Happy Reformation Day: 2016

- Reformation Wall

Today is Reformation Day , which celebrates the Protestant Reformation. I like a lot of what the Reformation aimed to accomplish ...

The Protestant Reformation, often referred to simply as the Reformation (from Latin reformatio, lit. "restoration, renewal") was a schism from the Roman Catholic Church initiated by Martin Luther and continued by John Calvin, Huldrych Zwingli, and other early Protestant Reformers in 16th century Europe.

[...]

Luther began by criticizing the selling of indulgences, insisting that the Pope had no authority over purgatory and that the Catholic doctrine of the merits of the saints had no foundation in the gospel. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura and sola fide. The core motivation behind these changes was theological, though many other factors played a part, including the rise of nationalism, the Western Schism that eroded faith in the Papacy, the perceived corruption of the Roman Curia, the impact of humanism, and the new learning of the Renaissance that questioned much traditional thought.

Over the years, I've had some posts that touch on this subject. Here are a few of them ...

- Ignatius Loyola and Martin Luther

- Keith Ward: the Reformation

- Indulgences and the Mass of Saint Gregory

- Vatican II and indulgences

- Luther