which had about 1/3 of Germany killed, started on religious lines, but soon changed to nationalist lines...(French and German Catholics (or Protestants)found it easier to kill each other, than to keep alliances to kill opposite religionists of their own nationality).
Learned Catholic men from the pope on down defrauded the faithful out of their money by selling them something that can't be sold. Naw can't see why Luther was upset over that. Nor the legalistic Clintonian way it has been sold here today.
It was just a Friar?, and archbishop and the pope, but it sure wasn't the Catholics. Good job, that clears it up, thanks for your time.
Indulgences have nothing to do with the forgiveness of sins.
Again, you fundamentally do not understand what Luther and Tetzel were arguing about.
Aha! Proof positive that grace can still be bought, just not for coin.
Probably by verbally preaching his ideas in German.
Certainly the Pope assumed that nailing something to a church door would make it known.
He didn't assume it would. He hoped it would, since he was unable to have the message hand delivered.
But, let's assume he Scotch taped the theses.
Let's not. As I pointed out to another poster, his theses - written in unintelligible academic Latin - would have been as useful as posting Japanese poetry.
The fact would remain that Luther did not consider the Theses to be a mere academic exercise; he sent a copy directly to Archbishop Mainz.
The Archbishop of Mainz. Albrecht the Archbishop actually lived in Halle, right next to Wittenberg.
Like many university disputations of the time, it was not purely academic - but also political and addressed current events. It was undoubtedly a challenge to Albrecht - and one probably deeply enjoyed by Frederick of Saxony. Just as Tetzel's response was, in part, a challenge to Frederick.
The fact would also remain that the Archbishop knew of Tetzel's sale of indulgences for the sins of the dead
The terminology is confused, but much more than being aware of Tetzel's activity, Albrecht recruited Tetzel personally.
Whether the Pope personally knew, the Vatican also profited.
Oh, I'm sure Leo X personally knew. But the money not taken by Albrecht actually did go to rebuilding the basilica, as far as we know, since the work was actually done.
Probably by verbally preaching his ideas in German.
Certainly the Pope assumed that nailing something to a church door would make it known.
He didn't assume it would. He hoped it would, since he was unable to have the message hand delivered.
But, let's assume he Scotch taped the theses.
Let's not. As I pointed out to another poster, his theses - written in unintelligible academic Latin - would have been as useful as posting Japanese poetry.
The fact would remain that Luther did not consider the Theses to be a mere academic exercise; he sent a copy directly to Archbishop Mainz.
The Archbishop of Mainz. Albrecht the Archbishop actually lived in Halle, right next to Wittenberg.
Like many university disputations of the time, it was not purely academic - but also political and addressed current events. It was undoubtedly a challenge to Albrecht - and one probably deeply enjoyed by Frederick of Saxony. Just as Tetzel's response was, in part, a challenge to Frederick.
The fact would also remain that the Archbishop knew of Tetzel's sale of indulgences for the sins of the dead
The terminology is confused, but much more than being aware of Tetzel's activity, Albrecht recruited Tetzel personally.
Whether the Pope personally knew, the Vatican also profited.
Oh, I'm sure Leo X personally knew. But the money not taken by Albrecht actually did go to rebuilding the basilica, as far as we know, since the work was actually done.
Since these are of no account, I don't really care what the Catholics say about indulgences/good/charitable works and their effects. The wares bought and sold during the time were for remittance of sin. Luther complained that if the money could remove someone from purgatory, why didn't the Church do it for free for everyone. Because debts needed paying, basilicas needed building and profit must be made off the rich and poor faithful in their ignorance.
All historians of any repute, Roman Catholic or Protestant, agree that the 95 Theses began the process of Luther being stonewalled by the Roman Church authorities, not some personal spat with the discredited J. Tetzel.
Dr. Philip Melanchthon, who lived about 1/2 block from Luther, was a professor at Wittenberg University at the time--and was Luther's closest friend, co-reformer, and successor in leading the Lutherans after Luther died, said that Dr. Luther nailed the Theses to the door... That's pretty good eyewitness authority.
Nailing an announcement on the biggest door in town right off the town square, was a normal event--a lot like an office bulletin-board. Besides all that, the physical nailing is a minor point. The major point is that is was indeed the 95 Theses interference with the money trail...(for a VERY spend-thrift Pope) that got Luther in hot water.
Within 3 weeks Luther's Theses had been copied and recopied (including a version that actually goofed up the numbers...) and spread all over Germany. Without the printing press (then less than 50 years old) such a wide transmission of copies of a document would of been impossible.
I've been to Wittenberg, as I did graduate work there... and the Castle Church door is about the largest in town, and very prominent--a logical place to post an announcement, especially since tourists were arriving by the hundreds for the one of the biggest events in Wittenberg all year--the veneration of the relics in that same Castle Church, that next day, All Saints Day. Frederick the Wise had the largest relic collection outside of Rome.
Tetzel was soon arrested (probably for embarrassing his employers...Bishop Albrecht and Pope Leo X) after claiming that the plenary indulgence he was selling for those same employers....could give you forgiveness if you had raped the Virgin Mary herself...
Renaissance lover Leo was quickly spending the Roman Church into bankruptcy...and German money started to dry up with Luther's Theses, and later writings--hence the stern desire on Leo et al, to quash Luther and his kind....
All one needs to do is to follow the money trail, and the rejection of and persecution of Luther makes total sense.
To quote your own shtick, "what are you smoking?"
You've never heard of Luther's essay "Against the murderous and robbing rabble of Peasants"?
Luther called upon the princes to slaughter the offending peasants like mad dogs and held out as a reward the promise of heaven.
More than 1000 monasteries and castles were levelled to the ground, hundreds of villages were laid in ashes, the harvests of the nation were destroyed and 100,000 killed.
Glad I could help.
Indulgences have nothing to do with forgiveness. You can keep repeating that falsehood until you are blue in the face, but indulgences cannot be understood in any sense to bring forgiveness of sins.
Your one witness was not actually a witness.
The legend may have been uncritically accepted by many historians over time who did not bother to do the homework, but there remains exactly zero primary sources to confirm the legend.
Going to have to go with catholiceducation.org here. They don't parse as hard as you do.
Remission = forgiveness, even of temporal punishment or purgatory except in Rome on this topic. Again, very Clintonian.
wideawake, you wrote:
“And there really isn’t any evidence that the church doors of Wittenberg were used as bulletin boards.”
I’m not sure about that. On the one hand, Iserloh made an absolutely conclusive case that there was no contemporary evidence whatsoever that Luther nailed anything on the church doors of Wittenberg: http://books.google.com/books?id=9HBIAAAAMAAJ&q=erwin+iserloh&dq=erwin+iserloh&hl=en&ei=un6pTrPqN4L40gGek-WQDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA
On the other hand, there was Melancthon’s mention in his memoirs decades later of Luther putting something on (”attached”) the “temple” in Wittenberg.
Anyway, Protestants responded to Iserloh quickly enough (though ineffectively) through Kurt Aland’s book: Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.
Newer evidence was found just a few years ago which adds more credence to Luther’s story, but there is still no conclusive evidence. Look into the discovery made by Martin Treu in 2006 in Georg Rörer’s New Testament in 1540.
What ultimately is most important is not on the nailing up of the theses, but the bad theology of Luther, his heresy, and his terrible character flaws.
I addressed the supposed Roerer “evidence” upthread. And Melanchthon was not present - he was telling a story he heard from someone else. The story is a legend.
The Peasants Revolt was a very dangerous things. It was similar to a mass terrorist uprising. Luther was shocked that the revolt started, and horrified at mass killings on both sides. Luther was used for political ends by all sides, yet wouldn’t activly join the Emperor or the princes.
Guilt may be forgiven.
Punishment may be remitted, or curtailed.
In order for an indulgence to remit punishment, your guilt must first be forgiven.
And an indulgence cannot impart that necessary forgiveness.
I get it, but I doubt the people buying them did.
Oddly enough, to most folks German, in 1517, would have been the unintelligible written language. While German was spoken, there was no uniform written German language. Luther's first translation of the Bible (the September Bible) wouldn't be published for another five years, and the complete German translation wouldn't be published until 1534.
Those publications were so popular in what were to become the Protestant areas (not so much so in Catholic neighborhoods) in large part because they were the first widly circulated work to reduce the spoken vernacular German into a written language.
Not true.
Martin Luther translated a large portion of the Bible into German using the court German of the House of Wettin.
The Electors of Saxony - the major political power in the Saxony/Thuringia region - had been using that written dialect of Saxon German for more than a century for official correspondence, record keeping, etc.
If you lived in Wittenberg and owned a business, or were a guild craftsman, or engaged in trade at a high level, you could likely read this Kanzlerdeutsch, and you could likely read simple Church Latin as well.
Part of the Luther legend is the implication that he somehow invented the use of written German.
What he did was take one of the better-known written dialects of the language and make it the most popular and widely-used written form of German.
Academic Latin - like that of Thesis 20: Igitur papa per remissionem plenariam omnium penarum non simpliciter omnium intelligit, sed a seipso tantummodo impositarum. - would be completely unintelligible even to the average literate citizen of Wittenberg, let alone the unlettered mass of citizens.
The 95 theses were written for a handful of advanced students of theology.
In contrast, Luther wrote his German works, including his translation of the Bible, for a different audience.
Those were written for the nobility, the petty nobility, the wealthy tradesmen and guildsmen and mid-level clergy.
His core constituency.
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