At the year 1524, Martin Luther, a significant figure in the Reformation and the founder of Lutheranism, had just finished hiding in Frederick the Wise’s Saxony castle after the Edict of Worms declared that he was an “outlaw” of the Holy Roman Empire. Luther’s action that led up to this event was the publication of the 95 Theses in 1517, which denounced indulgences and attacked the corruption of the papacy. Luther was able to remain hidden due to the extreme decentralization of the Holy Roman Empire. Emperor Charles V could not devote much of his attention to Luther, as he was controlling Spain, The Holy Roman Empire, and the New World.
One of the biggest issues he had to deal with was the excommunication of Fr. Leonard Feeney. The excommunication was due to his false interpretation of the Catholic doctrine. He was informing people there was no salvation outside the Church. Feeney stuck his ground on the matter for a while but eventually died.
He took the words of God, and made them his own, changing their meaning. After these sudden changes, Martin Luther said, “The main reason I fell out with the pope was this: the pope boasted that he was the head of the Church, and condemned all that would not be under his power and authority. He said, “..although Christ is the head of the Church, there must be a physical head of the Church upon earth.” (Document 5, Luther). As Luther said, this could not be tolerated.
O’Toole argues while Catholicism created a unity throughout different parts of the Hapsburg Empire, it also created dissent from within. For example, displeased with what he saw as a corrupt and self-indulgent Catholic Church in the 1500s, a German monk named Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-Five Theses, which highlighted the indulgent practices by the Church. “Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?” (Luther, Thesis 86).
He was very similar to Martin Luther in terms of their beliefs. Along with Zwingli, was John Calvin who was a French protestant prominent in the reformation. One main event during this time was when King Henry VIII demanded the current pope at the time to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon due to the fact that she hadn’t yet given birth to a son and he believed she was cursed. He thought that all of England’s stability relied on him having an heir to the throne. The pope denied the annulment ultimately causing King Henry to become enraged and he declared himself authority of the church.
During this period the Renaissance Popes failed to fulfill the churches spiritual needs, and they were often involved in worldly concerns such as Pope Julius II who was a “warrior pope” leading armies into battle. Christians were disgusted, they viewed the Pope as their spiritual leader, someone to lead them spiritually not into battle with the enemy. The church failed as many of the church officials were ignorant of their spiritual duties and more concerned with accumulating more wealth, and the use of their position within the church offices to their advantage to further advance their careers and fortunes. (Duiker, World History, 421) While the spiritual leaders of the church were failing their responsibilities many of the people were looking for some sort of meaningful religious expression and most importantly salvation after death.
Martin Luther was a german theologian who brought on the reformation by demanding changes in the Catholic Church (“Martin Luther”). Martin grew with a father that was a miner and grew up working and being very religious (“Martin Luther”). One year later he followed out his promise by leaving everything behind and being ordained a monk (Martin Luther, World History Ancient and Medieval Eras). Many people believe Martin spoke badly about the church because he was corrupted by temptation. Martin Luther was ordained a monk in 1507 and did this hopefully find inner peace however, temptation made
Since the Pope and the Emperor were in control at the time, no one could go against their rules. If someone did counter them, they would be burned at the stake, and Luther was one of those people. He questioned and denied the Popes authority in the Church which caused the Church and the Emperor to become angry at his actions. The Cardinals wanted to have him excommunicated and the Emperor wanted him burned at the stake. Normally, Luther would have been killed on the spot but, the German Princes saved his life by risking their lives to keep his teachings instead of staying Catholic.
Martin Lutner had an idea and that was to write the 95 thesis, which questioned the pope and the church, and to rewrite the bible in German so
People thought Church practices (sale of indulgences) was not allowable. a. John Wycliffe of England and Jan Hus of Bohemia recommended Church reform. b. Europeans were reviewing religious information and also thought about their own opinions about the Church. B. Luther Challenges the Church Luther made a stand towards the actions of friar Johann Tetzel.
The Pope and the Priest were corrupt and brutal. They neglected their people and took an intense interest in politics. Many critiqued the church on its clerical immortality, clerical ignorance, and clerical pluralism with also the problem of absenteeism. This meant that the papacy stayed away from their duties without a good reason. King Henry VIII’s chancellor Thomas Wolsey didn’t step foot in his diocese until fifteen years after.
The church promised eternal salvation to everyone who lived accordingly(Overfield). In the 1500s the Roman Catholic Church was very powerful in Western Europe. But other political forces including Italy, England France and more had increased in the previous century and many were anxious to take the opportunity offered by the Reformation to weaken the power of the papacy and increase their own power in relation to the Church in Rome and other rulers. There was also a great deal of corruption of the church thanks the the pope and his abandonment of the people. The corruption of the Church was well known, and several attempts had been made to reform the Church but none of these efforts successfully challenged Church practice until Martin Luther 's actions in the early 1500s.
By questioning the sale of indulgences and arguing that the pope does not have complete authority over forgiveness of sins and, to a larger extent, salvation, Luther established a precedent for the word of the Church to be called into question rather than it having absolute authority. Given that Luther opens his 95 Theses with “out of love and concern for the truth,” it is clear that his intentions are not necessarily to completely undermine the authority of the Catholic Church, but rather to open a dialogue between the Catholic Church and its faithful on what is actually true in regards to God. The collective judgment of the Catholic community, particularly those who did not have positions of power in the Church, would then have a much greater effect on the direction in which the Catholic Church took than it would have before Luther’s 95 Theses.
It really amazed me when I was reading the book about how fast people were coming to America to gain religious freedom, or were they. Was the rule of the pope causing the mass migration? There were five million immigrates that came to America between 1815, and 1860 (Koester, 2015 p. 90). During this time, the growth of Catholics was astonishing. This started to alarm the established religious groups to a point where the movement for anti-Catholics took hold.
This happened in 1517 when he posted the 95 Theses on Castle Church door. His “95 theses” which suggested 2 central beliefs: that the bible was the center of religious authority and that you can only reach salvation through faith and not by your actions- which sparked the reformation. Even though these issues had been brought up before he set them into order at that moment and the Catholic Church was divided. He had done this to prove that the Catholic Church was Corrupt. As a result some of his followers broke off from the Catholic Church and started the Lutheran Church.
