A couple of years ago, I spent Reformation Day in the company of a Lutheran friend (WELS), in a theater watching the movie LUTHER.
Happy Diwali-een!
Uh, happy Reformation Day too.
Do you guys have a Counter-Reformation Day? (Actually I think the preferred term among historians these days is "the Catholic Reformation").
Do you guys have a Counter-Reformation Day?
No; we have Pentecost.
On Reformation Sunday we had a retired Lutheran Pastor preach at our Catholic Church. He's the husband of our organist and he attends our church and sings in the choir.
Not sure if his preaching was at all kosher per the rubrics, but it was the best homily I've heard locally in years. He spoke on John's meaning of the word freedom in the Reformation Day Gospel (Jn 8:31-36). The homily was wonderful, because it's very rare in these parts to find a homilist treat the congregation like intelligent adults, as he did. Further, he gave such a very compelling and evangelistic version of the relationship between truth and freedom and Christ and freedom, that I almost thought I was listening to JPII.
God Bless the Lutherans.
Not Council of Nicea Day?
"Catholicism: Older Than Protestantism, More Compatible with the New Testament Than Judaism."
That last one was me: I'm collecting theological bumper stickers.
The reason, I believe, for historians now using "the Catholic Reformation" rather than "the Counter-Reformation" was that it conceded something to both sides.
* Catholics preferred it because it made clear that the RCC was not opposed to all reform, and indeed instituted its own reforms to end a number of the abuses the protestants had identified.
* Protestants preferred it because it acknowledges that the Reformers (contrary to the picture drawn by later RCs and Prots alike, emphasising the radical discontinuity) were themselves drawing extensively on the pre-1540s traditions of the Western Church. (When I first read Calvin's Institutes, or the Augsburg Confession, I was amazed at how often they cited Church Fathers, medieval theologians, canonised saints, and even Popes in support of their interpretations of Scripture, although the post-Trent RCC would reply that such statements were now inoperative, or had been "taken out of context"). Derek Wilson and Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's book Reformations http://www.google.com.au/search?...-Armesto+&
meta= is one example of this interpretation ("What is true of the doctrine of justification by faith, is true of virtually every other doctrine that has come to be defined as Protestant. There can hardly be an utterance made by a Protestant on a matter of faith in self-awareness as a Protestant, which has not been echoed by a Catholic without ceasing to be Catholic"), but from memory there have been others, on both sides.
Er... Mark, I know we're all being nice and ecumenical here, but can we call a spade a spade? The Reformation was built on serious theological errors and outright heresies. Luther was an anti-semetic nut who broke his vow of chastity and neglected his wife. Offering warm greetings on the anniversary of a schism that has put millions in grave danger of hell is exceedingly poor taste. Linking approvingly to a site that calls Luther a "prophet" is worse.
I'm married to an ELCA Lutheran. We got married in her church, with a Catholic deacon co-officiating. I love the Lutherans, I really do, because they try ever-so-hard to be Catholics and they don't even realize it. But they're still heretics. The goal now is to bring this church of heretics into full communion with the Church. The Lutheran schism was a sad, sad day in the history of Christianity, and what followed was the bloodiest period in european history to date. It's not something that should be celebrated.
I thought Sunday was Protestant Revolt Day?
Do you guys have a Counter-Reformation Day?
Every day is Counter-Reformation Day! 
Not sure if his preaching was at all kosher per the rubrics
Reflections or speeches by a lay speaker may not replace the homily by a bishop, priest, or deacon. Here's the relevant info.
What is true of the doctrine of justification by faith, is true of virtually every other doctrine that has come to be defined as Protestant. There can hardly be an utterance made by a Protestant on a matter of faith in self-awareness as a Protestant, which has not been echoed by a Catholic without ceasing to be Catholic
Well, of course that is the case. Whatever is true in Protestantism is true by virtue of its continuity with the deposit of faith preserved by the Catholic Church. What makes it Protestant instead of Catholic, however, is the willful choice of the founders of the Protestant factions to deny some other truth of the faith even as they affirm one -- such is the essence of heresy, derived as it is from the Greek word for "choice."
Ronny: yup.
Although the error does not always come by willful choice. I'm willing to bet that the overwhelming majority of Protestants today have no earthly idea that the most essential Protestant doctrines would all be 100% Catholic if they just stopped subjecting those doctrines to nominalist philosophical presuppositions.
Have you ever noticed that while Protestants frequently can tell you rather quickly why they specifically aren't Catholic, most Catholics can't tell why they aren't Protestant, either broadly or narrowly?
A catechesis of reaction.
"Luther was an anti-semitic nut who broke his vow of chastity and neglected his wife."
That reminds me: it must be about time for Harry Crocker to publis another argument that "Catholicism must be the OTC because we have great creative minds like Chesterton, Graham Greene and Eric Gill in our ranks"...
In the spirit of ecumenism - or "know the enemy", if you prefer - there is a truly excellent lecture series on Luther that is put out by the Teaching Company. The lectures are entitled Luther: Gospel, Law and Reformation by Professor Phillip Cary and consist of 24 half hour lectures retailing at a steep $180 (I'd wait for a sale when they can be had for about $50.)
Cary is a Protestant who handles the subject in a very even-handed manner by pointing out Luther's tremendous strengths and his equally dramatic weaknesses. My admiration for Luther knew no limits by the end of the first 12 lectures. By the end of the final 12 lectures - during which Cary discussed Luther and Predestination, Luther and his Enemies, Luther and Erasmus and, of course, Luther and the Jews - my assessment of Luther had returned to Earth.
Luther was a great man who changed the course of European history, but Luther left many tragic legacies.
That is the understatement of the day. Luther is held accountable to God for each and every soul lost to Protestantism. What torments in hell the heretics like Luther will suffer, is certainly beyond human comprehension. He definitely cannot be looking forward to the final judgment when his body will be reunited with his soul and his sufferings will increase to a
unimaginable degree. Makes a person want to pary all the more for heretics of today.
That is the understatement of the day. Luther is held accountable to God for each and every soul lost to Protestantism. What torments in hell the heretics like Luther will suffer, is certainly beyond human comprehension. He definitely cannot be looking forward to the final judgment when his body will be reunited with his soul and his sufferings will increase to a
unimaginable degree. Makes a person want to pary all the more for heretics of today.
pha,
True enough -- my remarks were primarily directed at the Protestant revolutionaries themselves. Many of the poor peasants who followed them and their local rulers and the descendants of the same do not fall under the same kind of critique.
Charles,
While Luther may indeed be suffering this horrible but just fate, it is not something that we can know with human certainty. Why speak of it as though it were?
Have you ever noticed that while Protestants frequently can tell you rather quickly why they specifically aren't Catholic, most Catholics can't tell why they aren't Protestant, either broadly or narrowly?
In my experience, most Protestants can't tell you why they're Protestant, just why they are Christian and why they are not Catholic. Many know more about the doctrines of Rome than of their own churches. When I tell my Lutheran or Evangelical friends why I don't believe in Total Depravity or Sola Scriptura, I usually have to explain what they mean first.
While Luther may indeed be suffering this horrible but just fate, it is not something that we can know with human certainty. Why speak of it as though it were?
I get a little annoyed that it is now taboo to speak of anyone as damned. No, I don't know with absoulte certainty the state of Luther's soul. No, I don't insert an "I believe in the eternal reprobation of Matin Luther..." clause when I say the Creed, right after the bit about the Communion of Saints. But I, and Charles, and everyone else is allowed to have an opinion, and to express it. I also think Martin Luther went to hell.
If you don't think I'm allowed to voice such an opinion, first go chastise Dante.
That last post was me.
The Saints are unanimous in the belief that the vast, vast majority of people are damned. Including the great majority of Catholics.
The saints have likewise never held out hope of salvation for those of false religions.
Saint Augustine said it best:
Heresies are embraced only by those who, had they perservered in the faith, would be lost by the irregularity of their lives.
Saint Alphonsus Maria Liuori:
The so called Reformers ( Protestants, ) have revived ancient
heresies, and have sought by false doctrines to destroy the faith of Jesus Christ, and, if possible to bring all souls with themselves to eternal perdition.
Pope St. Leo the Great :
Whoever continues in heresy is unpardonable, nor can he ever attain forgiveness. They are falling into blasphemy, which shall never be forgiven , neither in this world or
in the Judgement to come.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini:
If they ( Protestants) do not enter the True Church, the true fold of Christ, all their protestations are in vain.
The bible is very clear that anyone who is outside the Catholic Church, or has not received Baptism cannot go to heaven and that leaves hell as the only other place.
I have no problem with teaching people about the very real possibility of hell for each and everyone of us. In fact, I think that it is an injustice that Catholics are no longer reminded about this possibility from the pulpit.
I do not, however, see much utility in naming with certainty specific individuals who are in hell. For one thing, I may suspect that the interior conditions were met at the time of death for a person to be damned, but I cannot know this as a less-than-omniscient being. For another thing, I should take care to too smugly start rattling off a list of the damned lest I lose sight of the failings in my own life that may result in the loss of heaven for eternity.
"Charles", apparently one of James White's books was wholly and utterly invalidated because he misspelled "Liguori" and "Ligouri". All copies of it were either pulped or burned. So if you misspell is as "Liouri", well, a fortiori.
If you want to start blaming anyone for "souls lost to Protestantism", better start with St Paul -- including all that nominalistic dualism about "if by works, then it is no longer by grace", and not a word about the central role of Mary in our salvation.
Many [Protestants] know more about the doctrines of Rome than of their own churches.
I've met lots and lots of Protestants who knew more half-truths about and misrepresentations of Catholicism than they knew truths about their own churches, but I've never met more than a handful of Protestants who really knew and understood any distinctively Catholic doctrines.
better start with St Paul -- including all that nominalistic dualism
St. Paul was not a nominalist. Nominalism didn't even exist in his time period. It's the nominalist interpreters of Paul, not St. Paul himself, who twist scripture to mean things it could never have meant in the first century.
Hieronymus, I would assume that in the Catholic view, Luther went straight to hell when he died in 1546, but God let him out on parole, into Purgatory, when the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation signed the Joint Statement on Justification in 1999. Semper Eadem!
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