Establishing the causes of the Protestant Reformation is not a simple matter, for it was a convergence of factors that combined to produce the course of events. It is necessary to acknowledge that at that time the Church was passing through a profound crisis, with abundant abuses and the scandalously sinful lives of some members of the Catholic clergy and even of the upper hierarchy. To this day the majority view holds that it was these abuses that caused the Reformation, and even notable Catholics of that era agreed on this point[1].

Other historians and notable Catholics disagreed, arguing that in other eras similar or even greater abuses had occurred without occasioning a schism[2]. But regardless of whether this was the principal trigger or merely one of many contributing factors, the fact is that the reformers were quite clear that their objections were directed not at the abuses but at Catholic doctrine itself.

Obviously one finds in the writings of Luther and other reformers abundant reproaches directed at the life and conduct of the Catholic clergy (probably because for propagandistic purposes they served their cause well), but on not a few occasions they acknowledged that their problem was not the abuses but their doctrinal objections.

On this point Luther wrote:

“I do not attack bad morals, but impious doctrines.”[3]

“I did not attack immorality and abuses, but the substance and doctrine of the papacy.”[4]

“Our lives are just as bad as those of the papists themselves; the issue is different: whether or not they teach the truth.”[5]

In his table talk:

“We live just as the papists live. We do not fight against the papists on account of their way of life, but on account of doctrine. I say nothing about their manner of living; my concern is with doctrine. My work, my struggle, centres on knowing whether our opponents transmit the true doctrine.”[6]

“Therefore, even if the Pope were as holy as Saint Peter, we would consider him impious and rebel against him.”[7]

“We will oppose to them the Our Father and the Creed, not the Decalogue, because in matters of morality we are far too weak.”[8]

Doctrinal Causes of the Reformation

Origin of the Doctrine of Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment

A key to finding the doctrinal causes of the Reformation is found in the life and work of the Protestant reformers, and in particular of the man who gave it its initial spark: Martin Luther.

For reasons of space it is not possible to dwell upon Luther’s life as deeply as one might wish[9]; we will therefore limit ourselves to saying that he was a profoundly scrupulous man who lived filled with anguish and tormented by a sense of his inability to master his passions. Thus, feeling abandoned and condemned by God, he gradually formed the nucleus of the doctrine that would bring him consolation: since concupiscence (which for Luther was sin, because he failed to distinguish between feeling and consenting) always remains in man on account of original sin, human freedom or free will must be completely corrupted[10]; hence man cannot be justified intrinsically but only extrinsically through imputation. Man is not made holy but declared holy; he remains a sinner but the righteousness of Christ is imputed to him. From this it follows that man is saved by fiducial faith alone, understood as the sole trust that divine mercy will remit sins through the merits of Jesus Christ[11]. Works and the observance of the commandments are not necessary for salvation but merely consequences of faith. It is in this context that the doctrine known as Sola Fides, or salvation by faith alone, was born.

The Doctrine of Faith Alone Is Rejected by the Magisterium and Tradition

Luther’s problem was that his propositions ran up against not only the teaching of the Church’s Magisterium but against the entire ecclesiastical Tradition, beginning from the early Church down to the present day.

From the very first centuries Christians understood that salvation was the fruit of God’s grace, but at the same time they maintained that this grace did not annul human freedom, because grace was not irresistible.

The reformers of course attempted to find in the teaching of the early Christians and the Church Fathers some support for their doctrinal positions, but they found that their doctrine was not only a novelty but that, in those points where it was not, it had been unanimously rejected by the early Christians and the Church Fathers.

John Calvin, in his most celebrated work, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, acknowledges that the early Fathers held an opinion different from his own, but attributes this to their having followed the philosophers too closely.[12]

Saint Augustine, whom the reformers cited numerous times, had already identified more than a millennium earlier those who arrived at a position similar to Luther’s as “men of little intelligence”[13]. The abundant evidence found in the writings of the early Church Fathers, treated elsewhere in this same book, proves the point.

It is thus that Luther and the reformers, in order to impose their doctrine of Faith Alone, first had to overthrow both the authority of the Catholic Magisterium (as the authoritative interpreter of Revelation) and Tradition (since it too was not in agreement with them). In overthrowing Tradition they also overthrew the authority of the Ecumenical Councils and the dogmatic pronouncements the Church had made throughout her entire history.

The Tripod Is Left with Only One Leg

Until that point Christians had held that theology should be formulated according to three principles: Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium. On this point the apologist James Akin explains:

“The first two of these provided the necessary data for conducting theological inquiry, while the third served to authoritatively formulate the correct interpretation of the data presented by the two material sources. Thus Scripture and Tradition served as the material principles of theology, while the Magisterium, by enabling us to know with certainty the correct meaning of this material, served as a formal principle of theology.”[14]

Tradition had until then served as a vital point of reference for knowing how the first Christians and their subsequent generations had interpreted the content of Revelation. It was an invaluable reference point for avoiding misinterpretation of the original meaning of the texts; but without it this point of reference was entirely absent.

Of course, it was necessary for Protestants to reject not only the Tradition subsequent to the fourth century, to which they attributed the beginning of the Church’s apostasy, but all Tradition — because within it there was evidence that Catholic doctrines had been professed from a much earlier date. The solid patristic foundation of doctrines such as the primacy of Peter, penance, and purgatory, among others, left them no alternative if they wished to justify their Reformation.

It was deeply uncomfortable, because in showing that the early Christians professed a faith different from their own, it exposed the fact that their doctrine was genuinely novel, standing in opposition to prior teaching. To acknowledge this was like hanging a sign around one’s neck reading “false prophet”, for it was written: “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings.”[15]

The Principle of Private Judgment or Free Interpretation of the Bible Emerges

This was precisely the argument Catholics put to the reformers: who do you think you are to claim that you know more than all our predecessors together? Is your own criterion worth more than that of the Church from her very beginnings? After all, although Luther might allege that those were “mere men”, he had to acknowledge that he too was one; and it was certainly arrogant to accuse the Church (which the Bible itself calls “the pillar and bulwark of the truth”) of a permanent apostasy, while attributing to himself a doctrine of divine character.

Luther himself acknowledges that it was not Catholics alone who raised such an objection against him, but his own conscience, which inwardly strove to warn him and tormented him.

“I have scarcely been able to assure or quiet my conscience with the many and powerful proofs of Scripture, so as to be able alone to contradict the Pope and to believe him to be antichrist, the bishops his Apostles, and the universities his brothels. How often did my heart tremble and reprove me, raising against me its strongest and only argument: Art thou alone wise, and do all the rest err?”[16]

“Once the devil tormented me, and almost strangled me with the words of Paul to Timothy; to such a degree that my heart was ready to melt within my breast: “You have been the cause of so many monks and nuns abandoning their monasteries.” The devil skillfully removed from my sight the texts concerning justification… I thought: “You alone are the one who orders these things; and if all were false, you would be responsible for so many souls falling into hell.” In such temptation I came to suffer infernal torments, until God drew me out of it and confirmed me that my teachings were the word of God and true doctrine.”[17]

Luther thus manages to silence these remorse, at least in part, by attributing them to temptations of the devil and convincing himself that his own interpretation of the Scriptures is the very Word of God. In 1535 he wrote:

“The Apostles, the Holy Fathers and their successors left us these teachings; such is the thought and faith of the Church. Now it is impossible that Christ should have allowed his Church to err for so many centuries. You alone know not more than so many holy men and than the whole Church… Who are you to dare to dissent from all of them and to force upon us a different dogma? When Satan urges this argument and conspires almost with the flesh and with reason, the conscience is terrified and despairs, and one must continually enter into oneself and say: Although holy Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine; although Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint John; although the angels of heaven teach you otherwise — this I know for certain: that I do not teach human things but divine; that is, that (in the matter of salvation) I attribute everything to God, nothing to men.”[18]

In this way he arrives at convincing himself that the whole Church with all her saints together could err, while denying that possibility to himself.

“The Holy Fathers, the Doctors, the Councils, the Virgin Mary herself and Saint Joseph and all the saints together can err.”[19]

“I am certain that I have received my doctrines from heaven. My doctrines will endure and the Pope will succumb.”[20]

For him it was not arrogance to claim such infallibility, and he justified it by saying, “I am nothing; the infallible one is Christ, whose word I defend against all” — to which Ricardo García-Villoslada aptly comments that this was a “humility that is merely apparent, because, in identifying his own opinion with the divine word, he is saying that he alone correctly interprets the word of God, against the opinion of all the Holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church and against the decisions of all the Councils and Supreme Pontiffs.”[21]

His hardening became such that he himself confesses to daily filling his mouth with curses in prayer — paradoxical for one who claims to follow a Gospel that commands us to pray and bless those who curse us.

“Henceforth I will curse these rogues and revile them unto the day of my death, without their ever hearing a single kindly word from me. These thunders and lightnings I will have accompany me to my grave. I cannot pray without at the same time cursing. If I say: hallowed be Thy name, I must add: cursed, damned, disgraced be the name of the papists and of all who blaspheme Thy name. If I say: Thy kingdom come, I must add: cursed, damned, destroyed be the papacy together with all the kingdoms of the earth that are opposed to Thy kingdom. If I say: Thy will be done, I must add: cursed, damned, dishonoured, and annihilated be all the thoughts and designs of the papists and of all who conspire against Thy will and counsel. Truly, thus do I pray every day with my mouth and with my heart, without ceasing, and with me all who believe in Christ.”[22]

John Calvin was not precisely less convinced than Luther, and after a long struggle to impose a theocracy in Geneva in the manner of the ancient Jewish kingdom and Platonic republic, he succeeded in having the Council recognize his work as “the holy doctrine of God.”[23]

It is in this context, with the reformers fully convinced that they were the true bearers of Christian doctrine, that the principle of private judgment or the free interpretation of the Bible arose. In order to strip the Church’s Magisterium of the authority to interpret the Scriptures authentically, they were compelled to transfer it to each individual believer; so that they themselves, availing themselves of this right, could dissent from the Catholic Church and preach their own doctrine.

The Reformers Suffer the Consequences of Their Own Doctrine

But once the reformers had transferred the authority to interpret the Scriptures definitively to each individual, they found themselves confronted with an even greater problem: the very same principle they had used to reject the authority of the Church could be used against them by their own followers.

This is where one begins to see the great contradiction between the principles and the practice of the reformers, for although they continued to teach that the Bible alone is the sole rule of faith, that God illumines each believer to judge its true sense, and that the judgments of the Holy Fathers, the decrees of the Councils, and the decisions of the Church are nothing more than the words of men to which no one is bound to submit, at the same time they never ceased to convene synods, to write confessions of faith, to condemn errors, and to excommunicate those who held them. Any outcome of these deliberations was entirely without authority, since it could in turn be characterised by dissenters as “the words of men”.

Certainly, when the reformers preached private judgment, what they wished to impose was their own private judgment. They knew that in practice they could not maintain the unity of their church if each person defined doctrine on his own account.

This, of course, was pointed out to them by Catholics on many occasions, because it was as though they were claiming that Jesus Christ, instead of establishing in his Church a principle of unity, had placed within it a principle of division for all ages, leaving to all obstinate sectarians the moral freedom to form a separate faction whenever they accused the Church of error or disorder. Hence Catholics reminded them that it was an evangelical obligation to maintain unity among Christians, since the Church is ONE.

“I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.”[24]

“They said to you: “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who set up divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.”[25]

“I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them.”[26]

“First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”[27]

The schisms were not long in coming: Lutherans versus Anabaptists stood in opposition to one another over, among other matters, infant baptism[28]; Zwingli opposed Luther because Luther affirmed the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist[29]; the Calvinists themselves were unable to reach agreement with the Arminians on quite a few points of the doctrine of grace and predestination.

The situation was truly very uncomfortable for the reformers, because they knew perfectly well the biblical texts that condemned divisions, and these were too numerous to ignore. They knew that the Bible identifies divisions as a “work of the flesh”[30], and that those who produce them are “worldly people, following their own ungodly passions”. In a letter John Calvin wrote to Philipp Melanchthon he confesses:

“It is of great importance that the divisions which subsist among us should not be known to future ages, because nothing could be more ridiculous than that we, who have been compelled to separate from the whole world, should have been in such poor agreement among ourselves from the very beginning of the Reformation.”[31]

But it was not only Calvin who observed the disasters caused by his own principle; the rest of the reformers also complained of suffering them firsthand. Luther thus wrote to Zwingli:

“If the world endures much longer, it will again become necessary, on account of the different interpretations of Scripture which now abound, to receive the decrees of Councils and take refuge in them, in order to preserve the unity of faith.”[32]

Luther’s complaint here is quite significant, because it shows that he realized that in demolishing Tradition he had not merely opened the door to preach his own doctrines, but had opened it to all the heresies the Church had combated throughout history. Doctrines he himself condemned and classified as heretical would have to be fought again indefinitely within his own flock, generation after generation, because any agreement they reached would not bind their successors, since it would ultimately amount to “the words of men”. The very seed of Protestantism leaves it perpetually exposed to combating heresies that for Catholics have been a settled matter for centuries.

Other bitter complaints from Luther:

“The world is growing worse every day. Men are now much more avaricious, malicious, and resentful, and much more rebellious, shameless, and full of vices than they were in the time of the papacy.”[33]

“Formerly, when they were seduced by the Pope, men willingly performed good works, but now their whole study is to get everything for themselves, by exactions, pillage, theft, lying, and usury.”[34]

“With respect to our Germany, it is evident, given the great light of the Gospel, that it is clearly in the possession of the devil. Our young people are insolent and rebellious and are no longer fit for education; the old are burdened with the sins of avarice, usury, and many others that cannot be mentioned.”[35]

John Calvin complained equally:

“When so many thousands of men, after having stripped off the papal yoke, eagerly enrolled themselves in the Gospel, how few, think you, repented of their vices? Nay, what has the majority shown to have been their desire, after having shaken off the yoke of superstition, but that they might rush more freely into every kind of licentiousness?”[36]

Philipp Melanchthon, Luther’s unconditional friend, complained no less:

“The Elbe, with all its waters, could not furnish enough tears to weep over the miseries the Reformation has brought.”[37]

Martin Bucer, regarded as one of the most important theologians of the Protestant Reformation and reformer of Strasbourg and Alsace, was of the same opinion:

“The greater part of the people seems to have embraced the Gospel only in order to shake off the yoke of discipline and the obligation of fasting, penance, etc., which lay upon them under the papacy, and to live at their pleasure, enjoying their passions and appetites without law or restraint. They therefore lend a willing ear to the doctrine that we are saved by faith alone and not by works, having no taste for them.”[38]

Theodore Beza, Calvin’s faithful disciple and successor:

“Those very thoughts that you describe have long tormented me and for a long time: I see our people wandering at the mercy of every wind of doctrine, lifted up high and then falling now to one side, then to another.

What they think today about religion I might perhaps know; what they will think tomorrow, I do not. The Churches that have declared war on the Roman Pontiff — on what point of religion do they agree? Survey them from beginning to end, and you will scarcely find anything affirmed by one that another does not at once condemn as impious.”[39]

The Hardening of the Reformers

Confronted with this situation, the reformers were completely powerless. They had preached that each person had the right to interpret the Scriptures on his own authority, that no one need submit to any human authority; but when people exercised that right to differ from them, they had no way to forbid it on moral grounds, given the very principle they themselves had invented. It is here that the Reformation reached its point of greatest hypocrisy, for they denied to all other Protestants the right they had proclaimed themselves to possess.

Anyone who differed from Luther on any point of doctrine or whom he considered an enemy was subjected to the most vulgar and scurrilous epithets. To Duke George of Saxony he applied the terms “murderer”, “traitor”, “scoundrel”, “hireling”, “bloodshedder”, “shameless rogue”, “liar”, “accursed”, “dog”, “bloodthirsty”, “devil”[40]. Insults directed at the Pope were a constant feature and are almost impossible to count: “accursed Antichrist”[41], “papal little donkey”, “papal ass”[42], “bishop of hermaphrodites and pope of sodomites”, “apostle of the devil”[43]. But now it was not only Catholics who were the object of his opprobrium; it extended to Protestants themselves. Thomas Müntzer was an “arch-devil who perpetrates nothing but robbery, murder, and bloodshed”[44]; his ally Andreas Karlstadt, when he diverged from him, became a “sophist, that madman”, “far more insane than the papists”. The same happened with Ulrich Zwingli, who upon denying the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist became “most worthy of sacred hatred, since he acts so wantonly and maliciously in the name of the holy word of God”[45] and “a servant of the devil”.

In interpreting texts such as Matthew 10:34 or Luke 12:49, Luther maintained that the Gospel should be preached sword in hand, and that all those who offered resistance must be exterminated[46].

Calvin was by no means an exception, and his adversaries were branded “wicked men, rogues, drunkards, madmen, furious, rabid, beasts, bulls, swine, asses, dogs, vile slaves of Satan”.[47]

Outraged by the corrections Michael Servetus had made to his work Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin wrote to Farel confessing that if it were in his power he would see him dead[48] — a signed confession from the reformer himself of how he could wish death upon another Christian for exercising a right he had proclaimed that person to possess, and which was one of the fundamental pillars of the Reformation. Finally, when Servetus fell into his hands and he succeeded in having him burned at the stake, he wrote Fidelis expositio errorum Michaelis Serveti et brevis eorundem refutatio, in which he justified the death penalty for heretics[49].

Servetus was not the only victim of Protestant inquisitions. As a brief summary it suffices to mention that up to 1546 sixty-seven death sentences are recorded (thirty-four in 1545, in just three months, among witches and suspected spreaders of plague), with an equal number condemned to exile and nearly eight hundred imprisoned[50]. Among other notable victims of the Calvinist regime was Jacques Gruet, who for denying the divinity of Christ and being accused of posting a placard containing mockery of Calvin was arrested, tortured twice daily until he confessed, and finally beheaded in 1547[51]. Raoul Monnet, accused of heresy and blasphemy for having composed a New Testament for the use of his disciples and having had caricatures of biblical figures engraved, was condemned and beheaded on the hill of Champel[52]. Valentine Gentilis was also condemned to death but saved his life by recanting.

Among the most emblematic of those banished was Jerome Bolsec, who opposed Calvin and his conception of predestination; and even a bookseller named Belot, who identified himself as an Anabaptist and was imprisoned, tortured, and finally exiled under threat of being hanged should he return — all for committing the “insolence” of distributing books and pamphlets without the reformer’s permission[53].

But if in Calvinist Geneva the victims seem few, in the rest of the Reformed and Lutheran countries the victims were even more numerous, as Beza himself acknowledges in referring to the many death sentences meted out to Anabaptists[54]. Let us say nothing of the England of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I.

These facts demonstrate that the idealised image some Protestants have formed — of the reformers fighting for religious liberty — is mistaken. It is sad to say, but it is a historical fact that they were fighting for the freedom to practice their religion alone, and this included proscribing the exercise of the Catholic religion, which they depicted as an idolatry that it was a matter of conscientious duty for every good Christian to destroy. Calvin wrote that it was necessary to exterminate the zealous rogues who opposed the establishment of the Reformation; that such monsters must be suppressed, as he demonstrated in the aforementioned defense of the condemnation of Servetus, or in his letter to his friend the Marquis de Poet:

“In the meantime, omit neither journeys nor occupations; work therefore: you and yours will afterwards dance all the more freely — honour, glory, and riches will be the reward of such great labours. Above all, do not make the mistake of failing to rid the country of those zealous rogues who slander our conduct and publish our creed as a dream. These monsters deserve the fate which I caused the Spaniard Michael Servetus to receive; do not think that anyone will henceforth think of imitating him. Your most humble and devoted servant.”[55]

It is enough to say that there was not a single country in which the Calvinists had held power where they tolerated the exercise of the Catholic religion. In Switzerland, Holland, and Sweden they prohibited it, just as the Anglicans did in England.

Some of the Disastrous Consequences of Sola Scriptura

We have already said much about the disastrous consequences the Protestants suffered firsthand as a result of their own principle. A few additional examples will suffice.

Divorce and Polygamy Approved through Sola Scriptura

Despite the fact that Scripture makes clear that “what God has joined together, let not man put asunder”[56] and that “if she does separate she should remain single or else be reconciled”[57], through their interpretation of the Bible Protestants permitted divorce.

Another absurdity occurred when Luther went so far as to authorise polygamy, permitting Prince Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, to have two wives simultaneously[58]. The prince, who was a great patron of the Protestant party and the principal supporter of the famous Schmalkaldic League, asked Luther and other reformers to be permitted to have two wives. His reason? He had simply declared that he was living in adultery and could not and would not change his wife, and therefore he requested Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer to permit him to marry a second woman while his first wife was still living. After lengthy deliberation, polygamy was declared permissible for the prince in a letter signed by Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, Anton Corvin, Johann Lening, and many other leaders of the Reformation[59].

The Peasants’ War and Massacre in Germany

Another catastrophic effect produced by the seed of Protestant doctrine was the Peasants’ War, which culminated in the subsequent massacre of approximately a hundred thousand peasants. From Luther’s 1520 treatise “The Freedom of a Christian”, in which he declared that the Christian was subject to no man and declaimed against all sovereigns[60], there were those who took his preaching to its logical extreme; and since, like Luther himself, they had arrogated to themselves the right to interpret the Bible on their own authority, the Anabaptist movement began to gather strength. On this point the historian Joseph Lortz explains:

“…from the fundamental position of the Reformation (the Bible as the sole source of faith without the guarantee of a magisterium), radical consequences were drawn that stood in open contradiction with the essential articles of the new doctrine. The irresistible momentum of formal logical consequence here already revealed its explosive force. The principal representatives of this tendency were Thomas Muntzer, of great philosophical and exegetical formation (d. 1525), who was active in Zwickau and Muhlhausen, and the Anabaptists of Munster in Westphalia (1534, Johann von Leyden). With these fanatics, the radical currents came into play. Their disastrous repercussions were seen, for example, in the religious-socialist uprising of the peasants (strongly impelled by Luther’s preaching on liberty), which was crushed with such bloodshed.”[61]

The Protestant historian Justo Gonzalez acknowledges that Luther lent the peasant rebellion a dimension that brought it to levels never previously reached:

“Shortly afterward, in 1525, the peasants’ rebellion broke out. They had suffered an ever-increasing oppression for several decades, and there had therefore been rebellions in 1476, 1491, 1498, 1503, and 1514. But none of them attained the magnitude of the one in 1525. In this new rebellion, one factor was added to the peasants’ economic demands. That new factor was the preaching of the reformers. Although Luther himself did not believe that his preaching should be applied in political terms, there were many who disagreed with him on this point. One of them was Thomas Müntzer.”[62]

Bands of peasants formed, demanding emancipation from serfdom, and believing themselves justified by the Divine Word they assaulted, plundered, and burned monasteries, churches, and castles, slaughtering in the name of the Gospel and of Christian liberty the monks, nobles, and ecclesiastics who offered them resistance[63]. Luther first conceded that among the peasants’ demands there were some that were just, and interceded in favor of reconciliation between the two sides[64]. He recommended to the peasants that they not rebel against the temporal authorities, and to the princes and lords that they recognize the rights of the peasants[65]; but scandalized by the abuses and destruction, he later sided with the princes, ordering that the peasants be killed whether publicly or in secret, in his tract Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants[66]:

In the reformer’s view, the peasants had come to deserve “a thousand times, the death of body and soul”, and he wrote: “he who first can and will kill him does well and justly”, continuing further on: “let whoever can, smite, slay, and stab them, secretly or openly”. With tremendous fury he exclaimed, “it is now the time of wrath and of the sword, not the time of grace”, culminating in an unequivocal command:

“strike, slay, and strangle as much as you can; and if in so doing death comes upon you, the better for you, for you could never find a more blessed death, because you die in obedience to the word and command of God.”

Here is Sola Scriptura granting license to kill at will and in secret; and when Luther was on many occasions held partly responsible for the atrocities, he justified himself by saying that if anyone was to blame it was God, who had commanded him to speak in that manner:

“Preachers are the greatest murderers, for they exhort the authorities to fulfil their duty resolutely and to punish the guilty. I killed all the peasants who rose in rebellion; all their blood is on my head. But I cast it on God our Lord, who commanded me to speak as I spoke…”[67]

A stark example of how far a person can go when pride leads him to confuse his own interpretation of the Scriptures with the voice of God. Sola Scriptura and private judgment at their most extreme.

After this war, Luther obtained even greater favor from the princes, with whom he had already ingratiated himself through his treatise “The Common Chest”, in which he placed at the disposal of the secular princes the goods of the bishoprics, abbeys, and monasteries[68] — which were plundered with the reformer’s approval.

What Would Have Happened Had the Reformers Known the Consequences of Their Doctrine?

It is impossible to know, though given the doubts they suffered when they began to see the Reformation fragmenting into a number infinitely smaller than today’s, it is possible they would have thought twice.

The Church is always in need of reform, but the solution was not to be found in the path taken by the reformers. The example of saints such as Francis of Assisi and Ignatius of Loyola renewed the Church with far greater force than all the reformers and heresiarchs together, because those saints, docile as true instruments of God, understood that it is from within the Church, and under the authority instituted by Jesus Christ, that we can truly make a difference by the grace of God.

Unfortunately the reformers did not possess the holiness for such a task. Without excluding the possibility that they genuinely intended to renew the Church — for only God sees the intention of the heart — it is enough to observe their writings and behavior to recognize this. Their lives at times became an antithesis of the Gospel, and today the consequences of their teachings are disastrous.

Of course, it would be foolish to deny that part of the responsibility lay with many Catholics and members of the hierarchy who, sunk in a corrupt life, gave occasion for these men, governed by their passions rather than by the grace of God, to demolish part of the Church and plunge many into the error of interpreting the Bible according to their own lights. God will judge each one, and may he have mercy on all.

Blessed are those who remained and remain faithful to Christ in his Church, which is his holy Body — ever holy and ever in need of reform.

Notes

  1. In this regard, the historian Francisco Martín cites, among others, Cardinal Reginald Pole, who wrote in the time of the Reformation: “It is on our account that this storm has been unleashed”, and the famous Erasmus of Rotterdam: “I will say what was the source of this first evil: the openly irreligious life of certain priests and the gloomy demeanor of certain theologians gave rise to this tempest.” Similar views were expressed by H. S. Denifle, Bossuet, and others. Francisco Martín Hernández, Historia de la Iglesia II. La Edad Moderna, Ediciones Palabra, Third Edition, Madrid 2005, pp. 111-112. ↩
  2. Francisco Martín Hernández himself cites as an example Imbart de la Tour (Les Origines de la Réforme, Paris, 1905), among others. The celebrated Jaime Luciano Balmes is of the same opinion, as he explains in his work El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilización europea. ↩
  3. Martin Luther, Letter to Leo X, year 1520, Weimarer Ausgabe 7,43. Cited in Juan Luis Lorda, La gracia de Dios, Editorial Pelícano, Madrid 2004, p. 152. ↩
  4. Weimarer Ausgabe Tischreden 3555, III, 408. Cited in Sergio Fernández Larraín, Carlos V, Lutero y la Reforma Protestante, Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional, Homenaje Guillermo Feliu Cruz, Editorial Andrés Bello, Chile 1973, p. 298. ↩
  5. Francisco Martín Hernández, Historia de la Iglesia II. La Edad Moderna, Ediciones Palabra, Third Edition, Madrid 2005, p. 113. ↩
  6. Ibid. ↩
  7. Weimarer Ausgabe Tischreden 6421, V, 654 ↩
  8. Weimarer Ausgabe Tischreden 3550, III, 402 ↩
  9. For a thorough examination of the person of Luther, the two-volume work by Ricardo García-Villoslada, entitled Martín Lutero, is recommended. ↩
  10. Luther would later come to say that free will is “pure fiction” and deny it entirely. Martin Luther, De Servo Arbitrio. ↩
  11. The Council of Trent rejected the Protestant theses with the following words: “If anyone says that justifying faith is nothing other than confidence in divine mercy, which remits sins for Christ’s sake, or that it is by this confidence alone that we are justified, let him be anathema” (DS 1562). ↩
  12. Calvin writes: “The ancient Fathers have followed the philosophers too closely. As for the doctors of the Church, although there has been none who did not understand how weakened reason is in man because of sin, and that the will is subject to many evil impulses of concupiscence, yet most of them have accepted the opinion of the philosophers far more than would have been desirable.” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, 2, 4. ↩
  13. “Unintelligent persons, however, with regard to the words of the Apostle: ‘We account that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law,’ have thought he meant to say that faith is sufficient for a man, even if he leads a bad life, without good works.” Augustine of Hippo, On Grace and Free Will XVIII (NPNF1, Vol. V). ↩
  14. Jimmy Akin, Sola Scriptura and Private Judgment. ↩
  15. 2 Tim 4:3-4 ↩
  16. Martin Luther, De abroganda missa privata, Preface. Cited in Roberto Manning, El camino más corto para quitar disputas en materia de religión, Imprenta Real, Madrid 1795, pp. 158-159. ↩
  17. Weimarer Ausgabe Tischreden 141, I, 62-63. ↩
  18. Weimarer Ausgabe 40,1, pp. 130-131. Cited in Ricardo García-Villoslada, Martín Lutero II, en lucha contra Roma, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Second Edition, Madrid 1976, p. 15. ↩
  19. Weimarer Ausgabe 17,2, p. 28. Ibid., p. 14. ↩
  20. Weimarer Ausgabe 10,2, p. 184. Ibid., p. 15. ↩
  21. Ricardo García-Villoslada, Martín Lutero II, en lucha contra Roma, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Second Edition, Madrid 1976, p. 14. ↩
  22. Weimarer Ausgabe 30, 3, p. 470. Ibid., p. 377. ↩
  23. Léonard, E. G., Histoire générale du protestantisme I, Paris 1961, p. 301 ff. ↩
  24. 1 Corinthians 1:10 ↩
  25. Jude 18-19 ↩
  26. Romans 16:17 ↩
  27. 2 Peter 1:20 ↩
  28. On this point, see Infant Baptism in the Fathers of the Church and in History. ↩
  29. Despite convening to deliberate and attempting to reach agreement at the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529, all accord proved impossible and the differences persist to this day. ↩
  30. Galatians 5:19-20 ↩
  31. John Calvin, Ep. 141, Letter to Philipp Melanchthon. The text in English, as it appears in Charles F. B. Allnatt, Which is the true church? or, a few plain reasons for joining the Roman Catholic communion, Ballantyne Press 1881, p. 58, reads: “It is of great importance that the divisions which subsist amongst us should not be known to future ages; for nothing can be more ridiculous than that we, who have been obliged to separate from the whole world (a toto mundo discessionem facere coacti sumus), should have agreed so ill among ourselves from the very beginning of the Reformation.” ↩
  32. Martin Luther, Letter to Zwingli. Cited in Jaime Luciano Balmes, El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilización europea, Vol. I, Imprenta del Diario de Barcelona, Tenth Edition, Barcelona 1921, p. 213. ↩
  33. Martin Luther, In Postill. super Evang. Dominicae primae Advent. Cited in Charles F. B. Allnatt, Which is the true church?, Ballantyne Press 1881, p. 60. ↩
  34. Martin Luther, Serm. Dom. 26 post Trinit. Cited in Allnatt, Which is the true church?, p. 60. ↩
  35. Martin Luther, In Gen. xxiii,9, tom. i, p. 2451. Cited in Allnatt, Which is the true church?, p. 60. ↩
  36. John Calvin, De Scandalis, tom. ix, p. 71, Amsterdam ed., 1667. Cited in Allnatt, Which is the true church?, p. 60. ↩
  37. Philipp Melanchthon, Epis. 202, lib. II. Cited in Allnatt, Which is the true church?, p. 59. ↩
  38. Martin Bucer, De Regno Christi, lib. i, c. 4. Cited in Allnatt, Which is the true church?, p. 61. ↩
  39. Theodore Beza, Epist. ad Andream Dudit. Cited in Jaime Luciano Balmes, El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo, Vol. I, Tenth Edition, Barcelona 1921, pp. 213-214. ↩
  40. Martin Luther, Against the Assassin of Dresden. Wider den Meuchler zu Dresden: Weimarer Ausgabe 30,3, pp. 444-471. ↩
  41. Weimarer Ausgabe 54, 214-215. Cited in García-Villoslada, Martín Lutero II, en lucha contra Roma, p. 545. ↩
  42. Weimarer Ausgabe 54, 220-221. Ibid., p. 545. ↩
  43. Weimarer Ausgabe 54, 226-228. Ibid., p. 545. ↩
  44. Weimarer Ausgabe 18, 357 and 367. Ibid., p. 181. ↩
  45. Letter to Link, October 27: Briefw. IV, 272. Ibid., p. 306. ↩
  46. Abbé Bergier, Diccionario Enciclopédico de Teología, Vol. III, Imprenta Don Tomás Jordán, March 1832, p. 541. ↩
  47. Jaime Luciano Balmes, El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo, Vol. I, Tenth Edition, Barcelona 1921, p. 208. ↩
  48. Calvin writes to Farel: “Servetus has just sent me, together with his letters, a thick volume of his ravings. If I consent, he will come here; but I will not give him my word, for should he come, if my authority is worth anything, I will not suffer him to leave alive.” Roland H. Bainton, Servet, el hereje perseguido, Taurus Ediciones, Madrid 1973, p. 152. ↩
  49. César Cantú, Historia Universal, Vol. IV, Imprenta de Gaspar y Roig, Madrid 1866, p. 67. ↩
  50. Guido Zagheni, La Edad Moderna, Curso de Historia de la Iglesia III, Ediciones Palabra, Madrid 2005, p. 139. ↩
  51. Hermann Tuchle, Nueva Historia de la Iglesia, Vol. III, Ediciones Cristiandad, 1987, p. 122. ↩
  52. A mention of Monnet’s execution can be found in: Paul Henry, The Life and Times of John Calvin, the Great Reformer, Vol. II, Whittaker and Co., London 1849. ↩
  53. This episode is narrated by the Protestant historian Bernard Cottret in his work Calvino, la fuerza y la fragilidad, Editorial Complutense, First Edition, Madrid 2002, p. 198. ↩
  54. Bernard Cottret, Calvino, la fuerza y la fragilidad, p. 197. ↩
  55. John Calvin, Letter to the Marquis de Poet, Geneva, September 8, 1561. Cited in Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro, Causas de la revolución en Francia, Vol. II, Madrid 1807, p. 273. ↩
  56. Mt 19:6 ↩
  57. 1 Cor 7:11 ↩
  58. Abbé Bergier, Diccionario Enciclopédico de Teología, Vol. VI, Imprenta Don Tomás Jordán, March 1833, p. 286. ↩
  59. R. P. Croiset, Paralelo de las costumbres de este siglo y de la moral de Jesu-Christo, Imprenta Real, Madrid 1789, pp. 164-165. ↩
  60. Abbé Bergier, Diccionario Enciclopédico de Teología, Vol. II, Imprenta Don Tomás Jordán, November 1831, p. 214. ↩
  61. Joseph Lortz, Historia de la Iglesia, Vol. II, Ediciones Cristiandad. ↩
  62. Justo L. González, The Story of Christianity, Vol. II, Editorial Unilit, Miami 2004, p. 42. ↩
  63. Ricardo García-Villoslada, Martín Lutero II, en lucha contra Roma, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Second Edition, Madrid 1976, p. 204. ↩
  64. He does so in his writing entitled “Admonition to Peace in Reply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry of Swabia”. A translation of the twelve articles to which Luther refers can be found in García-Villoslada, Martín Lutero II, pp. 206-207. ↩
  65. Salvador Castellote, Reformas y Contrarreformas en la Europa del siglo XVI, Ediciones Akal, Madrid 1997, p. 42. ↩
  66. Martin Luther, Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, 1525. ↩
  67. Martin Luther, Weimarer Ausgabe Tischreden 3, 75, no. 2911a. Cited in Hubert Jedin, Manual de Historia de la Iglesia, Vol. V, Editorial Herder, Barcelona 1972, p. 217. ↩
  68. Jaime Luciano Balmes, Observaciones sociales, políticas y económicas sobre los bienes del clero, Imprenta de A. Brush, Second Edition, Barcelona 1854, p. 64. ↩