Unfortunately, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity persists in calling Luther a “witness to the Gospel”. Such is life: when one thinks he has already seen all the absurdities in the world, there is always someone who manages to surprise him.
It does not take much thought to realize that to say that Luther was a witness to the Gospel is the same as saying that what he proclaimed was true, at least in essence. If that is not what is meant, then the words being used mean nothing and, instead of speaking, what is being done is the emission of senseless noises, animal grunts proper to someone who has abandoned reason and replaced it with political correctness.
If Luther was a witness to the Gospel, then the Catholic doctrines he denied were either in fact false or were matters of no importance, nonessential things. In other words, if Luther was a witness to the Gospel, Catholicism is made up of “impious doctrines,” the Mass is a “diabolical abomination”, reason is a “whore,” purgatory does not exist and praying for the dead is condemnable, the Pope is a “raving madman, falsifier of history, liar, blasphemer,” human freedom is an illusion, Tradition is unnecessary, the gravest sins are of no importance at all, seven books of Scripture are really human inventions, perfect chastity is a perversion, adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament is nothing but idolatry, the infallible dogmas of Trent are a heap of errors and blasphemies…
Or, in the best of cases, the Mass, the Papacy, human freedom, purgatory, charity, Tradition, the Magisterium, the Most Blessed Sacrament, religious life, sin and so many other things are mere human speculations, irrelevant and of no importance. In that case, the Catholic Church, which deceived us into thinking they were fundamental, is guilty of replacing the true faith with its own inventions and, once again, Luther’s assertion is fulfilled: Catholic teachings are “impious doctrines” and the Pope is a “raving madman, falsifier of history, liar, blasphemer,” who exchanges the faith for his delusions.
It is no wonder that an essential part of Luther’s doctrine was that the Catholic Church, with the Pope and the bishops at its head, was the Antichrist, the Whore of Babylon and the Beast of Revelation. His teachings could not be sustained in any other way, since if what he taught was Truth with a capital T, anyone who opposed him was acting as an enemy of God: “It is I who affirm it, I, Doctor Martin Luther, speaking in the name of the Holy Spirit.” “I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone, not even by the angels. Whoever does not listen to my doctrine cannot be saved.” That is to say, if Luther was, in fact, a witness to the Gospel, we Catholics are witnesses to the Antichrist. There is no other possible option, tertium non datur.
Nor does it take much thought to realize that, if Luther was a witness to the Gospel, the best thing any Pontifical Council can do is quickly dissolve itself, so that its members may abjure their blasphemous Catholic errors and humbly ask to be admitted into a Lutheran community.
On the other hand, if what Luther proclaimed was erroneous, if his interpretation of Scripture was rotten at the root, if his rejection of Tradition was a rejection of God’s Revelation, if his destruction of three quarters of the sacraments was an impious barbarity, if the holy Mass is not a “diabolical abomination,” if the idea that there is no mortal sin that separates one from God is a self-deception with the gravest consequences, if his replacement of the ecclesial Magisterium with subjectivism leaves the faithful like sheep without a shepherd, if the Catholic Church is the Church founded by Christ himself and constitutes his Mystical Body, if Pontifical Councils have any meaning at all… then Luther was indeed a witness, yes, but a witness to a false and distorted gospel. As the Church has always taught and must necessarily teach, on pain of abandoning the Catholic faith and reason itself.
Author: Bruno Moreno Ramos
