CP&S comment: Good for Cardinal Müller! What a lot of time orthodox members of the Church’s clergy (and frequently, scholarly members of the laity too) have to spend in correcting the lies and shenanigans of the heterodox!
Cardinal Gerhard Müller (CNS)
by Staff Reporter of the CATHOLIC HERALD
His comments come after a senior Italian bishop said the Reformation was an ‘event of the Spirit’
German cardinal Gerhard Müller has said the Protestant Reformation was not a “reform” but a “total change of the foundations of the Catholic faith”.
Writing for Italian website La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana, the former prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said modern-day Catholics often discuss Martin Luther “too enthusiastically”, mainly due to an ignorance of theology.
His comments come after the secretary-general of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Nunzio Galantino, reportedly said “the Reformation carried out by Martin Luther 500 years ago was an event of the Holy Spirit,” adding: “The Reformation corresponds to the truth expressed in the saying ‘Ecclesia semper reformanda’”.
Cardinal Müller strongly contradicted this view, however, saying it is wrong to think Luther’s intent was simply to fight abuses in indulgences or the sins of the Renaissance Church, the Cardinal said.
“Abuses and bad actions have always existed in the Church. We are the Holy Church because of the grace of God and the sacraments, but all Church men are sinners, all need forgiveness, contrition, and penance.”
Instead, Luther abandoned “all the principles of the Catholic faith, Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition, the Magisterium of the Popes and Councils, the episcopate.”
It is therefore unacceptable to say that Luther’s reform was “an event of the Holy Spirit” because “the Holy Spirit helps the Church to maintain its continuity through the Church’s magisterium”.
[…]
See also on the National Catholic Register how Luther’s Movement Was as Much About Power as Religion
And how Luther Favored Death, Not Religious Freedom, For ‘Heretics’
Catholicism Pure & Simple 
Reformation, an event of the Holy Spirit? Wow. The difference in thinking between Gallintono and Mueller is like the the liberal left and the conservative right trying to have a conversation. Two different ways of thinking. Personally, I think Luther was trying to wake the clergy up, but then got carried away with his own thoughts, power, and pride. He didn’t start the Lutheran religion; his followers did and called it that. I’ve read he regretted what he started, but by his death it was too late, the followers took it and ran.
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So do we call Father Müller the “Cardinal Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” ???
I dunno, but so far his successor looks like not much more than a nonentity, peace be upon him.
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Crikey, is the plan that we should also think about Pope Benedict as a “Cardinal Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith/i>” and not very much more ???
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I try not to pay attention to Protestant gibberish. It only serves to infuse question into your Catholic Traditions
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Quite right, I Can Fly.
Stick to Catholic gibberish. Much sounder.
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I’d much rather sit through a sermon by a fiery pulpit-pounding Prod than suffer through a *homily* (absurd word, imo) by some gay-loving Catholic cleric (hello James Martin, SJ!). Best preaching I’ve ever witnessed was by an Irish Prod – the Rev Dr R. Maurice Boyd (RIP) late of Ulster and The City Church in NYC, and his books grace my bedroom whereas Fr Bergoglio is nowhere to be found. Mind you, Boyd & Co. cannot offer anyone the most important things (Body and Blood of Christ) and it’s risky and often verboten to participate in any of their so-called sacraments (I make exceptions for weddings and funerals). Nevertheless, we owe them – the really good ones (hello Billy Graham!) – a big debt of gratitude for their witness to Love, if not (due to their unintended ignorance) complete Truth. In terms of absolute numbers, I suppose there are more utter frauds amongst Protestant clergy than Chez Nous, but I hold Catholics to a higher standard. I’m more upset and stressed by our deluded leaders than I am by our well-meaning separated brethren.
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Might I also add, entirely non à propos this thread (I’ve a few minutes to spare) but because Jabba has commented here and may look back to see who’s more enthralled with him than bored by me, that his prideful comment recently on another thread about how people should read Marcel Proust in French or not at all: where does that leave people like me, an ignorant very-semi-Francophone acquainted with Proust only by reason of the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation of his master work? Should I stop reading it, and pick up something by our non-English speaking Pope instead? What about Plato, Pliny and Pushkin, to mention some other non-Anglos whose names begin with P? Are we middlebrows best off staying away from them also? JabbaPapa (Lord have mercy on the letter P) said exactly that concerning Proust, but the Recent 100+ Comments link on CP&S hasn’t worked in ages, so I can’t prove it.
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…but to return to my complimentary comment above concerning Protestant ministers (some of) here’s an interesting article by the toothsome Candida Moss that lays out and corrects a few Myths of the Reformation. She is rather persuasive as well as pretty.
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I should try to keep the likes of the risible James Martin, SJ in perspective. He and his Vatican enabler at Casa Santa Marta are no worse than these Prod Piskies now in charge of George Washington’s home church in Virginia who’ve just decided to tear out the plaque in the pew where George and Martha used to sit. Not a man among them.
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…which is not to concede that James (or Jane) Martin, SJ is actually a man. Hard to say based on his writings.
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his prideful comment recently on another thread about how people should read Marcel Proust in French or not at all
I was going to let this one go, but frankly I cannot fail to see in this tedious intervention yet another example from jh of JabbaBashing for its own sake.
Having been overtly asked by my friend toad for my personal opinion on the question of Proust, after toad chose Proust (very inappropriately) as an example of ambiguous writing, I gave it.
The reaction to which by jh, to a question and answer about personal opinions, has been to accuse me personally of pride.
I mean talk about the pot calling the veggies black !!
It is ALWAYS better to read authors in their original language !! This fact does not change regardless of how jh might seek to redefine it as being somehow “prideful”. (though I somehow doubt that he’s read Proust even in translation)
Proust is a particularly difficult author, very hard to read even in the French !! But this does not mean that all translations of all authors are bad, nor does it mean whatever nonsense about me personally that jh has decided to derive from my comments.
It simply means that Proust in translation is particularly defective compared to other translated authors.
I do not doubt that jh shall continue in future to seek all manner of pretexts for his sad, ongoing personal attacks.
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Hillare Belloc had some very practical reasoning behind the Reformation, that I found convincing.
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Apologies, Jabba. I do needle you more than I do others here – not sure why, perhaps I find you just a touch too didactic. Still, I concede that you’re a well informed commenter with interesting insights. I’m just about done Sodom and Gomorrah, the last volume of MP’s magnum opus published before he died. Not sure whether to start the last two books completed and published by his brother after his death, but I likely will. Edmund Wilson, the literary critic wrote a good essay about Proust in his book about modern literary symbolism, Axel’s Castle (1945). I was surprised to read that Wilson didn’t believe Proust to be homosexual, even though In Search of Lost Time reeks of homosexual themes. Cheers.
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Proust likely experimented in his youth, but Sodome et Gommorhe is really just a long hate letter and exposé against the worst horrors of the “gay lifestyle”.
It’s THE most difficult volume of the novel.
But — Le Temps retrouvé, the last volume, is very very beautiful.
Really though, you should read it in the revised edition of the 1990s, or a translation therefrom, which divides the novel into 7 volumes rather than 6.
1) Du côté de chez Swann
2) A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs
3) Le Côté de Guermantes
4) Sodome et Gommorrhe
5) La Prisionnière
6) Albertine disparue
7) Le Temps retrouvé
This new division, contrary to the usual one used for translations into English, was a decades-long work that led to the one-volume Gallimard 1999 edition, 2000 pages, and simply the best edition of Proust available anywhere. Including the blissful absence of any and all extraordinarily annoying footnotes.
The unfinished novels were split more naturally into three rather than the earlier, more artificial division into two plus some inconvenient bits and pieces published as the confusing first version of Albertine disparue.
Translations of Proust are bad including because the text they use to translate from is defective.
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I mean, failing to translate Proust from the Gallimard one-volume would be like translating Chaucer from anywhere except the Riverside Complete Works : doomed to failure.
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I’m having a new bookcase delivered tomorrow, and in deference to you, shall make sure À la Recherche du Temps Perdu occupies a prominent place. So much joy there is – selecting books to place in a new bookcase.
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There’s an article in this week’s Spectator about Proust and his noisy neighbours.
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