There has been a current move within certain quarters of the Catholic
Church to attempt to exonerate Martin Luther, the prime founder of
Protestantism. The man was an apostate from the Catholic priesthood,
continually cursed the papacy, mutilated the divine teachings of Our Lord
and was solemnly excommunicated from the Church of Christ. Such an attempt
to pardon or praise this man should be a grave concern of all Catholics who
value their Faith. Only an ill-will, or a deplorable ignorance could be
involved with an attempt to do such a terrible thing. To speak of the man's
"good points" while overlooking the bad can be compared to praising Satan
for his perfect "Faith"; or even recommending a bowl of poisoned soup
because of all the nutrition that is DOES have! The negative must be warned
against so that one may be aware of the danger that is present.
"Q. 554. Could a person who denies only one article of our faith be a
Catholic?
This has been the infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium of the
Church from the beginning, and St. Thomas repeats it in short: "To reject
but one article of faith taught by the Church is enough to destroy faith"
This entails a corresponding obligation on our part. St. Alphonsus
Liguori, Doctor of the Church, echoes Church teaching on the seriousness of
our obligation:
"Since heresy, and any kind of infidelity, is a mortal sin, they also sin
mortally who expose themselves to its danger, whether by their association,
or by listening to preaching, or by their reading."
Getting back to the exoneration of Martin Luther, let us now imagine an
analogous circumstance of someone today talking about the good points of
Adolf Hitler while overlooking the evil. Imagine the reaction were this to
be done on a computer forum! It would appear as though there were either a
tacit approval of the man's evils deeds, or a terrible ignorance of them.
"we all know that when Luther began to preach in Germany there were no
Lutherans, and it was he who was their origin. Since then such a people did
not belong to the true Church..."
"Now, I ask you, who has given Luther and Calvin a commission to revoke so
many holy and solemn promises of perpetuity which Our Lord has made to his
Church."
"if, on the contrary, O Luther, O Calvin, the true faith has always been
published and continually preached by all our predecessors, yourselves are
miserable who have a quite opposite one, and who, to find some excuse for
your wills and fancies, accuse all the Fathers either of impiety if they
have believed ill, or of treachery if they have kept silence."
"The Manicheans, says St. Jerome, denied free-will: Luther has composed a
book against free-will, which he calls "de servo arbitrio"..."
"...to Luther, to Calvin, - they having abandoned.....the Councils and the
entire Church."
"Luther has removed the Epistle of S. James, that of S. Jude, the 2nd of S.
Peter, the 2nd and 3rd of S. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews; he ridicules
Ecclesiastes, he holds Job as a fable."
"What contradictions has not Luther's reformation produced! I should never
end if I would put them all on this paper."
"We have no need against you, on this important point, of other witnesses
than the eyes of our fathers and grandfathers to say when your pretended
Church began. In the year 1517 Luther commenced his Tragedy."
"Luther in the book which he has composed on the Councils is not content
with tearing down the stones that are visible, but goes so far as to sap
the very foundations of the Church.....How does he treat the great Council
of Nice? Because the Council forbids those, who have mutilated themselves
to be received into the clerical ministry and presently again forbids
ecclesiastics to keep in their houses other women besides their mothers or
their sisters: - "Pressed on this point," says Luther, "I do not allow [the
presence of] the Holy Spirit in this Council."
"how is it that that word "consubstantialem" was so offensive to Luther -
"My soul hates this word homoousion;" a word, however, which so entirely
approved itself to that great Council [of Nice]?"
"And when writing against the King of England, -"living," said he, "I will
be the enemy of the papacy, burnt I will be thy enemy,".....Are not these
words worthy of such a reformer? I am ashamed to read them, and my hand is
vexed when it lays out such shameful things,"
"You read the writings of Calvin, of Zwingle, of Luther: take out of these,
I beg you, the railings, calumnies, insults, detraction, ridicule, and
buffoonery which they contain against the Pope and the Holy See of Rome,
and you will find that nothing will remain."
FROM VARIOUS WORK OF ST. TERESA OF AVILA:
"....I was one day in prayer, when I found myself in a moment, without
knowing how, plunged apparently into hell......It was that vision that
filled me with the very great distress which I feel at the sight of so many
lost souls, especially of the Lutherans, - for they were once members of
the Church by baptism..." Life 30:1,9
"heresies by which so many souls are visibly lost" Life 13:14
"In matters concerning the faith, my courage seems to me much greater. I
think I could go forth alone by myself against all the Lutherans, and
convince them of their errors. I feel keenly the loss of so many souls."
Rel. 2:14
"What Satan was doing among the Lutherans was the taking away from them all
those means by which their love might be the more quickened; and thus they
were going to perdition." Rel.5:5
"It is a special joy to me to see one church more, when I consider how many
the Lutherans are destroying." Found.18:4
What evil effect could this "exoneration" have on Catholic society
today? In short, to praise Martin Luther for the good points, while
overlooking his evil doctrine, tends very much to appear as a tacit
approval of those heresies which he invented against the teachings of
Christ. Such heresies are deadly to the theological virtue of Faith among
Catholics even though the unfortunate Lutheran of today may unwittingly
maintain them. We certainly must love all men in that we wish them to see
the truth, renounce their errors, and become Catholics as Christ intended
for the salvation of their souls. Catholic teaching, however, does NOT say
that the suspected "good will" of a person maintaining the heresy takes
away the objectively existing danger of heresy. It does not. Catholic
teaching is very particular about the preservation of our Faith, which is a
gift of God. First, from the Baltimore Catechism:
A. A person who denies even one article of our faith could not be a
Catholic; for truth is one and we must accept it whole and entire or not at
all."
In order to help dispell any mistaken notions Catholics might have
concerning the apostate monk, Martin Luther, some quotes will here be cited
from St. Francis de Sales’ work entitled, "The Catholic Controversy". In
1877, Pope Pius IX, in declaring St. Francis de Sales a "Doctor of the
Church", called this work "a full and complete demonstration of the
Catholic religion." The book was written in a series of smaller tracts
which helped in the conversion of about 72,000 Calvinists in eastern
France. Let us now read the words from the pen of this most holy and
learned saint. (Following this will be a few quotes from various works of
St. Teresa of Avila.)
