Hovering over Rome: The Ghost of Martin Luther

The Catholic World Report ^ | March 16, 2016 | Allessandra Nucci

[ebb tide]

In his 2008 publication “Night-time Conversations in Jerusalem”, written in German, Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini praised Luther as having somehow inspired the changes that came after Vatican Council II, thereby effectively recasting as the greatest of reformers he who had previously been seen as the prototypical excommunicated heretic.

Bingo!

[heterosupremacist]

What you don’t know about Martin Luther

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd66KXIbAjc

[Charles Henrickson]

Next year will be the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and that will be a big deal for us Lutherans. I am a Lutheran pastor (LCMS).

[aMorePerfectUnion]

Thank God for Blessed Saint Luther!

To recover the Gospel in more than any man could hope to do in a lifetime.

Thanks be to God too, that He uses flawed humans to advance His Kingdom.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

:: recasting as the greatest of reformers he who had previously been seen as the prototypical excommunicated heretic ::

Luther would have declined any such “casting” of his efforts.

[ebb tide]

Pope Francis to Lead "Common worship service" to Commemorate 5th Centenary of Lutheran Revolt

Celebrating an Apocalyptic Plague

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

See my post #5...

Saliente!

[Amity]

Luther would have declined any such “casting” of his efforts.

No doubt. OTOH, the Catholic Church ultimately responded to many of Luther's accusations by recognizing that Luther was right -- although not in so many words. For instance, when's the last time you heard about modern-day indulgence abuses? Catholics today are on Luther's side of the grand majority of the 95 theses.

The Catholic Church has a long history of veering off course and then getting pulled back to center. Luther may not have become a Catholic Reformer, but he certainly was a reformer, and I would hazard a guess he was an influence on many of those who did the work within the Catholic Church.

Although I admittedly say that as an outsider -- I consider myself Christian first, denomination second: currently Lutheran, never been Catholic.

[CharlesOConnell]

I have a lot of personal affection for Father Luther. His ‘A Mighty Fortress Is Our God’ (Ein Fest Burg) was originally composed in a lilting, dancing free rhythm, that I saw in the hymnal at St. John’s Sacramento (where the biggest organ pipes are 21 feet high, below the range of human hearing). I have a lot of affection for Sebastian Bach who, in his classes as a Latin and humanities instructor at Tomaskirke Leipzig, was actively concerned for his students’ salvation. My granddaughter who attends a Lutheran church has discussed her faith with me, and I’m getting her a Lutheran Rosary, that may or may not include the prayers to Mary that Father Martin said. But Father Martin showed some psychological problems that have probably relegated him to a spiritual backwater.

[ebb tide]

I’ve never heard of a rosary that does not include prayers to the Blessed Mother.

What exactly is a Lutheran rosary?

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

I consider myself catholic. As I have told others, Lutherans just “do justification” better than Rome. Luther’s real intent was to Reform the RC Church, not destroy it (a la Zwingli!)

Keep in mind that, to describe yourself as Christian-first and then Lutheran is a redundancy! :-)

Note too that the RCC declared the millennial change (Year 2000) as a time of indulgence. Recently, the RCC has indicated they will “canonize” Theresa.

These point to the RCC’s continued error in theology.

[Belteshazzar]

The video you linked contains no new information whatever, despite the sensationalized title. What the information it twists actually testifies to is an honest inquiry into the nature and practice of the Christian faith, as it was commonly understood at the time, in comparison to what the Holy Scriptures plainly taught. That Luther remained convinced to the end of his life that the Christian Church existed before him, continued to exist, and always would exist, Matthew 16:18, is wholly unsurprising. It is entirely scriptural. That Luther for a good while hoped that the Roman pontiff of the time was not part of the evident corruption in and by the Roman church of the time is a testament more to his basic loyalty and conservatism. When his pleas for serious examination of such abuses went not simply unanswered but denied - and the abuses defended! - that signaled the turning point. And that point was made by Rome. Luther was excommunicated by papal decree. He did not leave the church. Luther also continued to believe that the Roman church still included many Christians, because the Scriptures were still read there and the liturgy still retained many of the scriptural truths within it, although with admixture, and also, from time to time, they were rightly expounded by preachers, i.e. priests, who were more faithful to the teachings of Christ. Some of whom are still around today.

The video also likes to cherry-pick certain statements of Luther from his early writings to “prove” its narrow point, that is, that “Protestantism” (an originally papist pejorative term, that many of the later advocates of radical reformation and their followers - think Karlstadt, Zwingli, and Calvin - uncritically accepted and actual Lutherans reject), and then use that narrow point to issue a blanket denunciation of everything Luther wrote and preached. Such an approach is not intellectually honest. The video is, in fact, propagandistic, if not a piece of outright disinformation.

In other words, to make this brief, the video you linked is analogous to a Marxist analysis of capitalism, amusing in a certain clever way, but in the end useless.

[af_vet_1981]

Luther was a vicious antisemite who wrote a seven point plan adopted by the Germans against the Jews. One whose faith depends on Luther will defend him.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

"Luther was a vicious antisemite...

He learned it directly from his Catholic upbringing. He did not become instantly perfect. He was flawed like all men.

"One whose faith depends on Luther will defend him.

I don't know a single soul "whose faith depends on Luther."

[ebb tide]

I consider myself catholic.

I don't consider you to be one.

[ebb tide]

He did not become instantly perfect.

Nor did he become instantly damned.

[af_vet_1981]

Luther's book, The Jews and Their Lies was adopted by the Germans in the Holocaust. Step 1 was Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass.

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies, cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly ­ and I myself was unaware of it ­ will be pardoned by God. But if we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us (as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and lament about us before God.

Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them. (remainder omitted)

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

Fifth, I advise that safe­conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they possess. Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest. With this he could set himself up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in a good and worthy cause.

Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Gen 3[:19]}. For it is not fitting that they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

* * *

But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews' synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.

* * *

Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due reward.

* * *

I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in, proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole people perish. They surely do not know what they are doing; moreover, as people possessed, they do not wish to know it, hear it, or learn it. There it would be wrong to be merciful and confirm them in their conduct. If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus merit God's wrath and be damned with them. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated. "

[ebb tide]

Thanks be to God too, that He uses flawed humans to advance His Kingdom.

Sorry, but I'll stick with the one religion founded by a flawless Person, The Son of God. Not some adulterous heretic.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

Luther agitated against the demonic cult known as Judaism.
He was SPECIFICALLY NOT an anti-Semite yet would not countenance Judaizers and, as well, neither Mohammedans.
Yes I am equating them both.

Christ is of all and in all. To deny the Christ of Nazareth as the Messiah is spiritual death.

As Luther taught - The non-messianic Judaic tradition, the Mohamedans, and likewise the Mormons, JW and other cults are NOT Christian and accordingly will not be accorded Salvation. They teach and preach an erroneous doctrine/theology.

Here I stand.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

small ‘c’, catholic