By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 25
In the previous article we considered the fact that Christ founded one Church, and only one, not thousands. There is no such a thing as a “Protestant Church,” in the singular; instead, there is a myriad of Protestant churches, in the plural, divided among themselves in faith, worship, and government. A plateau de fromage of religion.
The Protestant revolution is inaccurately enough called the “Reformation,” but in reality it did not reform the Church. It is true that the Church was in dire need of an authentic Reformation — but instead Luther made a Deformation by creating a new church, of new churches. It began in Germany in the 16th century, and from there it spread to Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and later England, the last being rather unique in its revolutionary methodology.
Many Catholics today ask themselves: What on earth brought about this revolution? Wasn’t everything hunky-dory in the Church, just as in my parish today, and then that proud and immoral troublemaking beer-drinking German monk came up and destroyed the unity of the followers of Christ?
No, it was not that simple. The Catholic population was going through a period of decadence at the time. It was a very unhappy period in the life of the Church. To better understand this situation, think of David, the King-Prophet of Israel, a man “after God’s own heart,” who wrote Psalms inspired by the Holy Spirit, etc., etc. — and then committed adultery and murder!
A superficial person would say, “See? How can one believe in his religion?” The shallow-minded objector confuses the truth of the religion with the misbehavior of the follower of that religion, however highly placed he may be in it. Likewise, Solomon, another King-Prophet, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote books of the Old Testament, died in a rather questionable way, to put it charitably.
Conclusion: The religion was true, but the follower disgraced its honor — but it remained true, nevertheless.
The same thing happened in the days of Martin Luther. There was corruption among the clergy, and even some Popes were not without blame: nepotism, bribery, simony, resulting in having unworthy men being elevated to positions of power and prestige. Some Popes were under the thumb of the French kings, and they had the nerve to move the See of Peter from Rome to Avignon, France!
A most shameful division, the Great Western Schism, took place from 1378 to 1417, in which good people were confused and took sides during a time when two rival Popes, and, for a short time, three, demanded their allegiance! The enemies of the Church will of course exaggerate those grave abuses, and we do not attempt to cover up for them — instead, we keep them in perspective, and abhor the abuses perpetrated by the lax clergy, bishops, and Popes.
It was the ideal time for Luther to raise his revolt, and, as we say today, to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Under pretext of cleaning up the mess, he formed a new church, according to his individual whims and preferences. He caused immensely more evil that the ones he purported to eliminate.
But there was more: The political atmosphere played a great role in helping Luther’s war cry of non serviam: In Germany, the princes developed the clever idea that, just as Luther rid himself of the authority and power of the Pope, they could also rid themselves of the power of the emperor, Charles V (1519-1556) — king of Spain and emperor of Germany, whose dominions included the Netherlands and parts of Italy. They knew the emperor was faithful to Rome and would oppose Luther’s revolt and their political ambitions.
Furthermore, the ideas of Luther were attractive to a specific group of ambitious people: the German princes, for instance, who wanted to rid themselves of the emperor and of the Pope as well. Pride and sensuality reigned supreme, and they wanted to be the heads of the Church in their countries. So, the king of the united countries, Denmark and Norway, and the king of Sweden, were attracted by the Lutheran doctrine that the king is head of the Church in his own dominions.
In this way, the Lutheran churches became subservient to the local kings, doing precisely the opposite of what they claimed to want to do. They criticized the Avignon Popes for being subservient to the French kings, and became themselves enslaved to their own kings!
So, while Lutheranism favored the pretensions of kings, Calvinism, on the other hand, wanted the abolition of monarchy as such. Led by a denial of royal supremacy and its republican spirit, Calvinism was of service in what may be described as the anti-monarchical, or anti-imperial, struggle of the Swiss and the people of the Netherlands.
In England, Henry VIII regarded the papal supremacy as an obstacle to his lust and rapacity, and used the great power of the crown to effect a schism. It was a slippery slope into pride and disobedience, and both Luther and Calvin helped those political powers by providing the cart without breaks to slide down the slope.
During the reigns of Edward VI and Elizabeth I in England, the doctrines of Luther and Calvin were introduced so that, by a complete separation from Rome in obedience and faith, all “foreign interference” in the affairs of the kingdom might be permanently excluded. Christendom was divided, once and for all! Now every king or pastor of a new church acted as a mini-pope in his own dominions, and woe to those who disagreed with them — it was Popery at its worst! Catholics were martyred by the hundreds everywhere in those places.
And there was also a third element that helped the spread of the new religion of Luther: Once you are told that it does not matter how much you sin, as long as you have faith, then lust, greed, and the other capital vices will explode, and they did so in those communities. The new doctrines of the Deformers offered an easy remedy for sin, abolished all irksome duties such as fasting and Confession, and flattered national and personal vanity by denying the authority of the Pope, and by investing the individual with the power of choosing and interpreting his own faith.
The last element that helped Luther was the spread of “Humanism,” and the neo-pagan cultural atmosphere of the Renaissance, which caused a ferment of intellectual unrest throughout Europe. Unfortunately, many learned Catholics favored the new trends, and even Popes patronized them, which favored the breaking of Christian unity among God’s people. Humanism prepared the minds of men to admit novelties in faith as willingly as they had admitted them in the department of secular knowledge. Europe became gradually less and less Christian as time went on.
Humanism, the Renaissance, and Lutheranism were evidently the roots of the present-day process of de-Christianization, which was denounced by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005.
Next article: The personality of Luther and the Protestant rule of faith.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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