Given from the Catholic Broadcasting Station 2SM Sydney Australia
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True. And if that scandalizes you, I would be scandalized if such were not the attitude of the Catholic Church, and I would abandon it. But note the sense of the words. The Church remains intolerant of "all other religions"�not of people who profess those religions mistakenly, but quite sincerely. All that the sentence means is that the Catholic Church, convinced of the truth of the religion she is commissioned to safeguard and teach, cannot admit that any other religions are equally right. She is as bound to declare them mistaken as you would refuse to admit tolerantly that 2 and 2 make 5, instead of 4. "Dogmatic intolerance" merely means that one who is certain of a given truth is not free to admit tolerantly that doctrines opposed to it are also true. And granted that the Catholic conviction is true, that Christ is God, that He taught the doctrines upheld by the Catholic Church, and that He commanded that Church to teach them to mankind, and to defend them, how could the Catholic Church do otherwise than declare it to be her right and duty to carry out Christ's command? If she did not, she would be false to her charge, and I myself would, as I have said, abandon her. There is not a word in all this to imply that the Catholic Church would want to treat intolerantly the persons of those who mistakenly hold doctrines differing from those she is commissioned to teach.
No. True, he liberated his followers from the Catholic Church, and from the restraints of the law of Christ. But to those who followed him out of the Church he did not grant liberty. He substituted his own authority and that of the German Lutheran princes for that of the Catholic Church. He urged the German princes to use force to suppress anyone who taught otherwise than Dr. Martin Luther, telling them to hand such a one over to "his proper master, the master executioner." The German historian, P. Wappler, declares that "Luther approved of the death penalty, inflicted for the exclusive reason of heresy."
That is a legend. Hallam, in his "Introduction to the History of Literature," writes as follows: "The adherents of the Church of Rome have never failed to cast two reproaches on those who left them; one, that the Reform was brought about by the tyranny of princes; the other, that after stimulating the most ignorant to reject the authority of the Church, it instantly withdrew this liberty of judgment and devoted all who presumed to swerve from the line drawn by law to violent obloquy, and sometimes to bonds and to death. These reproaches, it may be a shame to us to own, can be uttered, and cannot be refuted." Vol. I, p. 200.
His doctrine applied only to those rulers opposed to his teachings. Then he would bid temporal rulers not to meddle with spiritual things, and declare the State to be "of the devil," whose laws Christians had no moral obligation to obey. But he taught the very opposite where German princes were favorable to Lutheranism. Then the ruler was "the agent of God," rightly using the sword to enforce religion.
His principles tend of their very nature to totalitarianism. Catholics believe in a religious authority distinct from and higher than any earthly authority. That may have led to conflict with civil rulers when those rulers have wished to exceed their rights, but it certainly does not favor totalitarianism. Luther, however, simply gave temporal rulers political despotism over the consciences of men when he delivered religion into the hands of the State. Scherr, in "German Culture," p. 260, writes: "Luther was the originator of the doctrine of unconditional surrender to civil power." Nowhere is this clearer than in the history of the Peasants' War. In 1524 the peasants in German Lutheran territories revolted against the princes, demanding the abolition of serfdom. Luther was preaching about the liberty of Christian men, so they begged him to take up their cause. But Luther needed the help of the German princes to establish his religion, and he urged them to slay the peasants mercilessly. The scandal was enormous, and it will and it will ever remain in the pages of history as an indictment of Martin Luther.
"THAT CATHOLIC CHURCH
A Radio Analysis"
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