Why was Martin Luther so annoyed with the Catholic Church?

Answer 1

Martin Luther is the leader of the great religious revolt of the sixteenth century in Germany. After an extremely simple and inflexibly severe childhood, he entered school at age 14, and at Erfurt University at age 18, receiving a Bachelor in Philosophy in 1502 advancing to the master's in 1505.

On July 17 1505 Luther entered the Augustinian monastery of Erfurt. Hausrath, his biographer and a scholar on Luther, wrote: "the house at Mansfeld rather repelled than attracted him...to the question 'Why did Luther go into the monastery?', the reply that Luther himself gives is the most satisfactory: 'When I was terror-stricken and overwhelmed by the fear of impending death, I made an involuntary and forced vow'."

Little is known of his monastic life, except that it was so far exemplary. Ordained in 1507, he traveled to Wittenberg University in 1508 where he became Baccalaureus Biblicus in the theological course, a step towards the doctorate.

His mission to Rome occurred in 1511. Luther affirmed it was a pilgrimage in fulfilment of a vow to make a general confession in the Eternal City. Hausrath writes: "He returned from Rome as strong in the faith as he went to visit it. In a certain sense his sojourn in Rome even strengthened his religious convictions".

Luther returned to Wittenberg in 1512, and received the appointment of sub-prior. His academic promotions followed in quick succession. He was made licentiate, admitted to the doctorate, formally admitted to the senate of the faculty of theology, appointed as lecturer on The Bible, and in 1515 appointed as district vicar. Little time was left for intellectual pursuits, and the irregularity in the performance of his religious duties increased. The plague in Wittenberg in 1516 found him courageously at his post despite of the concern of his friends.

Infractions of the rules, breaches of discipline, distorted ascetic practices followed in quick succession and with increasing gravity, followed by convulsive reactions, turning his life into agony. The obligation of reciting the Divine Office was neglected to allow more ample time for study; then in remorse Luther would lock himself into his cell and by one retroactive act make amends for all he neglected; he would abstain from all food and drink, torture himself by harrowing mortifications, to an extent that not only made him the victim of insomnia for five weeks at one time, but threatened to drive him into insanity. Disregarding the monastic regulations and the counsels of his confessor, he devised his own ascetical exercises. Like every victim of scrupulosity, he saw nothing in himself but wickedness and corruption.

This anger of God, which pursued him like his shadow, could only be averted by "his own righteousness", by the "efficacy of servile works". Such an attitude of mind was necessarily followed by hopeless discouragement and despondency. This abnormal condition produced physical, mental, and spiritual depression, which later, by a strange process of reasoning, he ascribed to the teaching of the Church concerning good works.

His whole being was wrought up to such an acute tension that he actually regretted his parents were not dead, that he might avail himself of the facilities Rome afforded to save them from purgatory...and he wrote that he was ready to become "the most brutal murderer", "to kill all who even by syllable refused submission to the pope". Such a tense and neurotic physical condition demanded a reaction to the diametric extreme.

The undue importance he had placed on his own strength in the spiritual process of justification, he now peremptorily and completely rejected. He convinced himself that man, as a consequence of original sin, was totally depraved, destitute of free will, that all works, even though directed towards the good, were nothing more than an outgrowth of his corrupted will, and in the judgments of God in reality mortal sins. Man can be saved by faith alone. He wrote: "Be a sinner and sin on bravely, but have stronger faith and rejoice in Christ, who is the victor of sin...To you it ought to be sufficient that you acknowledge the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world, the sin cannot tear you away from him, even though you commit adultery a hundred times a day and commit as many murders."

The publication of the papal Bull of Indulgences in Germany to raise funds for the construction of St. Peter's Church in Rome, brought his spiritual difficulties to a crisis, also because of the exaggerations of the preachers and the abuse and scandal that ensued in some places.

In 1517 Luther affixed his Ninety-five Theses as an academic challenge to a disputation - regarded in the universities of the Middle Ages as a recognized means of defining and elucidating truth. He sent a copy to the archbishop, which reached his councillors at Aschaffenburg and the professors of the University of Mainz.

The councillors were of the unanimous opinion that they were of an heretical character, and that proceedings against the Wittenberg Augustinian should be taken. This report, with a copy of the Theses, was then transmitted to the pope.

John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, understood that the Theses, which while ostensibly aimed at the abuse of indulgences, were a covert attack on the whole penitential system of the Church and struck at the very root of ecclesiastical authority.

Johann Eck, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ingoldstadt, by common consent acknowledged as one of the foremost theological scholars of his day, singled out eighteen of the Theses as concealing the Hussite heresy, violating Christian charity, subverting the order of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and breeding sedition.

Luther's acquiescence was that of the true monk: "I am ready, and will rather obey than perform miracles in my justification."

Apapal citation reached Luther to appear in person within sixty days in Rome for a hearing. He affirmed that such a trip could not be undertaken without endangering his life, and the university sent letters to Rome and to the nuncio Miltitz sustaining the plea of "infirm health" and vouching for his orthodoxy.

The papal legate, Cajetan, and Luther met face to face for the first time at Augsburg on 11 October. Cajetan came to adjudicate, Luther to defend; the former demanded submission, the latter launched out into remonstrance. The legate, "the most renowned and easily the first theologian of his age", could not fail to be shocked at the rude, discourteous tone of Luther, and dismissed him with the injunction not to call again until he recanted.

Luther's attitude towards the papacy can be seen from his own letters. On 3 March, 1519, he writes to Pope Leo X: "Before God and all his creatures, I bear testimony that I neither did desire, nor do desire to touch or by intrigue to undermine the authority of the Roman Church and that of your holiness". Two days later (5 March) he writes to Spalatin: "It was never my intention to revolt from the Roman Apostolic chair". Ten days later (13 March) he writes to the same: "I am at a loss to know whether the pope be antichrist or his apostle".

At this stage he entered into friendship with the most radical elements of national Humanism and freebooting knighthood, saturating himself with published and unpublished humanistic anti-clerical literature, increasing his passionate hatred of Rome and the pope, his genesis of Antichrist, his contemptuous scorn for his theological opponents, his effusive professions of patriotism. It was while living in the atmosphere surcharged with these influences, that he issued his first epochal manifesto, "Address to the German Nobility". "The gospel cannot be introduced without tumult, scandal, and rebellion...the word of God is a sword, a war, a destruction, a scandal, a ruin, a poison...[As for pope, cardinals, bishops] and the whole brood of Roman Sodom...[why not attack it] with every sort of weapon and wash our hands in its blood" .

In 1520 the Bull of excommunication "Exsurge Domine" formally condemned forty-one propositions drawn from his writings and summoned Luther himself to recant within sixty days or receive the full penalty of ecclesiastical punishment. The university students assembled at the Elster Gate, and amid the jeering chant of "Te Deum laudamus", and "Requiem aeternam", Luther in person consigned it to the flames.

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