The Reformation Case

One of the greatest of all revolutions was the 16th-century religious revolt known as the Reformation. It was a religious movement that broke away from the Catholic Church due to the disagreement over the right path to salvation. This stormy, often brutal, conflict separated the Christians of Western Europe into Protestants and Catholics. So far-reaching were the results of the separation that the Reformation has been called a turning point in history. It ushered in the Modern Age because, once the people's religious unity was destroyed, they began to think in terms of their own regional interests. From the diversity of those interests arose new political, social, and economic problems and beliefs. What factors caused it, how did it start and how did it end up the way it did are topics that demand urgent intellectual interrogation. It must be noted that though the original intention was not to start an open rebellion against the mother church and for that matter the Catholic Church, it led to a great revolt against it, and an abandonment of the principal Christian beliefs held by then. Some observers have argued that "the Reformation was an unsuccessful rebellion within the Catholic Church." The degree of validity of this assertion can only be established after a careful examination of what were demands of the reformers, whether it Reformation was actually a rebellion, how did the Catholic Church response this and what were the eventual consequences of the Reformation.

The demands made by the reformers and most notably Martin Luther, had a long historical background. As early as the 13th century the papacy had become vulnerable to attack because of the greed, immorality, and ignorance of many of its officials in all ranks of the hierarchy. Vast tax-free church possessions, constituting, according to varying estimates, as much as one-fifth to one-third of the lands of Europe, incited the envy and resentment of the land-poor peasantry. The so-called Babylonian Captivity of popes at Avignon in the 14th century and the ensuing Western Schism gravely impaired the authority of the church and divided its adherents into partisans of one or another pope And by the 15th century there calls and attempts at reforms. As early as the 14th century, John Wycliffe, an English priest and teacher at Oxford University, declared that people had the right to read the Bible and interpret it for themselves. Despite protests by the church, followers of Wycliffe translated the Bible from Latin into English in 1382 and carried copies throughout the countryside. Wycliffe's ideas spread into Bohemia, where Jan Hus widely preached them in powerful sermons. The work of Wycliffe and Hus greatly influenced the Saxon monk, Martin Luther. Another effort at reform was the attempts by the Council of Constance from 1414 to 1418, but no program gained the support of a majority, and no radical changes were instituted at that time.

Meanwhile, humanism, the revival of classical learning and speculative inquiry beginning in the 15th century in Italy during the early Renaissance, displaced Scholasticism as the principal philosophy of Western Europe and deprived church leaders of the monopoly on learning that they had previously held. Laypersons studied ancient literature, and scholars such as the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla critically appraised translations of the Bible and other documents that formed the basis for much of church dogma and tradition. The invention of the printing press greatly increased the circulation of books and spread new ideas throughout Europe. Humanists outside Italy, such as Erasmus in the Netherlands, John Colet, Johann Reuchlin in Germany, and Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples in France, applied the new learning to the evaluation of church practices and the development of a more accurate knowledge of the Scriptures.

It is within this religious and socio-cultural environment that Martin Luther arose and became the leader of the Reformation in Germany and later to other parts of Europe. Born to a Thuringian peasant, his father sent him sent him to the University of Erfurt to study law. But he disappointed his father and opted to become a monk in the Augustinian Order. It is here that he had his theological foundation and encountered his "tower experience" which is the point where he received his illumination on the path to salvation (by faith alone which became the motto of the Reformation movement). Later he became a priest and a university lecturer. His accumulated dissatisfaction with the Church became unbearable when in 1517 a jubilee indulgence was being preached near Wittenberg to generate funds for the building of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. Luther used this opportunity to draw up a list of church activities for which he demanded resolution and change. This list, the Ninety-Five Thesis is centered on a call to eliminate the sale of indulgences. He also attacked the monk Johann Tetzel for deceiving the people and raised other issues like the clergy's claim of the sole right to interpret the Bible, prayer for the dead, the sale of church relics, the worship of images and statues and over veneration of saints among others. He insisted that the Bible was the sole source of Christian truth. He declared that the vows taken by monks and nuns were not binding and that monasteries should be abolished. He rejected the celibacy of the clergy.

The highlights of the Reformation included the October, 1517's act where Luther wrote a list of 95 theses against indulgences and nailed them to the door of the church in Wittenberg (considered as the beginning of the Reformation), the public burning of the Papal Bull and the protest of Northern German Princes at the diet of Speyer from where the word protestants originated. The Microsoft Encarta Dictionary defines rebellion an opposition to or defiance of authority, accepted moral codes or social conventions. To this degree therefore, the actions of Martin Luther and the other reformers could be considered as a rebellion. It must be noted that his intention was for the church to change its ways and stop the practices he had raised in his Ninety Five Thesis and not a break from the Catholic Church. It was in this light, a rebellion within the Catholic Church. Whether this rebellion was successful or not will be revealed as we examine the events that followed.

The initial reaction of the Catholic Church was that of demands that he retracts a number of his protests or else face excommunication. Luther not only refused but publicly burnt the Papal Bull and the entire church law. He was pronounced a heretic and condemned to burning at the stake. However, he was lucky that the Elector Saxon, Frederick the Wise offered him another hearing at the Diet of Worms with the newly elected emperor, Charles V as the presiding officer. The Diet of Worms proclaimed him an outlaw