Introductory Story
Charles was raised in a Catholic family in a small town in Pennsylvania. He had eight years of Catholic elementary education and was devout from a very early age. As a freshman in a very large public high school, Charles befriended other Christians who did not share the Catholic faith. He was surprised to hear more than one of them ask him, “Are you a Christian?”
Since Charles was known by many to be a Catholic who took his faith seriously, he thought such a question was very strange. What he could not have known then was that his friends came from a very particular Protestant Christian perspective in which “being a Christian” had little or nothing to do with church affiliation or receiving the Sacraments. Encounters like this led Charles to a lifetime professional interest in understanding how Protestants understand discipleship in Jesus and what this means in relationship to the Church which He founded. Charles eventually became a Catholic priest.
Who Are Protestants?
Who are Protestants? One may think right away of the familiar congregations across the country and indeed throughout much of the world: Lutherans, Presbyterans, Baptists, and so forth. These groups represent a form of the Christian faith originating in Central and Northern Europe in the early to mid-sixteenth century. There are also many Protestants—perhaps a majority —whose remote origins trace back to the Anglican Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries: the Episcopalians, Methodists and many Evangelical groups. There are also Pentecostal churches which grew from this final Protestant group and were well established by the early 20th century. Finally, there are Protestants who have little connection to “mainstream” Protestantism, such as the Quakers and the Church of the Brethren, along with the Amish and Mennonites, which originated in non-Lutheran German and Dutch Protestant Reform movements.
Protestant Christians have a number of beliefs in common with other Christians, such as us Catholic Christians and our Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters. Protestants share the ancient Church’s belief in One God in Three Persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They believe that Jesus Christ, who was born in time and human history as man, is also the Son of God, in the unity of one Person; that he suffered His Passion and death for the salvation of the human race, rose from the dead as true God and true man who will never again die, and will return visibly to judge the human race, the just going to eternal life and the unjust going to eternal punishment.
Protestant Origins
Beyond these and other commonalities, there are some teachings which are particular to Protestant believers. These can be summed up in three basic teachings of Martin Luther which we shall discuss in an upcoming segment. Luther is usually considered the “founding father” of the Protestant movement. He was originally a Catholic priest and friar of a religious order called the Augustinians, in what is now central Germany. He was also a university professor.
When Luther first came onto the public scene in the early 1500s, the Catholic Church had been dealing with many internal problems. The laity were poorly instructed; they lacked a proper understanding of Catholic teaching and therefore of virtuous living. Many clergy were also severely slack in observing their pastoral duties, and they themselves were not often sufficiently formed before ordination. Also, many bishops and large monasteries had become more concerned with acquiring money, property and political power than caring for the People of God.
In a reaction to this situation, Martin Luther wrote his historic document, the 95 Thesis,[1] officially dated October 31, 1517. It contained 95 propositions expressing his disdain for abuses in the Church (some of which we just mentioned), along with what he considered errors in certain teachings of the Church, especially teachings regarding Purgatory and Indulgences. In June of 1520, many of the teachings Luther presented in this document were condemned by the Church (under Pope Leo X), leading to Luther’s excommunication several months later in January, 1521.[2]
The Catholic Response
In February of 1546, almost 30 years after Luther sent his historic 95 Theses to his Archbishop, his life on earth came to a close. The movement he ignited in Central Europe, however, lived on and eventually spread across the world. Its effects are strongly present among us, five-hundred years later, not only in the hearts of those who accept his beliefs and those of the other Reformers, but in almost innumerable Protestant congregations and missions, in schools, hospitals and charitable institutions. Within a generation, his movement had accelerated already existing and desperately needed reform movements in the Catholic Church—something which Luther and the other founders of the Reformation had sought from the beginning. However, authentic Catholic renewal came at an exceptionally high cost.
The Protestant Reformation—while attempting to renew a truly Christ-centered faith and greater familiarity of Sacred Scripture among the faithful, also promoted many false doctrines regarding revealed truth and practices of the Faith. Long before the close of the sixteenth-century, the Reformation, itself, had splintered into numerous doctrinal camps opposed to one another. It also had the effect of religiously factionalizing civil authorities throughout Europe, causing convulsions of religious persecution by one Christian body against another, even leading to decades of all-out war.
In the midst of all this, the Catholic Church, itself, established and supported numerous programs of authentic and lasting reform. Many of these had actually already been underway as the Reformation raged on. This period came to be known as the Counter-Reformation. Its goal was to bring about authentic, significant reform “in head and in members;” a goal which popes and councils had tried—yet failed—to accomplish for over two hundred years prior. Unlike previous efforts, which were sincerely undertaken, the Counter-Reformation was successful. Why? Because Western Christianity was within years or even months of falling apart. Reform was now imperative. The Protestants, while splitting the Church, had forced their own type of reform. The Catholic Reformation finally accomplished what was needed — and unlike the Protestant Reformers, the Catholic side held steadfastly and faithfully to communion with the true Church and its authentic doctrines and disciplines.
Among the many “stars” of this period, we can count Sts. Robert Bellarmine and Charles Borromeo for the defense of Catholic doctrine; Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross who reformed the Carmelite Order; Father Matteo DeBassi, the founder of the Capuchin reform of the Franciscans, as well as St. Ignatius Loyola (a contemporary of Luther) who founded the Jesuits. The first seminaries for clergy formation were also founded in this period.
But perhaps the single greatest institutional vehicle of reform was the Ecumenical Council of Trent, which opened in 1545. This great gathering of the world’s Catholic bishops restated and clarified Catholic doctrine against the errors of the Reformers, corrected the abuses by bishops and clergy, and also worked for the consolidation and renewal of Sacred Liturgy in the Western Church. The length and proven value of these reforms was powerful, and they came providentially at the same time as the “Age of Exploration,” when Catholics were just beginning to evangelize entire portions of the globe that were previously unknown.
These true reforms of the Church in the West were so effective that, by God’s grace, they directly contributed to further reform and renewal movements up into our own time, especially through Vatican Council II and the work of great pope-saints John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II.
“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:1-6 – NIV).
[1] Also known as the “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences.”
[2] For the condemnation of Luther’s errors, see the Papal Bull Exsurge Domine of June 15, 1520 (Francisco Gaude [edit.], Bullarum Diplomatum et Privilegiorum, Tomus V [Taurinensis, Italia: Seb. Franco et Henrico Dalmazzo Editoribus, 1860], 748-757). For an English translation, see the web site Papal Encyclicals. For the decree excommunicating Luther, Decet Romanum Pontificem, see the aforementioned Bullarum Diplomatum (761-764) and Papal Encyclicals for an English translation.