Fallacy About Our Brother, Martin Luther
In 1517 when Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the collegiate church of Wittenberg University, most people thought he was attacking abuses connected with the preaching of indulgences, which helped to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Not entirely so; for example, theses six and thirty-eight denied the authority of the Church to forgive sins; eight, ten, and twelve denied the doctrine of Purgatory; eighty-six was a personal insult: The Pope is a rich man, let him build St. Peter's himself. Brother Martin, bedeviled by his own scruples and doubts, simply used that occasion as a springboard to denaturalize and eviscerate the doctrinal structure of the Catholic faith, and bring thereby the thinking of the Catholic Church into line with his own!
How could the Augustinian Friar inveigh against some 1500 years of Catholic Magisterium? His scruples and doubts betrayed him into overt attacks on the faith he professed, because he could not have the certainty that God forgave his sins. So in desperation he devised his own doctrine of salvation: "Faith alone" in the saving merits of Christ. For him that was salvific doctrine, and contrary to Catholic teaching.
Already in 1512 he had voiced his anger at the official teaching of the Catholic Church with which he was in disagreement. "The crime and scandal of sexual failings, drunkenness, gambling, and other reprehensible conduct" says Fray Martin, were as nothing compared to the official teaching of the Catholic Faith.
Luther was so convinced of his own erroneous interpretation of Romans 1-17, "…The just man lives by faith," (justification by faith alone, as Luther saw it), that he insisted on his own novel doctrine for all men. Logically then the Catholic Church was wrong, and could not interpret Scripture properly; interpretations had to be left to the individual, (except when the Scriptures were used to refute him). No ecclesiastical authority, nor his Augustinian Superiors, nor the Magisterium of the Church, nor anyone could convince him otherwise.
Luther's so-called reformation was then simply hard-headed rebellion against the teaching authority of the Church, founded by Christ, to lead men by her doctrine on a guaranteed path to salvation. Fray Martin knew more than his Augustinian brethren, more than the Church, more than the university faculties of Louvain and Paris. His heresies were soon refuted and would have fallen useless, except that the ambience in Germany was particularly propitious for rebellion. Favorable to his revolution were: German nationalism, aversion to Rome and other things Italian, a Catholic Emperor elsewhere occupied with the invasion of the Turks and petty wars among Catholic princes, the materialist secular enlightenment, breakdown in morality, and some abuses found in the preaching of the indulgences.
A Revolutionary, Not A Reformer
Martin Luther was tried for heresy since he refused to change his stance, was condemned by excommunication, and would have been silenced except that Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, adroitly sequestered him and protected him. Although isolated in the Wartburg, where he translated the Bible into German, his teachings spread rapidly and were accepted. In his aggressive writings, Luther contended that celibacy was no longer meritorious or necessary, that vows were an abomination; that the Pope was a monster and therefore he and his popish institutions should be eliminated. As a direct result of his misguided teachings, many priests and religious threw off their habits and vows, peasants revolted against their masters, secular princes seized Church properties; unrest, disorder, and violence became widespread.
So it became clear that our brother, Martin Luther, was not interested in reforming abuses; he was much interested in radically changing the Catholic Church to fit his own personal mold of salvation. His perfervid preaching was directed to destroying the very soul of Catholic doctrine, which was intended by Christ to teach men truth and lead them securely to salvation. This may seem too critical of Luther's doctrine so let us permit Brother Martin to speak for himself. In his revolutionary manifesto, To The German Nobility on The Reform of The Christian State, he explains the reforms, which he decided were necessary for Christianity:
1. Abolish the distinction between laity and priesthood, since all Christians are priests from their Baptism;
2. Eliminate the Supreme Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, since there should be no other norm than the Bible, interpreted subjectively by each individual;
3. Deny the right of the Pope to convoke General Councils, since that was the competency of the secular princes and the Christian people.
In the abrogation of these three essential bulwarks of the Catholic Faith, resides the authentic revolution of our brother, Martin Luther.
Many Other Factors Played A Part
Fray Martin expatiates: "I do not impugn immoralities and abuses, but rather the substance and doctrine of the Papacy." Again, "I am not like Erasmus and others before me, who criticized only the morals of the Papacy; I, contrariwise, never ceased attacking the two bases of the Papacy: monastic vows, and the sacrifice of the Mass." "Among us, life is not godly, just like among the papists; we do not accuse them of immorality, but of doctrinal error. Neither Wycliff nor Hus knew how to do this… This is my vocation."
He further avers: "Even though the Pope were as saintly as St. Peter, we would still consider him as impious." "The Pope has convened his Council against the pestiferous Lutheran heresy. We oppose him with the Our Father and the Creed, but not the Ten Commandments, because in the question of morality we are too deficient." "Even if the Faith and discipline of the early Church flourished in the Roman Papacy, even then we would have to struggle against the papists and tell them: if you have no more than apostolic sanctity and purity of life, you still merit to be expelled from the kingdom of heaven."
In preaching and writing of this kind, Fray Martin evidences that he is a revolutionary, not a reformer. He does not condemn Roman immorality, or the abuses of the Curia, but he boldly anathematizes the Catholic teaching of salvation, of the Magisterium, of ecclesiastical hierarchy, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of celibacy, of vows. Was his friend, the humanist Wilibrord Pirckheimer, right when he remarked that, "Fray Martin Luther was guided by dementia and an evil spirit?"
Another friend, Philip Melanchthon, who collaborated much with the codifying of the Lutheran faith at Wartburg (December, 1521), humanized the teachings of Luther into a rule of faith and philosophy of life. However, truth demands that we clarify that Luther had a type of messianic complex, rebelled not against the abuses of the Church, but rather against the authority of the Catholic Church and the Augustinian Order, and thereby disfigured, deformed, and emasculated the faith revealed by Christ … the faith, which Fray Martin professed as a Catholic and an Augustinian.
So as we celebrate Luther's birthday, on his 500th anniversary we hope to keep the record straight: that it is a fallacy to say that Luther went awry from attacking abuses in the Church; rather, the obvious conclusion from his own testimony is that he followed a revolutionary path trying to find for himself and his followers a way of salvation different from that taught with authority by the Catholic Church.
Reverend John J. Kelly, O.S.A., has spent most of his priestly life working in Cuba and South America. Currently he is assigned to the Augustinian Mission in Morropon, Piura, Peru. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Havana and then served as president of the Catholic University of Havana, 1950-1959, when he was forced to leave by the Castro regime. Fr. Kelly is a well-known lecturer and a council member of the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation.
This item 3423 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
