With the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation just around the corner, many Catholic and protestant commentators and pundits are discussing it.
Many Roman Catholics are gearing up to engage with Protestants in their celebrations of the “Lutheran explosion.” Many Roman Catholics have difficulty understanding how faith in God can be the only way of salvation. The reason of course is that they are taught from the beginning of their lives that salvation is the result of works, though now days the Catholic Church refers to faith as part of the journey.
Luther built the whole “Truth of the Church’s Faith” on the unique principle (at the time) of the Word of God and led an immense religious movement.
Some think it was merely personal anxiety about salvation that led Luther down the path that caused the church to tremble. But Rome’s teachers go beyond this. They suggest that during the time of Martin Luther there were “many evils in the Church,” (which was true) and that religiosity was degrading and becoming superficial.
Does that suggest that those evils don’t exist now? And that now the Lutheran church can return to Rome and comfortably support her organization and leadership?
The church needed a reform, they say, as if it doesn’t need it today. Schism had damaged the Papacy, while at one point there were three popes vying for pre-eminence and excommunicating the others. This caused much confusion theologically.
Luther “certainly was a man of his time, not of our time,” they say, as if those or worse evils don’t exist today.
“As children of the ecumenical era in the Church today, we must consider it an opportunity for us and seize the occasion of the 500 years of the Protestant Reformation which Martin Luther led, in order to exploit it for closer ecumenical ties with Lutherans and others.
“Luther himself was not an ecumenical person in the sense we understand ecumenism today; neither were his adversaries of the time. Both were inclined towards polemics and controversies.”
Luther was unsuccessful in getting church leaders to go along with him. And because of that he took his reform to the common people.
But “controversies and polemics have now been replaced by cordial and friendly dialogue… Pope Francis has inaugurated a new phase in ecumenical relations… He is explaining the meaning of the faith of the Church for the people of God; he is exploring the synodal structures of the Church to continue the journey, and taking risks to trod new approaches to collaborate with others, even though, as he knows well, the goal of real unity seems still far away… Pope Francis has once again resumed the concept of “reconciled diversity.”
In Evangelii Gaudium, the pope urges “conversion of the episcopate together with the primate.”
Unlike Ulrich Zwingli, Luther remained decidedly faithful to… the Eucharist. Luther also had openness to the issues of historical succession of the episcopate.
The fact is Luther had been a committed Roman Catholic. Even when he separated from Rome, he never did away with the mass. He never overthrew images and other Catholic features like Zwingli and others. He even had what the Catholic Church calls a mystical slant. But he was adamant that faith is at the core of salvation. Because Luther maintained these elements, the Catholic Church finds it relatively easy to engage in ecumenical dialog with Lutherans.
The Catholic Church has to find a way to make Luther appear a bit more pious than previously in order to “rehabilitate” the Lutheran Church making it possible to engage in advanced ecumenical dialog. “We are in need of a warm and welcoming ecumenism, as against cold and rigid ecumenism; we need to be ready to learn from one another. Only this way can the Catholic Church concretely and fully realize its ‘catholicity.’ We do not still have any common solution, but a way towards full unity has been opened.”
The Catholic Church now uses Luther’s gospel of grace, mercy of God and the call to conversion as the foundation of ecumenism, which is exactly the opposite of what Luther would have approved.
“Christian Unity today is closer than it was 500 years ago. In 2017 we should not think of ourselves as if we are still in 1517…! We need to give our world a common witness.”
Rome overlooks the points on which there is no common understanding. She believes that if she can secure unity on points on which they agree, the Lutheran Church will eventually shed its opposition to Rome.
“There has been for years, in churches of the Protestant faith, a strong and growing sentiment in favor of a union based upon common points of doctrine. To secure such a union, the discussion of subjects upon which all were not agreed–however important they might be from a Bible standpoint–must necessarily be waived.” The Great Controversy, page 444.
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