Happy Reformation Day!!

[TaiKamiya720]

This Reformation Day marks the 500th anniversary of another schism in the Bride of Christ. Exactly half a millennia ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on a church wall in Germany, all because he wanted to break away with a revolution and make everybody want to read the Bible for him/herself without the Church's help.
However, Luther also wanted to defend faith alone at a time when the Catholics were selling indulgences and abusing them. In that way, I don't blame him. However, it's a big shame when in the end, Catholics and Protestants believe in just about the same expression about the relationship between faith and works. Western Christianity has seen a lot of divisions, particullary after the start of the Reformation.

 

[Major1]

We agree about the umbrella answer to that question and its Christ.
What constitutes faith in Christ and obedience to him is the point where we differ.

Christ is and has always been the key both in Rome aswell as Constantinople and lutheranism for that matter.

You said............
"What constitutes faith in Christ and obedience to him is the point where we differ."

Not so! Faith is either IN Christ or it is not. How can there be a difference on that????

The difference is the dogmas and practices that the RCC has added to faith in order to be saved which are not found in the Scriptures.

 

[Major1]

This Reformation Day marks the 500th anniversary of another schism in the Bride of Christ Exactly 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on a church wall in Germany, all because some monk wanted to break away with a revolution and make everybody want to read the Bible for him/herself without the Church's help. Luther also wanted to defend faith alone when the Catholics were selling indulgences and abusing them. In that way, I don't blame him. However, it's a big shame when in the end, Catholics and Protestants believe in just about the same expression about the relationship between faith and works. Western Christianity, has been dividing like crazy.

You said...........
"Catholics and Protestants believe in just about the same expression about the relationship between faith and works."

You are kidding ......right?

Any real Protestant Christian believes in Faith alone saves without any work from us at all.

I encourage you to re-think your opinion.

 

[Major1]

I should think it quite obvious that anyone who comes into a thread titled "Happy Reformation Day!" simply to say "the Reformation was inspired by Satan" should expect to encounter some serious opposition to that claim.

AMEN sister!!!!

 

[Major1]

Post #7 is flaming catholics too not that I expect justice in this thread.

Btw, since when was it allowed to discuss mod actions in threads?
If the mods don't play by their own rules one cannot expect law and order.

Please report me, close the thread and then discipline me if you feel that is the pious action.

Now didn't you expect the kind of answers you are getting????

When you said.................."The reformation was designed by Satan", did you really think that no one would challenge such a comment?????

 

[Phil 1:21]

Exactly half a millennia ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on a church wall in Germany, all because he wanted to break away with a revolution and make everybody want to read the Bible for him/herself without the Church's help.

"At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom." Matthew 27:51a

 

[amariselle]

You said...........
"Catholics and Protestants believe in just about the same expression about the relationship between faith and works."

You are kidding ......right?

Any real Protestant Christian believes in Faith alone saves without any work from us at all.

I encourage you to re-think your opinion.

Unfortunately this opinion is not rare in the "Protestant"/"Evangelical" world today.

Many respected "Protestant" and "Evangelical" leaders have formally united with Rome, met with the Pope at the Vatican and signed joint declarations of "unity" declaring the "Protest" to be over.

A large number of Christians today truly do not understand the irreconcilable differences that still exist between the Catholic churchs' doctrines and traditions and those of true "Protestants" and "Evangelicals".

Some of the leading missionary organizations have also been working alongside Catholics for years as well.

There is so much confusion in the Church today.

 

[Albion]

I've heard from Anglicans it's the other way around.

Perhaps @Albion can properly set me straight on their historical view.

It certainly is the case that Rome broke off from Canterbury.

Still, I think you can find Anglicans who take the standard line that's popular with Roman Catholics for granted. But that owes, I think, to 1) the fact that few people of any denomination study the history of it closely enough in order to know...and 2) we Anglicans do not worry about it or think it's worth arguing very much.

Thanks for asking.

 

[Yarddog]

The roman church at Trent: - CANON 9: "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."

CANON 12 - Ifany one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified, let him be accursed

Canon 14: "If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema."

Canon 23: "lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, - except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema."

Amen

 

[redleghunter]

You should go and read Luther's 95...

Rediscovery of the Gospel was the driving force behind the Reformation...

The instrumental cause for our Justification is Faith, that is the gospel.

John Chrysostom

"They said that he who kept not the Law was cursed, but he proves that he who kept it was cursed, and he who kept it not, blessed. Again, they said that he who adhered to Faith alone was cursed, but he shows that he who adhered to Faith alone is blessed." (Commentary on Galatians, 3, v. 8)

You and the chuch at rome , can keep your sacramental "law"

In Him.

Bill

Indeed we should read the 95 thesis

Martin Luther's 95 Theses

 

[redleghunter]

I had the thesis at one of my exams in theology a few years ago so your assumption I'm ignorant and stupid failed.

Good then you should know the extent of the corrupt papacy of Leo and his gangsters pilfering poor people of their money to pay for his building projects.

 

[GingerBeer]

Trent: - CANON 9: "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."

CANON 12 - Ifany one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified, let him be accursed

Canon 14: "If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema."

Canon 23: "lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, - except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema."

Interesting canons. Do you disagree with any or all of them?

 

[The Grouch]

A Catholic perspective of the Reformation from Catholic Answers apologist Karl Keating:

Not a Reformation but a Revolution.
I write this on the day known to most Americans as Halloween but to some American Protestants as Reformation Day. A year from today will mark the five-hundredth anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting his 95 Theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg. Between now and then we’ll see a ramp up of conferences, meetings, and seminars concerning the anniversary, beginning with the pope’s visit to Sweden.

Many people—mostly Protestants, of course, but also not a few Catholics—are talking of “celebrating” the Protestant Reformation. I am not one of them, because there is nothing to celebrate, though there is much to commemorate. Working from the Latin, to commemorate (“with memory”) means to keep something in memory or not to lose memory of it.

We commemorate 9/11 because we want to keep in mind the wickedness of the terrorism and the heroism of so many victims, police, and firefighters—but we don’t celebrate what happened on that day. We gladly would give up the heroism if we could have been spared the terror.

We commemorate to not forget

We commemorate December 7, the “day that will live in infamy,” because it was the prelude to a long and costly war. Again, there was heroism, but we wish that heroism had never needed to be called up.

We commemorate Bastille Day and the October Revolution not because what came from them, the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution, were good but precisely because they were evil, and we want to remember that evil so that it won’t return in another guise.



We celebrate none of these unhappy events, but we commemorate them. Not to do so would be to become blind to human currents, to the greatest, if most tragic, events of history. We celebrate events that have uplifted the human spirit and the human condition: secular events such as Independence Day and sacred events such as saints’ feast days. We commemorate events we wish had never happened but from which we can learn lessons.

I see nothing to celebrate in the Protestant Reformation. It was the greatest disaster the West suffered over the last millennium. It brought theological confusion, political turmoil, and decades of war. The religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries killed about three percent of the world’s population, the same proportion that died in World War II. The religious wars would not have occurred had the Reformation not occurred.

Earlier, a reform

Much was wrong in the Catholic Church of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Personal morality was lax (though not matching today’s laxity), and corruption was widespread among the clergy and was particularly scandalous the higher one’s gaze went up the hierarchical ladder. One should keep in mind, though, that, however bad things were in the decades before Luther took out his hammer, they had been worse in the tenth century. If there were a few “bad popes” in Luther’s era, there were worse popes, and more of them, five or six centuries earlier.

The Church of the tenth century desperately needed reform, not revolution, though it might have fallen into the latter if reform hadn’t come about. But reform did come about, and the Church not only soldiered on but prospered. The result was the High Middle Ages, the era in which Catholic principles most effectively (but still inadequately) undergirded Western society.

By the turn of the 1500s a once-again-complacent Christendom was in trouble. It again needed reform, but what it got was the Reformation. Luther, who was not much of a theologian, rejected some long-taught beliefs and offered a few novelties of his own fashioning. His counterparts elsewhere in Europe, such as Calvin and the English Reformers, did likewise. The result was a fissiparous Protestantism, the members of which were unable to agree among themselves on many doctrines and practices but could agree to oppose “the Pope of Rome.”

False principles lead to false principles

Protestantism was grounded on false principles, among them the private interpretation of Scripture, but private interpretation didn’t stop there. Once you accept the principle that there is no human-connected authority to which you must give obedience of mind and not just of action (the divinely protected but all-so-human magisterium), you’re free to use private interpretation at will. It isn’t limited to Scripture. It extends to the whole of religion.

One man’s private interpretation gets reinterpreted by another man, who thinks he has achieved the final and pure understanding, only to be confounded by his successors, who claim that he claimed too much or too little. There is no stopping point, but there is a kind of law of religious entropy at work, and the tendency is toward simplification. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob becomes the God of the Deists and then the God of the philosophers.

It is no accident that a straight line can be drawn from Protestantism through the Enlightenment to today’s secularism. (The ancestor of secular humanism isn’t a vague paganism; it’s Puritanism.) By its inner nature, Protestantism is unstable. It was and is a hodgepodge. Much in it is true, but that truth preexisted in Catholicism. To that truth were superadded partial truths and even untruths, and that made the construct unstable.

Silver linings have dark clouds

By the end of the wars of religion Protestantism seemed to have stabilized in several variants, but the stability was an illusion. The return of external peace unleashed centripetal forces within Protestantism, and the result was a long succession of offshoots.

The Anglican Church had broken off from the Catholic Church. The Methodist Church broke off from the Anglican. The Holiness churches broke off from the Methodist, and those churches have seen further splits. Such splits will not end, because there is a logic to further splitting. “That they all may be one” (John 17:21) has become “That they all may be multitudinous—and often at each other’s throats.” The acrimony directed at Rome also, with a few modifications, can be directed at Westminster or Geneva or Wittenberg.

None of this is to deny that many good and even holy people have come from or remain in Protestantism, nor is it to deny the invaluable work done by Protestant scholars, theologians, social thinkers, and everyday lay people. Most clouds have silver linings, but some eyes are capable of seeing only the silver linings, not the clouds.

A Reformation was never needed

Richard John Neuhaus, the founding editor of First Things, had been a Lutheran pastor. He converted to the Catholic faith in 1990 and a year later was ordained a priest. He once was asked the reason for his conversion, and he replied he came into the Church because the Reformation no longer was needed. His comment diminished him in my eyes, because the comment was fatuous.

There never was a need for the Reformation. There was a need for reform, and the Reformation—despite its name—was not a reform but a revolt. It did not make the Church more of what it should have been. It made the Church into something else by making new churches.

One should celebrate Neuhaus’s entry into the Church, as one celebrates the entry of so many learned people who have become Catholics over the last three decades or so, but he offered a poor reason, even a false reason. I presume he proffered substantial and convincing reasons that I missed hearing about, yet it is this comment of his that has stuck in my mind.

It brings to mind a line from T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral: “The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” (I don’t accuse Neuhaus, a good man, of treason; it’s just that the second half of this quotation is more than apt.)

It won’t do to say that, at some point, the Reformation ceased to be needed. It never was needed, and, like bad movements throughout history, it brought more grief than good. It was, and to a certain extent remains, a powerful historical force, one that we should keep in memory by commemorating it—but not by celebrating it.

It is very rare to find a post that is a clear and definate example of truth. Often we find our posts not thoughtout enough or we just miss the point or we just fail to grasp the fullness of understanding a topic sometimes our posts fail to convey what we want to say sometimes we fail to get the right words.

But this post is as near a perfect post as i have ever read

But even jesus needed judas to complete his mission.

The protestant reformation was not needed and it has brought about much suffering and without doubt one can see the line between the modern secular world of relativism with protestantism that reality is absolutly without doubt

But i also believe the protestant reformation was forknown and forseen by our lord our God and it was needed for his greater plan for humanity

 

[PeaceByJesus]

The reformation was inspired by Satan and brought a rupture in western Christianity. It brought war and suffering.
Its nothing to celebrate, if one does indeed celebrate it (as some heretics even in our own church) one either lacks perspectives and historical awareness or one simply love the havoc and great sadness it brought upon the church.

Lacks perspectives and historical awareness you say? Strange how it seems many (most) Catholics are ignorant of the perspective and historical awareness of Ratzinger, among others:

• "For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution."

"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196) Who’s in Charge Here? The Illusions of Church Infallibility – White Horse Inn

• Cardinal Bellarmine:

"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,) ​

• Joseph Lortz, German Roman Catholic theologian:
“The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution...”

“The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon.”

“When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined.” ("The Reformation: A Problem for Today” (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), “The Causes of the Reformation," pp. 35-37; . Beggars All: Reformation And Apologetics: A Roman Catholic Scholar Looks at Causes of the Reformation )
​

• Maurice W. Sheehan: In this lecture I want to talk about the causes of the Reformation. This is a rather standard approach to the Reformation because it is admitted by all that the Reformation did not just happen or come like a bolt from the blue...Part of the tragedy of the Reformation is that the Church before 1517 was unable to reform itself or to set in motion events or changes that would have led to a reform in the Church that would have satisfied its members and really affected change...

To...Boniface IX, goes the unenviable distinction of probably having begun the papal sale of offices...

1447 is usually taken as the year that began or marked the appearance of what we call the Renaissance Papacy, or the Renaissance Popes. The Italian Renaissance was in full swing at this time, and when we speak of the Renaissance Popes what we mean more than anything else is that these popes were more men of culture or rulers than popes...Sixtus IV was completely a worldling. He is best known perhaps for the chapel that he built which was later decorated by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. His successor Innocent VIII had an illegitimate family. Alexander VI, who was Spanish, was perhaps the worst of them all. He had many illegitimate children, but he was a good political candidate. But his reign as pope did more to weaken the moral prestige of the papacy than almost anything imaginable...

And if we go to the clergy, to what we can call the lower clergy or the ordinary priests, we can say that one vice that many of them had was immorality. Many of them had women that they kept in their rectories by whom they had children, so they had families to support. — Maurice W. Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., Lecture 2: Prelude-Causes, Attempts at Reform to 1537; International Catholic University http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01802.htm [/FONT]

• Catholic historian Paul Johnson[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy during this period leading up to the Refomation:

“Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270)

Luther did not intend to initiate or carry out a split in the Roman church, and his 95 thesis were not even about things which should have caused one, but the recalcitrance of Rome against reproof, and her many valid errors (some of which Reformers held to), and the memory of how corruptible "the Church" was (what one does is the evidence of what one believes, not mere professions: Ja. 2:18; Mt. 7:20) and the slowness of Roman self reform (which was not enough anyway), meant one a split was compelled then Reformation could not be held back.

Yet the work of Reformation is not that of one day or two, and in some ways went too far (and Luther, having not planned it, did not oversee it well) and in others not far enough. but it was and is needed, Rome making that necessary.

Today, looking back it is even clearer that the Catholic church is not distinctively the NT church, but is the most manifest deformation of it.

And has become as the gates of Hell for multitudes (as have liberal Prot churches (which tend to be closest to Rome), while evangelicals have testified to being the most unified in basic beliefs.

​

 

[Swan7]

See pic in signature block. I agree.

I have no idea what this is supposed to justify.

 

[The Grouch]

Lacks perspectives and historical awareness you say? Strange how it seems Catholics are ignorant of the perspective and historical awareness of Ratzinger, among others:

• "For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution."

"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196) Who’s in Charge Here? The Illusions of Church Infallibility – White Horse Inn

• Cardinal Bellarmine:

"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,) ​

• Joseph Lortz, German Roman Catholic theologian:
“The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution...”

“The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon.”

“When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined.” ("The Reformation: A Problem for Today” (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), “The Causes of the Reformation," pp. 35-37; . Beggars All: Reformation And Apologetics: A Roman Catholic Scholar Looks at Causes of the Reformation )
​

• Maurice W. Sheehan: In this lecture I want to talk about the causes of the Reformation. This is a rather standard approach to the Reformation because it is admitted by all that the Reformation did not just happen or come like a bolt from the blue...Part of the tragedy of the Reformation is that the Church before 1517 was unable to reform itself or to set in motion events or changes that would have led to a reform in the Church that would have satisfied its members and really affected change...

To...Boniface IX, goes the unenviable distinction of probably having begun the papal sale of offices...

1447 is usually taken as the year that began or marked the appearance of what we call the Renaissance Papacy, or the Renaissance Popes. The Italian Renaissance was in full swing at this time, and when we speak of the Renaissance Popes what we mean more than anything else is that these popes were more men of culture or rulers than popes...Sixtus IV was completely a worldling. He is best known perhaps for the chapel that he built which was later decorated by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. His successor Innocent VIII had an illegitimate family. Alexander VI, who was Spanish, was perhaps the worst of them all. He had many illegitimate children, but he was a good political candidate. But his reign as pope did more to weaken the moral prestige of the papacy than almost anything imaginable...

And if we go to the clergy, to what we can call the lower clergy or the ordinary priests, we can say that one vice that many of them had was immorality. Many of them had women that they kept in their rectories by whom they had children, so they had families to support. — Maurice W. Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., Lecture 2: Prelude-Causes, Attempts at Reform to 1537; International Catholic University http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01802.htm [/FONT]

• Catholic historian Paul Johnson[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, sans-serif]additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy during this period leading up to the Refomation:

“Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270)

Luther did not intend to initiate or carry out a split in the Roman church, and his 95 thesis were not even about things which should have caused one, but the recalcitrance of Rome against reproof, and her many valid errors (some of which Reformers held to), and the memory of how corruptible "the Church" was (what one does is the evidence of what one believes, not mere professions: Ja. 2:18; Mt. 7:20) and the slowness of Roman self reform (which was not enough anyway), meant one a split was compelled then Reformation could not be held back.

Yet the work of Reformation is not that of one day or two, and in some ways went too far (and Luther, having not planned it, did not oversee it well) and in others not far enough. but it was and is needed, Rome making that necessary.

Today, looking back it is even clearer that the Catholic church is not distinctively the NT church, but is the most manifest deformation of it.

And has become as the gates of Hell for multitudes (as have liberal Prot churches (which tend to be closest to Rome), while evangelicals have testified to being the most unified in basic beliefs.
​

Sounds very familiar sends shivers when i think about it....but luther lost sight of the truth because the truth is always found in tradition as saint paul reminds us... in that which has been passed on from the apostles and their successors in what the church has always taught in what christians have always believed. Luther was the first christian progressive he did not restore the christian faith to its former beauty he revolutionised it into something entirely different to what it was it was not a restoration of the church to the old faith instead he created an entirely new faith with new doctrines... that was his error not his beef with the dodgy practices of corrupt churchmen

 

[GingerBeer]

Strange how it seems Catholics are ignorant of the perspective and historical awareness of Ratzinger

Joseph Ratzinger (aka Benedict XVI) is a Catholic isn't he so obviously at least one Catholic is not ignorant. I suspect you ought to have qualified your words to "some Catholics appear to be ..." rather than posting a sweeping generalisation that is likely to be untrue.

 

[PeaceByJesus]

This Reformation Day marks the 500th anniversary of another schism in the Bride of Christ. Exactly half a millennia ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on a church wall in Germany, all because he wanted to break away with a revolution and make everybody want to read the Bible for him/herself without the Church's help.

What history book or RC propaganda site ("Catholic Answers?") are you getting that from? What is in the 95 thesis, or how much do you know of, that you find impious, or distinctively Protestant, and calling for schism, versus a exhortation to reform? Where in it does Luther even mention reading the Bible for him/herself?

However, Luther also wanted to defend faith alone at a time when the Catholics were selling indulgences and abusing them. In that way, I don't blame him. However, it's a big shame when in the end, Catholics and Protestants believe in just about the same expression about the relationship between faith and works.

Same expression? Mormons will "express" they believe in one God, the Father, etc. till you dig deeper.

Tell me how a typical Catholic would understand Trent here:

"nothing further is wanting to the justified [baptized and faithful], to prevent their being accounted to have, by those very works which have been done in God, fully satisfied the divine law according to the state of this life, and to have truly merited eternal life." (Trent, Chapter XVI; The Sixth Session Decree on justification, 1547)

Canon 32 similarly states,

"If anyone says that the good works of the one justified are in such manner the gifts of God that they are not also the good merits of him justified; or that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit an increase of grace, eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself and also an increase of glory, let him be anathema." (Trent, Canons Concerning Justification, Canon 32. Also see The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1919 ed., Decree on Justification, Chapters V, VI, VII, X, XIV, XV, XVI) (emphasis mine)

Shortened, this teaches, "If anyone says that the one justified by the good works that he performs by the grace of God does not truly merit eternal life, and in case he dies in grace, the attainment of eternal life itself, let him be anathema."

Would they understand this as teaching that since works evidence what one believes, and God rewards faith as manifested by what it effects, then one is accounted/judged to be a believer based on what he/she did, and as one given the gift of eternal life, and fit to be rewarded under grace for works which only God really can take credit for (while the only thing man can really take credit for is his sin)?

Or would they understand this as teaching something life that they actually merit eternal life, because by God's grace they live a pretty good life, and do not really hurt anyone, and do more good than bad, and thus they think God will let them into Heaven on that basis, but have never had a conclusions day of salvation, when they humbled themselves as a damned and destitute sinner, and with contrite heart trusted the risen Lord Jesus to saved on His account, by His sinless shed blood?

Having asked multitudes of Caths why they thought God would let them into Heaven and found the response to basically be the latter, I would challenge you to do that same.

Hopefully it will not be as a Catholic Answers forum:

I feel when my numbers up I will appoach a large table and St.Peter will be there with an enormous scale of justice by his side. We will see our life in a movie...the things that we did for the benefit of others will be for the plus side of the scale..the other stuff,,not so good will..well, be on the negative side..and so its a very interesting job Pete has. I wonder if he pushes a button for the elevator down for the losers...and what .sideways for those heading for purgatory..the half way house....lets wait and see.... ” - http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=4098202&postcount=2

Western Christianity has seen a lot of divisions, particullary after the start of the Reformation.

Division was manifest before the Reformation (see above), and even long before it this was seen,

[FONT=Arial, sans-serif](Basil of Caesarea (4th century), Fathers.. Vol. 9: When I grew to manhood, I traveled about frequently and, in the natural course of things, I engaged in a great many worldly affairs. Here I observed that the most harmonious relations existed among those trained in the pursuit of each of the arts and sciences; while in the Church of God alone, for which Christ died and upon which He poured out in abundance the Holy Spirit, I noticed that many disagree violently with one another and also in their understanding of the Holy Scriptures. Most alarming of all is the fact that I found the very leaders of the Church themselves at such variance with one another in thought and opinion,..). [/FONT]​

and the Reformation actually made Catholicism more coherent and cohesive in doctrine, if erroneous in part. But today once again it is an amalgam of variant beliefs from Ted Kennedy RCs to cultic traditionalists, all of whom mother Rome treats as members in life and in death. while evangelicals have testified to being the most unified in basic beliefs.

 

[faroukfarouk]

The believer today has a glorious heritage of Biblical doctrine.

 

[Winken]

Happy Reformation day!!

https://plus.google.com/+ligonierministries/posts/TQenX7WZKXL




The roman church at Trent: - CANON 9: "If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema."

CANON 12 - Ifany one shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified, let him be accursed

Canon 14: "If any one saith, that man is truly absolved from his sins and justified, because that he assuredly believed himself absolved and justified; or, that no one is truly justified but he who believes himself justified; and that, by this faith alone, absolution and justification are effected; let him be anathema."

Canon 23: "lf any one saith, that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or, on the other hand, that he is able, during his whole life, to avoid all sins, even those that are venial, - except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard of the Blessed Virgin; let him be anathema."

Sadly, it is an invention, not Biblical.