OF COURSE HE DID!
Thank God for Blessed Father Luther - an imperfect man, like every other man God uses - who was used to recover the Glorious Gospel of Grace!
Posted on 08/12/2016 3:59:59 PM PDT by ebb tide
Germany’s Catholic bishops have praised Martin Luther as a “Gospel witness and teacher of the faith” and called for closer ties with Protestants.
In a 206-page report, “The Reformation in Ecumenical Perspective”, Bishop Gerhard Feige of Magdeburg, chairman of the German bishops’ ecumenical commission, said the “history of the Reformation has encountered a changeable reception in the Catholic Church, where its events and protagonists were long seen in a negative, derogatory light”.
“While the wounds are still felt to the present day, it is gratifying that Catholic theology has succeeded, in the meantime, in soberly reconsidering the events of the 16th century,” he said in the report, published this week by Germany’s Bonn-based bishops’ conference.
Bishop Feige said the “history and consequences” of the Reformation would be debated during its upcoming 500th anniversary, but added that there was consensus that previous mutual condemnations were invalid.
“Memories of the Reformation and the subsequent separation of Western Christianity are not free from pain,” Bishop Feige said. “But through lengthy ecumenical dialogue, the theological differences rooted in the period have been re-evaluated – as is documented in the work presented by our ecumenical commission.”
Martin Lazar, the Magdeburg diocesan spokesman, told Catholic News Service on Wednesday that the Reformation still caused tensions in Germany, especially “in religiously separated families.”
The bishops’ report said the “Catholic Church may recognise today what was important in the Reformation – namely, that Sacred Scripture is the centre and standard for all Christian life.
“Connected with this is Martin Luther’s fundamental insight that God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the people is proclaimed in the Gospel – that Jesus Christ is the centre of Scripture and the only mediator.”
The Reformation is traditionally dated from the October 1517 publication of Luther’s 95 Theses, questioning the sale of indulgences and the Gospel foundations of papal authority.
Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X in January 1521 and outlawed by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
The German bishops describe Luther as “a religious pathfinder, Gospel witness and teacher of the faith,” whose “concern for renewal in repentance and conversion” had not received an “adequate hearing” in Rome.
They said the reformer’s work still posed a “theological and spiritual challenge” and had “ecclesial and political implications for understanding the Church and the Magisterium.”
The report said a joint Catholic-Lutheran statement in 1980 commemorating the Augsburg Confession, which set out the new Lutheran faith, had been crucial in bringing churches closer, while another ecumenical statement in 1983, on the 500th anniversary of Luther’s birth, had started an “intensive engagement” with the reformer’s work.
A historic 1999 joint declaration on the doctrine of justification was a “milestone in ecumenical dialogue,” the report said, by recognising that remaining differences should “no longer have a church-dividing effect.”
The bishops’ report includes June 2015 conciliatory letters between the German bishops’ conference president, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, and Lutheran Bishop Heinrich Strohm, president of the Evangelical Church of Germany, outlining plans for a 2017 ecumenical pilgrimage to the Holy Land and a Lent service devoted to “healing memories.”
In an interview with CNS, the ecumenical commission’s deputy chairman, Bishop Heinz Algermissen of Fulda, said Catholic-Lutheran ties had improved since the Second Vatican Council, but that churches must work for “visible unity, not just reconciled diversity.”
“This means not only praying together, but meeting the challenge of speaking with one voice as Christians when we are all challenged by aggressive atheism and secularism, as well as by [radicalised] Islam. Otherwise we will lose more and more ground,” he said.
“In commemorating the Reformation, we cannot just see it as a jubilee, but should also admit our guilt for past errors and repent on both sides for the past 500 years,” he added.
Catholics make up 29 per cent of Germany’s 82 million inhabitants, with the Evangelical Church of Germany accounting for 27 per cent, although all denominations have faced declining membership.
During the Reformation, Luther did not abandon the rosary, though he shortened the Ave Maria to this form: “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou and the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” In this way he eliminated the plea for Mary to pray for the supplicant. He advised his followers to use the rosary as an aid to meditation.
https://liturgical.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/new-books-what-martin-luther-thought-about-prayer-beads/
I prefer the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church to your “church of me”.
Projection.
You choose to believe pagan things that are never found in Scripture - purely for personal preference. That seems like the Church of Ebb Tide.
That's on you bro. Eternity is a long time to think about how useless a Chinese scapular or beads or hexagrams were.
Yet, only you are keeping you from turning to Christ instead.
I guess you made it to yourself, congrats.
You appear to ignore scripture’s teachings such as John 20:23. I’m sorry I can’t convince you otherwise. That’s why I’ll say rosaries for you while wearing my scapular.
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Dear FRiends,
I love participating in the FReepathons, but I am beginning to wonder about you.
Where are you?
I see so many of you posting here, but where is your support?
Why aren't you bumping this thread?
Where will you be if this site can't survive?
Please take just a few moments to bump this thread. Help us keep this site alive.
Donate today.
Thank you.
Oh, I forgave you every time you insulted me. I don't hold it against you at all.
That’s why I’ll say rosaries for you while wearing my scapular.
Good one!
You would get as much benefit from wearing a brown recluse as from wearing the brown scapular.
You'd only risk your life wearing the brown recluse. If you put your trust in the brown scapular, you will lose eternal life with God.
See post #146 and then tell me if Luther believed in “pagan things” that are never found in “scripture.
He advised his followers to use the rosary as an aid to meditation.
Not surprising since he was catholic, old habits die hard no pun intended. Never heard of its use since in Lutheran circles. While the Magnificat and Gabriel's greeting to the Virgin are read and the Magnificat sung during the season, the emphasis is on Christ as her Savior as Mary intended in response to her cousin's greeting.
OF COURSE HE DID!
Thank God for Blessed Father Luther - an imperfect man, like every other man God uses - who was used to recover the Glorious Gospel of Grace!
I know prots don't pray for the dead, but do they pray for other living prots, or non-prots, or do they just rely on their own personal ticket to "heaven"?
Cursed be his name and his face. Get behind me.
Have you ever or do you now pray Luther's "rosary"?
Of course I pray for others. Especially, that God would open their eyes to the glorious Gospel of grace. That includes you, bro.
Ebb, I think you've just been patronized.
I didn’t think so. Lucia said she heard Mary ask that these words be said after each decade of the rosary:
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those who most need your mercy.
Whatever else one might think of Fatima, this is a wonderful prayer.
Yes, I think so too. :)
But you do agree that Lutherans are very quiet on what Martin Luther wrote about Mary being ever virgin, don’t you?
There are no examples of praying to or for the dead in the New Testament or the OT.
Nor are there any commands issued to rely upon a piece of cloth to avoid the hell-fire in the New Testament as idol worship is forbidden.
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