By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 1
(Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in a series by Wanderer contributor Raymond de Souza on Henry VIII’s book defending the seven sacraments against Martin Luther. De Souza edited this updated version of Henry’s work, which is presented to readers in this series. In the text below, de Souza explains more about the book.
(This series will appear on a regular basis, as space allows.)
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In 2017 — alongside the 100th anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima — a tragic anniversary will be celebrated in Germany and elsewhere: five hundred years since the Lutheran so-called “reformation,” more appropriately called a “deformation.” Lutherans and people of many other religious denominations are going to organize festivities in many places, especially in Germany.
In view of such festivities, a faithful Catholic asks himself: Why celebrate Luther? There is no cause at all to celebrate that heresiarch, quite on the contrary: There is cause to mourn and repudiate a major heresy that destroyed the unity of Christianity; a heresy that created doctrinal confusion and cacophony in Christian Europe, and which was thoroughly denounced, refuted, and condemned by the Church of Jesus Christ.
The sad reality is that the corruption of the Church in Luther’s time provided the excuse he needed to destroy the unity of faith and morals in Europe and impose his own heterodox opinions. Yes, there were dirty politics, bribery, ambition, greed, simony, immorality, even homosexuality among the clergy; the situation was almost as deplorable as it is in the Church today!
By way of illustration, there was a famous case of a defrocked lustful and foul-mouthed priest, a monk who abandoned his vows to God and married a runaway nun, lived in a convent with a cellar full of beer which he drank to his heart’s content. A proud man who thought a lot about himself and uttered blasphemies against God. He was a typical example of the corrupt clergy of the time. His name was . . . Martin Luther.
Yes, Luther himself was that rebellious, immoral, and defrocked priest. That is to say, Luther was part of the problem, not of the solution. He was as corrupt as those whom he accused of corruption. The heresiarch misled thousands from unity to disunity, away from having “one Lord, one Faith, and one Baptism” (Eph. 4:15) in the one Church of God, the Pillar and Mainstay of the Truth (1 Tim. 3:15), and plunged Germany and Northern Europe into a system of subjectivist interpretation of Scripture.
This has given rise to a multitude of churches, denominations, sects, affiliations, ministries, missions the world over, holding all sorts of different and even contradictory beliefs and moral codes.
Thanks to his “reformation,” today thousands upon thousands of baptized Christians follow their own individual interpretation of Scripture, creating the greatest cacophony of religion in history, as if Jesus Christ had inspired the formation of thousands of churches, each one following the whimsical biblical preferences of its founder or local pastor. Every Tom, Dick, and Harriet holds a Bible and thinks that he or she is inspired by the Holy Spirit to interpret it correctly, in a kind of ill-disguised infallibility, which not even the Pope in Rome claims to have.
But Luther’s revolt did not go without opposition. Against that tidal wave of dissent and doctrinal confusion, a layman stood up and defended the true teachings of Christ on the seven sacraments of His Church: a King, in fact, Henry VIII. Yes, Henry VIII, who later broke away from Rome and founded the Church of England, which is today falling apart like so many other broken branches away from the true vine.
But before his schism he defended the true Catholic faith, the faith of Catholic England. He was helped by Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, and wrote a masterpiece of Catholic apologetics, Assertio Septem Sacramentorum Adversus Martinum Lutherum — “Defense of the Seven Sacraments against Martin Luther.”
Quoting abundantly from the Sacred Scriptures and the Church fathers and using a great deal of logic and wit, Henry’s scholarly work completely refuted Martin Luther in chapter and verse, leaving the rebellious German monk in bursts of untrammelled anger in his inability to properly respond to the argumentation. Luther remained refuted by Henry VIII to the day he died.
The King of England dedicated the book to Pope Leo X, who in return, granted him the title of “Defender of the Faith.”
However, after doing such a great deed for the Church of Jesus Christ, Henry VIII turned against the faith he had so brilliantly defended. In order to dissolve his indissoluble marriage, he repudiated his lawful queen, Catherine of Aragon, and married the courtesan Anne Boleyn. He declared himself “Head of the Church in England,” and the whole conference of bishops of England, as it were, except one, St. John Fisher, collegially followed him in his schism. Anglicanism was born, England lost its true faith.
Come Home To Rome
But what concerns us here more particularly is that Henry’s book practically disappeared from most libraries in Europe — understandably enough, as it was an indictment on the Church and Crown of England, since in the book the King defended what he opposed later. The book was published in 1907 in Baltimore, Md., in both Latin and English, and had a small circulation among those scholars interested in it.
Today the book has been published once again, slightly edited to suit the style of contemporary English-speaking readers. It has become a great call to remind the Church of England and the many denominations that issued from Luther’s revolution, of their original faith, which they shared with Rome for over one thousand years.
As the editor of that Royal Book of Catholic Apologetics, I am pleased to share with Wanderer readers the excellent argumentation in defense of the seven sacraments in this unique book, which was authored by a King (Henry VIII), assisted by a Saint (St. Thomas More), and acclaimed by a Pope (Leo X).
Wanderer readers are offered the book in installments, one at a time, to give you the opportunity to feast your mind on the enormous wealth of knowledge of Scripture and patristic theology presented by Henry VIII to refute Martin Luther.
It is a theological work, and requires diligent study. I would also recommend it to seminarians who want to learn more about the mind of the Church on the seven sacraments, in the excellent argumentation of Henry VIII.
Its publication was dedicated to Elizabeth II, Queen of England and successor of Henry VIII on the English throne and also head of the Church of England. The publication is a fraternal reminder to Her Majesty of the unity of faith that England shared with Rome.
May this series of articles be useful to confirm in the faith as many Catholics as possible, as well as to bring many Anglicans, Episcopalians, Lutherans, and others who followed the rebellious monk of Wittenberg back home to Rome, so that “there shall be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:16) once again, for the greater glory of God and salvation of souls.
The book is accompanied by two talks recorded on CD: 1) The De-Christianization of the Western World and 2) The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. It is available to Wanderer readers at $33.00 (shipping and handling free in the United States). Please make your check payable to: Sacred Heart Media, LLC and mail it to: P.O. Box 1144, Rochester, MN 55903.
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(Raymond de Souza KM is available to speak at Catholic events anywhere in the free world in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese. Please contact Chevalierdemalta@outlook.com or phone 507-450-4196.)
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