The Peace of Augsburg

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The Peace of Augsburg: An Analysis of the Augsburg Confession of Faith

Ana Paula Arendt*

In response to my Lutheran friends – or those from the Protestant movement – ​​I present some comments on the document “Augsburg Confession of Faith”. I hope to bring some good news, after the analysis and reflection, at the end. Signed by seven princes (John, Duke of Saxony, Elector; George, Margrave of Brandenburg; Ernest, Duke of Lüneburg; Philip, Landgrave of Hesse; John Frederick, Duke of Saxony; Francis, Duke of Lüneburg; Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt; by the Burgomaster and Council of Nuremberg; and by the Burgomaster and Council of Reutlingen), it is a declaration with 28 articles, drawn up by the Lutherans in these different cities, whose final draft was revised by Luther, through letters. The proposal was presented as a basis of faith to Emperor Charles V, to put an end to religious disunity among the Saxons, who then incorporated other cities to become a Lutheran declaration.

I think there is a particular interest in this work for one reason. If we assume as possible the hypothesis that everyone will be saved, as Urs van Balthasar suggested, and that hell will be empty, some harmonization between the Catholic and Protestant faiths will have to occur, in the course of this pneumatological horizon, so that we can all be saved. At least that is what would happen if we were in agreement and coherence with what the Catholic faith expresses in its prayers, in the request to God to free “all souls from hell, and especially those who most need His mercy.” And if we assume that the divine capacity to save all men is sufficient to effectively propose salvation to them, and that once proposed by God, salvation is irresistible, it would naturally follow that all Protestants, even if they had previously been condemned or refuted by the Church, would somehow appear in paradise, alongside those who had previously refuted, excommunicated and condemned them.

I have addressed this problem of the salvation of all previously, researching the sacred scriptures and works of the Saints recognized by the Catholic Church in another text. Although I found abundant evidence in these reference texts to support this possibility, as a hypothesis, the big question that immediately arises is how this could happen. That brings the matter of opinion on the Augsburg Confession of Faith, in the context of the split that Luther caused in the Catholic Church, into a necessary renewal. “The Holy Spirit regenerates and renews the believer” (Titus 3:5), “Behold, I am making all things new; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:19).

I would not dare to elaborate any thesis on the effects of Luther's 95 statements aimed at reforming the Catholic Church, discuss their merit, nor conceive what the impact would have been of the proposal he made in defense of his own faith before the ecclesiastical authorities during his excommunication process. He defended the personal interpretation of the Bible according to his own conscience, and faith as something sufficient for salvation, a factor independent of works.

The Bull Exsurge Domine, by the Supreme Pontiff Leo X on the errors of Martin Luther, was published ten years before the Augsburg Confession of Faith, on June 5, 1520, in response to Martin Luther's 95 theses and his writings, condensed by the new document. Of those 95, the Pope recognized 54 as valid, but asked Luther to retract 41 of them, as well as other specified errors, offering a period of 70 days from their publication. On the day of the deadline, December 10, 1520, Luther is reported to have burned his copy of the bull along with the volumes of the Code of Canon Law. But let us not be too fast into judging the reaction of Luther. For those who believe that Luther reacted as someone intentionally rebellious, it is necessary to note the content of Pope Leo X's bull, which does not only seek to analyze and correct theological errors, but begins its content with insults to Luther and his supporters: it refers to detractors of his absolute authority as wild boars, wild beasts, false teachers, ruinous sects, tongues of fire filled with deadly poison, tireless evil, bitter zeal, discord in their hearts, vain, liars, etc.

“The wild boar of the forest seeks to destroy it, and every wild beast comes to ravage it [the Roman Church]. Arise, Peter, and carry out the pastoral service divinely entrusted to you, as already said. Pay attention to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, which you by God’s command sanctified with your blood. You warned well that false teachers would come against the Roman Church, to introduce ruinous sects, bringing down upon themselves swift condemnation. Their tongues are of fire, untiring evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, discord in their hearts, they boast and lie against the truth.” (…) Now a new Porphyry arises who, like the other of the past, full of errors harassed the holy apostles, and now attacks the holy pontiffs, our predecessors. (…) He reproves them for violating your teaching, instead of imploring them, and he is not ashamed to attack them, to lament them, and when he despairs of his cause, to stoop to insults. He is like the heretics, whose last defence, as Jerome says, is to vomit serpent-poison with their tongues when they see that their causes are about to be condemned, and to burst into insults when they see themselves vanquished. Although you have said that there should be heresies to test the faith, yet they must be destroyed in the very cradle by your intercession and help, and thus they will not grow and become strong like your wolves. (…) Let the whole holy Church of God, I cry, arise, and with the holy apostles intercede before Almighty God to disembowel the errors of his sheep, to banish all heresies from the fields of faith, and that it may please him to maintain the peace and unity of his holy Church. (…) In their view, the fear of God is a thing of the past. (Exurge Domine, Bulla contra Errores Martini Lutheri et sequacium, Leo X, 1520)

I have no way of judging Luther's attitude that gave rise to the aforementioned papal bull, because I have not studied his biography in depth nor the details of all his writings; nor the biography of Pope Leo X, who published his bull with the Medici coat of arms to address a sacerdote (why?); nor have I studied the Code of Canon Law that was in force in 1520. A more in-depth study would be necessary than simply leafing through the material. It must be admitted, however, that Pope Leo X does not address Luther in a bull as a father addresses his son, or as a shepherd addresses his dog. The bull, which was issued publicly, seems to be a far cry from the way in which the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church disciplines its priests today: it does not treat Luther as a priest who has received the laying on of hands, but as a threat.

Therefore, it seems necessary to recover relevant information: whether there was an initial procedure of correction as required by the Gospel, of a private call, then with two witnesses, then with the Church, and only then, simply, treating the transgressor as a tax collector who deserved public insults. This contextual information would be necessary to determine whether or not the papal bull against Luther's errors contained a political content, which would lead us to make a different analysis from the investigation of the theological content. It is also true and worth noticing that Pope Leo X was careful to invoke God, all the Saints to deliver heresies and also to call the recipient a “sheep”.

To me, however, Luther's most controversial texts did not seem to be the 95 theses, but rather “The Lie of Saint John Chrysostom”, a work in which he ridicules the hagiography about the life of a Saint who was a friend of Pope Saint Gregory; and the work “On the Jews and Their Lies”, a text that would have engendered and founded, for centuries, anti-Semitism in Germany, roots that remained and would have later fed new forms of anti-Semitic hatred under the guise of Nazism, to persecute the Jewish population in Europe, during the Second World War.

I do not refrain from criticizing him for lack of conviction, or because Luther may have been imprecise in the accusations he made; nor because he would have made political use of it to launch a new religious doctrine, based on the denial of another, a use that would also be external to the interests of theological debate. I prefer to avoid evaluating these texts because of the effects of taking exclusive possession of what is or is not true. Truth undoubtedly exists: but since the world is such a complex place, and our points of view so partial and influenced by our circumstances and justifications, we are forced to recognize that our knowledge is limited by the intellectual and technological development of our own time. Perhaps this should give rise to a certain caution, any statement that had the intention of becoming permanent; especially considering the many crimes committed by the Inquisition and by religious men in their clerical positions in that sixteenth century – murders of innocents that were only very recently declared errors, in the homily of the Holy Pope John Paul II, on March 12, 2000. This is not to mention, of course, Pope Joan, or the pope and religious men for whom Dante - cited by Holy Popes - spared no effort to describe, at least in literature, in hell. We do not know for sure what the practice of the clergy was with the people, having knowledge only through records made by the Church itself, by States and by the new Protestant movement.

But this text to which I refer, the Augsburg Confession of Faith, seemed to be a very interesting work in its formulations, because it is no longer a mere criticism of the Catholic Church, nor does it claim to want to divide opinions – it presents itself precisely as the opposite effort: to find a minimum consensus on which to base a Christian faith faithful to the Gospel and the conception of the first Apostles. Could this document have been a movement to revise the original proposals of Lutheranism, in the sense desired by Pope Leo X, ten years earlier? In this sense, it seemed particularly relevant to me to analyze its content and try to understand what foundations Luther laid to justify a proposal for reconciliation under Emperor Charles V, through a certain reformulation of the Christian faith. I comment on the translation available at https://www.monergismo.com/textos/credos/confissao_augsburgo.htm.

After the publication of this text by Luther, I understand that several Catholic theologians sought to reject its content, which later led to the publication of the Apology to the Augsburg Confession by Philipp Melanchthon. I intend to present to my fellow readers my comments on this first text written by Luther, and on the Catholic criticisms that followed, and on Melanchthon's apology. Finally, I consider the events that occurred after the publication of the Augsburg Confession of Faith, and analyze Melanchthon's text.

I would like to point out that I do not intend to pass judgment before analyzing what he proposes, especially because Luther's sermons on the Lord's Supper and on the Sacrament of the Blood and Body of Christ seemed to me to be very sensitive and loving material, which contrasts with the figure that has been handed down to us from the founder of the Protestant movement. How is it possible that Luther was just a rebel sharing the same divisive spirit as the rebellious angels, and that at the same time, he could have reached such lofty conclusions about the Blessed Sacrament, about faith and love?

And the question also arises as to why Luther could not indistinctly extend these loving conclusions and call for unity to everyone, without distinguishing certain positions, ethnicity or living conditions. For me, Lutheranism is still a great mystery. Today the Catholic Church takes certain Protestant religions as other religions, and relations are based on an ecumenical dialogue, in search of points of convergence and sharing. However, without delving into the documents on which the Protestant faith is based, it would be difficult for there to be true dialogue.

Certain sacraments celebrated in Protestant churches are recognized by the Catholic Church, regardless of whether these sacraments were celebrated by priests in good standing, who strictly follow Catholic councils, or married pastors, who criticize and refuse to be part of the same Church. But now, if a consensus of faith proposed by Luther conformed to the doctrine of faith of the Catholic Church in today's times, wouldn't it be unnecessary to enter into institutional differences to separate the Catholic movement from the Protestant movement? And if, today, the document on the Peace of Augburg could be considered as something acceptable in the Catholic Church? And on the other hand, would Luther protest that his teachings were in conformity with the Catholic Church? These were the doubts that led me to scrutinize this text, written on June 25, 1530.

Preliminary analysis of the Augsburg Confession of Faith in light of the doctrine of the Catholic Church today

Luther’s text begins with a greeting to Emperor “Caesar Augustus” explaining the reasons for his interest in heeding his call to overcome dissensions and achieve Christian unity in order to favor the fight against the Turks, whom Luther considers “a most atrocious, hereditary and ancient adversary of the Christian name and religion.” Luther suggests that the confrontation against the Turks must be resisted “with lasting and permanent war preparation.” From the outset, the question arises: why is Luther able to submit to Emperor Charles V, in the name of the need for Christian unity, to confront the Turks by resisting in a warlike manner, a temporal power, but not to the Pope, resisting with the proclamation of the Gospel?

There are many possible answers, and certainly the first of them is the fact that he had been excommunicated, and could no longer interact with the ecclesiastical authorities of the Catholic Church without first making a retraction. This was addressed to the Emperor, but not to the Pope, who by the way allegedly had a good relationship with Emperor Charles V. This is common knowledge from the prayer of Saint Joseph, a tradition kept alive in the popular practice of the Church, sent by the Pope to Emperor Charles V, so that he would be protected in his battles.

But when Luther submits to the authority of the Emperor, however, he seems to make this concession with the aim of prevailing his proposed doctrine in a spiritual domain, focusing on the union between Christians. Would Christians, for Luther, be only those who refused the authority of the Pope? Or is he referring to all Christians? From the historical context we know that the Emperor summons him to unify Protestant Christians, but Luther states in his proposal that he writes to him and appears…

“so that in this matter of religion the opinions and judgments of the parties, present to each other, may be heard, understood and considered among us, with mutual charity, gentleness and meekness, so that, correcting what has been treated incorrectly in the writings of both sides, these things may be composed and reduced to one simple truth and Christian concord, in such a way that, as for the rest, one pure and true religion may be practiced and maintained by us; and so that just as we are and fight under one Christ, we may in the same way live in one Christian church, in unity and concord”. (Augsburg Confession of Faith, preamble).

Luther does not exclude, furthermore, paying obedience to the temporal power, that the Peace of Augburg may be altered and revised, without hateful contention, to settle dissensions.

“Now, if the other electors, princes and orders of the Empire also present, in accordance with the aforementioned indication of the Imperial Majesty, in Latin and Germanic writings, their opinions on the religious question, we are willing, with due obedience to Your Imperial Majesty, as our most merciful Lord, to confer amicably with the aforementioned princes, our friends, and with the orders, in suitable and tolerable ways, so that we may come to an agreement, as far as this can be done honestly, and, having discussed the question between us in this way, on the basis of the proposed writings of both parties, peacefully, without hateful dispute, may the dissension, with the help of God, be settled and there may be a return to one true and agreed religion. Just as we all stand and fight under the same Christ, we must also confess one Christ, according to the tenor of the edict of Your Imperial Majesty, and all things must be conducted in accordance with the truth of God, and we ask God with most ardent prayers that he may help this cause and grant peace.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, preamble).

Luther mentions that the Emperor maintained representatives and commissioners with a view to discussing the convening of a council in the hope of unifying the Christian faith, in order to obtain reconciliation with the Roman Pontiff.

“(...) and that Your Imperial Majesty did not doubt that it would be possible to induce the Roman Pontiff to hold a general council, since the issues that were then being discussed between Your Imperial Majesty and the Roman Pontiff were approaching Christian concord and reconciliation. Therefore Your Imperial Majesty kindly signified that he would endeavor to ensure that the Roman Pontiff would consent, as soon as possible, to convene such a council, through the issuing of letters.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, preamble).

From this we can therefore deduce that Luther expected that it would be possible, through the intercession of the Emperor, to reach a council in order to obtain concord and unity with the Catholic Church, and he was open to resolving disagreements in order to achieve reconciliation. And what about the content of what he proposed as the lowest common denominator?

With regard to the essential structure of faith, about God, Luther affirms the Holy Trinity established according to the Council of Nicea, a single divine essence and in which there are nevertheless three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternal, undivided, infinite, Creator (etc.) and he rejects all heresies to the contrary (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 1).

About the Son of God, he takes him as born of the pure Virgin Mary and as having two natures, divine and human, in a single person. He also affirms the Symbolum Apostolorum about Christ (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 3).

With regard to the Church, it considers that the office of preaching must be based on the action of the Holy Spirit and the Gospel, condemning those who teach that one can reach the Holy Spirit without the living word of the Gospel (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 5). It preaches the baptism of children and condemns those who preach the opposite (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 9). It teaches the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper and rejects contrary doctrines (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 10). It proposes that confession should be kept private (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 11) and that “forgiveness of sins should be granted at any time they come to repentance, and the Church should not deny them absolution” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 12).

In matters of human nature, he states that human beings have free will: “Concerning free will, it is taught that man has to a certain extent free will to live outwardly in an honest manner and to choose among those things that reason understands.” And that, however, “without the grace, help and operation of the Holy Spirit, man is incapable of being pleasing to God, fearing Him with all his heart, or believing, or expelling from his heart innate evil desires (art. 18).

With regard to works and obedience, he offers the following interpretation:

“It is further taught that this faith must produce good fruits and good works, and that, for the love of God, one must practice all sorts of good works commanded by Him, but one must not trust in these works, as if by them one merited favor before God. For it is through faith in Christ that we receive forgiveness of sins and righteousness, as Christ himself says: "After you have done all this, you ought to say, 'We are unprofitable servants.'" So also the Fathers teach. For Ambrose says: "Thus it is established by God that he who believes in Christ is saved, and has remission of sins, not by works, but by faith alone, without merit." (Augsburg Confession of Faith, New Obedience, art. 6)

Regarding the possibility of accepting different Christian denominations, Luther rejects this idea:

“It is also taught that there will always be and will remain one holy Christian church, which is the congregation of all believers, among whom the gospel is preached purely and the holy sacraments are administered in accordance with the gospel. For for the true unity of the Christian church it is sufficient that the gospel be preached unanimously according to the right understanding of it and the sacraments be administered in accordance with the word of God. And for the true unity of the Christian church it is not necessary that uniform ceremonies instituted by men be observed everywhere. It is as Paul says in Ephesians 4: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 7, Of the Church)

At this point, the Augsburg Confession of Faith perhaps begins to differ slightly from what was traditionally held in the Church to recognize the validity of an interpretation. The basis for the “correct understanding” of the Gospel and the definition of what would be unanimous, as correct understanding, is not explored in depth in this section of his proposal, nor does Luther foresee any type of procedure to define the understanding that should be taken as consensual by preachers. It is true that today we also have, in the Catholic Church, a dogmatic Constitution affirming that all men have free access to revelation:

“It pleased God, in his goodness and wisdom, to reveal himself and to make known the mystery of his will (cf. Eph. 1:9), by which men, through Christ, the incarnate Word, have access to the Father in the Holy Spirit and become partakers of the divine nature (cf. Eph. 2:18; 2 Pet. 1:4). By virtue of this revelation, the invisible God (cf. Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17), in the richness of his love, speaks to men as friends (cf. Exod. 33:11; Jn. 15:14-15) and lives with them (cf. Bar. 3:38), in order to invite and admit them to communion with himself. This “economy” of revelation is realized through actions and words that are closely related to one another, in such a way that the works accomplished by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the doctrine and realities signified by the words; and the words, in turn, declare the works and clarify the mystery contained in them. However, the profound truth both about God and about the salvation of men is revealed to us, through this revelation, in Christ, who is at once the mediator and the fullness of all revelation.” (Dei Verbum, Chap. I, § 2, our highlights)

Likewise,

“The sacred Council professes that God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from creatures” (cf. Rom. 1:20); but it also teaches that it must be attributed to His revelation that “all men can know with ease, firm certainty and without admixture of error that which in divine things is not inaccessible to human reason, even in the present condition of the human race”” (Dei Verbum, Chap. I, § 6)

In a similar way to what Luther seemed to understand, the source that validates and confirms the doctrine and the validity of words, therefore, in the Catholic dogmatic constitution currently in force, is the revelation attributed to God himself.

However, the same constitution determines that

“God lovingly arranged that everything He had revealed for the salvation of all peoples should remain intact and be transmitted to all generations. For this reason, Christ the Lord, in whom all the revelation of the Most High God is fulfilled (cf. 2 Cor. 1:20; 3:16-4:6), commanded the Apostles to preach to all, as the source of all salutary truth and all moral discipline, the Gospel promised beforehand by the prophets and fulfilled and promulgated by Him personally (1), thus communicating the divine gifts to them. (...) However, so that the Gospel would be preserved intact and alive in the Church for ever, the Apostles left the Bishops as their successors, “handing over to them their own office of teaching” (...) And thus the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, was to be preserved, by a continuous succession, until the consummation of the times. (...)  For this reason, the Apostles, transmitting what they themselves had received, admonish the faithful to observe the traditions which they had learned either by word of mouth or in writing (cf. 2 Thess. 2:15), and to contend for the faith received once for all (cf. Jude 3) (Dei Verbum, Ch. II, §7-8, our highlights)”.

Preaching considered authentic, therefore, for the Catholic Church, is that which is validated by Sacred Apostolic Tradition, originating, so to speak, in those branches that did not separate from the lineage of the apostolic faith. It must have received, through a process of transmission from this ancestry, the recognition of the successors that the Apostles left responsible for the teaching. Would it then be impossible to reconcile today what Luther said with the doctrine of the Church on this matter? However, it is possible to find an intersection between these two proposals. For the council that instituted Dei Verbum, it is certain that it would not be possible to admit as sufficiently valid a preaching that had not observed the Sacred Tradition of the Church, or that contradicted the Magisterium of the Church. It states:

“However, the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, written or contained in Tradition, has been entrusted solely to the living Magisterium of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This Magisterium is not above the word of God, but rather at its service, teaching only what has been handed down, while, by divine mandate and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, it listens to it devoutly, guards it religiously and expounds it faithfully, drawing from this unique deposit of faith all that it proposes to faith as divinely revealed.” (Dei Verbum, Ch. II, § 10).

But the Magisterium of the Church itself, as we have seen, confirms that it is God, through the revelation He Himself accomplished, who is the author of the truth and of the preaching that reveals Him. The dogmatic constitution does not establish that the successors of the Apostles are the monopolists of Revelation or of the interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures:

“Indeed, everything that concerns the interpretation of Scripture is subject to the final judgment of the Church, which has the divine mandate and the ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God.” (Dei Verbum, Ch. II, §12, our highlights).

It is the Church as a whole, therefore, that has the “divine mandate and the ministry of guarding and interpreting the word of God.” The magisterium of the Church is therefore supported by the practice and interpretation of the Church, of the faithful as a whole, as the authentic source of the ministry of preaching (sensus fidei).

It is also possible, on Luther’s side, to conceive of a logical intersection between the Augsburg Confession of Faith and Dei Verbum. Luther considers it possible for a Sacrament to be valid, even if it has not been administered by pious priests:

“Furthermore, although the Christian church, properly speaking, is nothing other than the congregation of all believers and saints, nevertheless, since in this life there continue among the pious many false Christians and hypocrites, also manifest sinners, the sacraments are nevertheless effective, even though the priests who administer them are not pious.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 8, What is the Church)

Preaching, like a Sacrament, can also remain valid even if there are faults or vices in those who administer it, by analogy. Furthermore, there is no condemnation in the Augsburg Confession of Faith of the successors of the Apostles recognized by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Church. Nor do we find in the Augsburg Confession of Faith an article that would nullify or exclude as invalid the preaching or Sacraments administered by priests who are successors of the Apostles, observing the Magisterium of the Church, Sacred Tradition, or the sensus fidei that nourishes these two legs.

Would only those who agreed with Luther or with the articles of his proposal in the Augsburg Confession of Faith observe the “right understanding” or “conformity” required by Luther (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 7, Of the Church)? But the Augsburg Confession of Faith does not rule out ex ante any preaching or Sacrament because of the virtue or vice of those who minister them. Even less so, because of belonging to a religious denomination, since it refers only to the Gospel as a certifying source. Even though there are false Christians and hypocrites, or manifest sinners, which the Catholic Church itself recognizes as a suffering of the Church, and since all Sacred Tradition and Canon Law have been developed to correct vices, the Augsburg Confession of Faith does not exclude the validity of the Sacraments and, we dare to deduce, the validity of a sermon, when it corresponds to the Gospel, although it does not determine what the requirements and procedures would be for evaluating this conformity.

In this aspect, both Dei Verbum and the Augsburg Confession of Faith coincide. For there are successors of the Apostles who became corrupt, and it is not only the preaching of the priest, as we have seen, that certifies that his words would be in conformity with the Gospel, but the Revelation of God Himself (Dei Verbum, Chap. I, § 2) and the Church, creditor and guarantor of the Magisterium (Dei Verbum, Chap. II, § 12).

Continuing to read the text, we enter a more complicated line of analysis, which discerns between “faith” and “satisfaction”, in order to accept the teaching of the forgiveness of sins through faith, and reject the teaching of the forgiveness of sins according to a “satisfaction”.

“Those who teach that forgiveness of sins is not obtained through faith, but rather through our satisfaction, are also rejected.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 12, On Repentance)

It follows that to affirm that sins would not be redeemed by a mere “satisfaction” would mean declaring the necessary adherence of conscience and consent to what cannot be fully apprehended by conscience. We will have to risk an interpretation of what Luther wanted to make us understand: perhaps by “satisfying” he meant being satisfied with the confessional ritual, in which sins were presented, without the believer necessarily being determined not to commit them anymore, or without having reformulated his conscience, or adhered to a new procedure, thus showing, through faith, a change in attitude; and/or perhaps he was referring to the indulgences through which the Church protocoled forgiveness, without delving into the problem of conscience and the change in conduct that characterize a conversion of faith.

It is not clear whether Luther considered it indispensable for the sacrament of Penance to be administered by a priest, or by any ecclesiastical authority. However, it seems clear that Luther does not delimit or dismiss as useless the sacrament of Penance administered by a priest, as long as he pays attention to this issue, the need for faith, for the remission of sins to have a recognized effect. On this point, his proposal seems to make sense. It is not enough to leave the confessional satisfied, presuming to have a clear conscience, if there has not been a sincere change of heart, for there to be a change in behavior.

The doctrine of the Catholic Church also agrees on this: the administration of the sacrament of Penance is aimed at conversion.

“Those who approach the sacrament of Penance obtain from God's mercy forgiveness for the offense committed against Him and at the same time are reconciled with the Church, which they have wounded by their sin, which, by charity, example and prayer, works for their conversion.” (Lumen Gentium, 11).

The meaning of faith and charisms among the Christian people today also converges with what Luther suggested: “The holy People of God also shares in the prophetic office of Christ, spreading his living witness, especially through a life of faith and charity, offering to God the sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess his name (cf. Heb. 13:15). The entire body of the faithful who have received the anointing of the Holy One (cf. Jn. 2:20 and 27) cannot err in their faith; and this peculiar quality is manifested by the supernatural sense of faith of the entire people, when the latter, “from the bishops down to the last of the lay faithful,” manifests universal consensus in matters of faith and morals. With this sense of faith, which is awakened and sustained by the action of the Spirit of truth, the People of God, under the guidance of the sacred magisterium which they faithfully heed, no longer receives mere words of men but the true word of God (cf. 1 Thess. 2:13), adheres unfailingly to the faith once entrusted to the saints (cf. Jude 3), penetrates it more deeply with sound judgment and applies it more fully in life.” (Lumen Gentium, 12)

From this we see that it is also through faith that the Catholic Church achieves universal consensus, “from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful”, which was taught by Saint Augustine (S. Agostino, De Praed. Sanct. 14, 27: PL 44, 980). This leads us to ask: why would the Catholic Church reject an assertion by Luther that essentially repeats what Saint Augustine said, a canon of the Church, and its own current dogmatic constitution, Lumen Gentium? In this same dogmatic constitution, we find that the episcopal ministry of sanctification also depends on faith, in order to save believers: “By the ministry of the word, they communicate the power of God, for the salvation of those who believe (cf. Rom. 1:16), and by means of the sacraments, whose regular and fruitful distribution they order with their authority, they sanctify the faithful” (Lumen Gentium, 26). Luther never refuses to minister the sacraments, once adherence is fulfilled by faith. Why would the same statement about the importance of faith be valid in a writing by a Saint, or in a document of the Church, but invalid if said by Luther?

Luther’s proposal also continues, paying attention to the need to regulate the ecclesiastical order:

“The ecclesiastical order teaches that without a regular calling, no one should publicly teach or preach or administer the sacraments in the church. (Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 14).”

Would this then lead to a first incompatibility between the Augsburg Confession of Faith and the doctrine of the Catholic Church? After all, if the Catholic Church only recognizes as legitimate the successors of the Apostles, the bishops and those to whom they subdelegate the office, presbyters and deacons appointed by the bishops, would the “regular calling” be too generic, then, to be taken as a consensus? “Called” by divine vocation, or necessity of the Church? “Regular”, because it implies a constant commitment on the part of those who teach, preach or administer the sacraments? Luther does not specify, but all the clergy, except those who did not present themselves by vocation, but by other subterfuges, meet these two aspects.

The Augsburg Confession of Faith continues, and here Luther becomes more radical:

“Of the ecclesiastical ordinances established by men, it is taught to observe those which can be observed without sin and contribute to the peace and good order of the church, such as, for example, certain holy days, feasts, and the like. We make it clear, however, that consciences should not be burdened with these things, as if they were necessary for salvation. It is further taught that all ordinances and traditions made by man for the purpose of reconciling oneself to God and meriting grace by them are contrary to the gospel and to the doctrine of faith in Christ. For this reason, monastic vows and other traditions concerning the distinction of foods, days, etc., by which one thinks one can merit grace and satisfy for sins, are useless and contrary to the gospel.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 15, Of Ecclesiastical Ordinances).

It would be appropriate to recall, however, the origin of the radical nature of this proposal. For it was Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself who refused to focus on religious practices established on the basis of human traditions, dietary restrictions, fasts, and other superstitions. Saint Peter later expanded on this radical approach by dispensing with circumcision and restrictions on certain animal meats that were forbidden by Judaism. Let us recall the criticism of the religious domain in the Gospels, when Christ complains about the tithe of spices (“You blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.” Matthew 23:24-6; “But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:9). Therefore, it seems that it would make no sense whatsoever to return to the obligation of precepts of a similar order to those that Our Lord Jesus Christ considered superficial. If we rejected Luther's proposal, we would effectively run the risk of corrupting and ignoring the meaning of the Gospel, which revolves around forgiveness and remission of sins, sharing bread and life, practicing mercy to obtain divine mercy, and serving others as essential obligations.

At this point, it seems appropriate to also consider the context in which Luther wrote: the Catholic Church was at the height of its inquisitorial period, when an atmosphere of fear and obsession with punishment sent innocent people to the stake to proclaim, contradictorily, the values ​​of the Gospel. Remember that Marguerite Porette, the first woman burned alive in France, was condemned by the Inquisition for writing a book on love and humility, approved by four peer-reviewed theologians, and whose content corresponded in several passages to biblical passages and passages from the Saints, in a literary format common to its time, valued in the literary work of Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême: a local parish priest did not like her book and had it denounced. In times of persecution for religious reasons, the weight of the rules and the gravity of the slightest transgression of these rules, even if customary, was certainly much more onerous than we can conceive today. This burden, and not the differences in biblical interpretation, perhaps led the Christian communities in question, confident in the essence of the Gospel, and the seven princes who governed them, to accept Luther's proposal as a way of defending themselves against violent persecution, supported by abuses and excessive determinations.

Regarding the political order and civil government, Luther reaffirms what was established by the Catholic Church at the time, probably taking into account the theological foundation of political and legal authority developed by Saint Thomas Aquinas. “Of political order and civil government it is taught that all authority in the world, and all governments and laws ordained, are good ordinances, created and instituted by God, and that Christians may, without sin, hold office as rulers and judges, pass sentence and judge according to the imperial and other laws in force, punish evildoers with the sword, make just wars, fight, buy and sell, take required oaths, own property, marry, etc.” Here the Anabaptists are condemned, who teach that none of the above-mentioned things are Christian. (Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 16, On Political Order and Civil Government).

We know, in theory and in practice, that the Catholic Church rarely interferes in the decisions of political and governmental authorities, when applied to individuals; the exception is for laws and rules approved by the authorities, when the Catholic Church occasionally speaks out to denounce inconsistencies of new legislation with matters of faith. But if this occurs, it is because in general the Catholic Church also initially assumes that all power, whether temporal or spiritual, must serve a purpose established by God. Pope John XXIII affirmed, to all intents and purposes, the same thing as Luther when taking from the tradition of his time, in other words, based on the argument of the Saint whom Luther despises, Saint John Chrysostom:

“Human society will not be well constituted or fruitful unless it is presided over by a legitimate authority that safeguards its institutions and dedicates the necessary work and effort to the common good. This authority comes from God, as Saint Paul teaches: “There is no power except that which comes from God” (Romans 13:1-6). This sentence of the Apostle is echoed by the explanation of Saint John Chrysostom: “What do you say? Is every ruler appointed by God? No, I do not say that. I am not speaking here of each ruler in particular, but of government as such. I say that it is the disposition of divine wisdom that there should be authority, that some should govern and others should obey, and that everything should not be left to chance or to human rashness.” Indeed, God created men social by nature, and since no society can “subsist without a leader who, with the same effective impulse, directs everyone towards the common end, it follows that the human community needs an authority to govern it. This, like society, originates from nature, and for this very reason, comes from God.”

Authority is not an uncontrollable force, but rather the faculty of commanding according to sound reason. Its capacity to oblige derives, therefore, from the moral order, which has God as its beginning and end. This is why our predecessor Pius XII, of happy memory, warns: "The absolute order of beings and the very end of man (to be free, subject of inviolable duties and rights, the origin and end of human society) also include the State as a necessary community invested with authority, without which it could neither exist nor thrive... According to right reason and, above all, according to the Christian faith, this order of things can only have its beginning in a personal God, creator of all. Therefore, the dignity of political authority has its origin in participation in the authority of God himself” (Pacem in Terris, 46 and 47)

In the Catholic Church, however, it has been maintained that it is the duty of bishops, in the exercise of their function of governing the Church, to serve as an example to those who govern:

“Finally, they [bishops] must help by their own example those who govern, purifying their own customs of all evil and making them good, as far as they can with the help of the Lord, so that they may obtain, with the people entrusted to them, eternal life.” (Lumen Gentium, 26).

Despite the alliteration of this duty in the Church's documents, there is no contradiction in this with what is stated in the Augsburg Confession of Faith. So, even on this specific point, Luther does not seem to diverge from what the Catholic Church considers acceptable in today's times.

But Luther continues to criticize the ordination of priests that require vows, which is supported by the Catholic Church, and let us see if the doctrine of the Catholic Church could accept this proposal:

“Those who teach that Christian perfection means physically abandoning house and home, wife and children, and renouncing the aforementioned things, are also condemned, when in fact only true fear of God and true faith constitute authentic perfection. For the gospel does not teach an external, temporal form of life and justice, but an interior and eternal life and justice of the heart, and it does not abolish civil government, political order, and marriage, but rather wants all these to be preserved as genuine divine order and that each person, according to his vocation, should show, in such ordinations, Christian love and truly good works. Therefore Christians have the duty to be subject to authority and to obey its commandments and laws in everything that does not involve sin. For if it is not possible to obey the order of authority without sinning, it is more important to obey God than men. (Acts 5:45) (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 16, On Political Order and Civil Government).

This seems to be a point more problematic, but not because the doctrine of the Church states otherwise: the Gospel itself states that Christ demanded greater sacrifices from some people.

“And to another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me bury my father.” Jesus answered, “Let the dead bury their own dead. But you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another said, “Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say goodbye to my family.” But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (St. Luke, 9, 59-62)

“The young man said to him, “I have obeyed all these things. What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” When his disciples heard this, they were amazed and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:20-6 = Luke 18:18-30)

However, Our Lord Jesus Christ, assumed by the Augsburg Confession of Faith as a person who is part of the Holy Trinity, could not be ignored when transmitting, to all intents and purposes, an order from God, instructing some people to abandon their family and possessions to follow Him. It is not a question, therefore, of obeying men, because the constant truth in the Gospel is that men, and even the Apostles, when expressing surprise at Christ's demand, do not want to abandon their family or possessions. Obeying God, before obeying men, would then be to accept that some people - not all - are called by Christ to proceed in this radical manner. In particular, Christ proposed to abandon family and possessions to those who approached Him saying that they had fulfilled all the precepts - we could suppose, since they were not Apostles, that they did so as if they had obtained a certain proficiency, to deserve praise, or to be exempted from greater responsibilities. So much so that, having been called, they refused Christ's invitation. However, this does not invalidate the fact that many receive greater burdens from Christ and are called to make greater sacrifices, and it is clear that the Apostles and disciples effectively abandoned their families and possessions in order to preach the Gospel, without which the Word of Christ would not have advanced.

Now let us remember that, in the preamble, the signatories of the Confession of Faith did not rule out the possibility that the declaration could be adjusted. It seems clear that, in order to better harmonize with the Gospel, it would be appropriate to note that, for those who are satisfied with their own conduct and wish to advance in the service they provide by following Christ, Christ invited them to abandon their families and possessions in order to preach the Gospel. Thus, no Confession of Faith that sought to obey God before obeying men should suppress what God disposes through the Gospel.

It is also necessary to understand again the context in which the Confession was written. The Gospel did not actually state that every person should abandon family and possessions to preach the Word of Christ; only a few who asked Christ for further instructions received this call. However, we know that, at that historical moment in which the Catholic religion had established itself as a temporal domain with precedence over government decisions, the clergy arrogate this requirement to justify the exercise of a power of command.

In this sense, the Augsburg Confession of Faith seems to contradict what is stated in the Gospel, but its reasons for reaching this point do not seem entirely mistaken: one should not take heeding a call of greater sacrifice, leaving family and possessions, as a sign of greater prestige in order to exercise or legitimize a temporal power of government. The priesthood implies giving up one's personal life to be a servant of others, and not to lead others. In our view, this article actually seems to have been written to combat the excesses of clericalism at that time. It could be reformulated so as not to harm the truth contained in the Gospel.

It is also necessary to understand the Gospel in its context. For not all the Apostles and disciples needed to abandon their families when their families were incorporated into the apostolic service; and in the same way, their personal goods were incorporated into the goods of the Church, which continue to be useful not only to themselves but to the Christian community. This “abandonment” of family and goods, therefore, seems to concern the abandonment of the idea of ​​taking family and goods as property for oneself, and having the attitude of incorporating everything one has into the mission of evangelizing and saving souls. At this point, the update proposed by the Augsburg Confession of Faith seems correct: it is not necessary to abandon family and goods when all of this is already incorporated and culminating in the purpose of the Christian mission in the Church.

Regarding the eschatological horizon, the Augsburg Confession of Faith seems to be in harmony with the current Catechism of the Catholic Church, foreseeing the existence of a paradise and a hell, as well as the Last Judgment. The Lutheran declaration does not prohibit the wicked, who repent of their sins, from being counted among the believers and the elect, although it does not explain how the remission of sins will occur. The rejection of scenarios that are impossible to confirm, or that are not in dialogue with the biblical canon, seems to be in line with the caution that Joseph Ratzinger suggested when referring to a future over which we have no control. “It is also taught that our Lord Jesus Christ will return on the last day to judge, and that He will resurrect all the dead, give to the believers and the elect eternal life and joy, but will condemn the wicked men and the devils to hell and eternal punishment. For this reason, they reject the Anabaptists, who teach that the devils and the damned men will not suffer eternal pain and torment. They also reject here some Jewish doctrines that are also present today, according to which before the resurrection of the dead a group consisting entirely of saints and pious people will have an earthly kingdom and will annihilate all the wicked.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 17, On the Return of Christ for Judgment). The language adopted by the Lutheran declaration to address sin is quite different from that used by the Catholic Church in its Catechism, but in short it also corresponds to the idea that it was the work of the devil† that caused original sin and the other sins that followed:

“With regard to the cause of sin, we are taught that, although omnipotent God created all nature and preserves it, nevertheless it is the perverted will that works sin in all the wicked and despisers of God. For this is the will of the devil and of all the wicked, which, as soon as God withdrew his hand, turned away from God to evil, as Christ says in John 8: “When the devil speaks a lie, he speaks his own” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, Art. 19, On the Cause of Sin).

Finally, in article 20 of the aforementioned declaration, we find the core of the divergence between Lutherans and Catholics: the problem of faith and good works. Luther states that before him only works were emphasized as necessary, and no doctrine about faith:

“Ours are falsely accused of forbidding good works. For their writings on the Ten Commandments as well as other writings prove that they gave good and useful teaching and admonition about true Christian states and works, of which little was taught before our time. On the contrary, in all the sermons they insisted mainly on childish and unnecessary works, such as rosaries, the worship of saints, monastic life, pilgrimages, fasts and prescribed holy days, brotherhoods, etc.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, On Faith and Good Works).

As we have seen, we cannot confirm Luther in this regard, since Saint Augustine had developed similar propositions, which attribute virtue to divine grace and mercy, and not to the merits of the individual. We also find similar wording in Saint Augustine and in the documents of the Church, regarding the importance of faith for the establishment of virtues and works. It is difficult to believe that Luther could be unaware of Saint Augustine, since the Augsburg Confession of Faith cites him, recalling Hypognosticon in article 18 of its text. Therefore, we can only understand that the declaration deals with a state of affairs that is not in accordance with what Saint Augustine and the official documents of the Church advocated. In general, the Lutherans seem to have excluded from the Catholic Church what they considered undesirable and inconformable, and removed from the Church everything that was desirable and in accordance, taking only the latter part for themselves.

A deeper reflection would be necessary: ​​were there really only inconsistencies in Catholic religious practice at the time of Luther? And would we be truly Christians, with authentic faith, seeking only what seems palatable and in keeping with us, leaving aside what in the Church needs to be remedied, to separate ourselves from this reality, as if we were contaminated, being part of it? After all, it is important to remember that the works of the great Saints, and not just those of Saint Augustine, benefited from this apparently toxic substrate, having obtained from the various muds, despicable to the palate, the strength and motivation necessary to grow the vine, to build better formulations and practices that are more compatible with the Christian faith. Rejecting the part of reality that is not in line with our opinions or thoughts, no matter how good and preferable these opinions and thoughts may be, ends up making us separate from this reality that needs to be reformulated.

It is important to remember, however, that this is not a problem only for Lutherans, nor for Protestants in general. Many believers within the Catholic Church prefer to ignore the injustice, suffering and pain behind violence and nonconformity, and dedicate themselves to activities that alienate faith from our own environment. At this point, the Lutherans' criticism of "human precepts" and devotional practices might make sense at a time when devotional practices did not correspond to authentic vigor, and no other way could be seen, other than through one's own initiative, to avoid corrupting one's faith. In some way, in this statement they demonstrate the feeling that the faith of that time did not correspond to the Gospel, and they seemed justified in this instinct to return to the origins of the Church. Considering the great stupidity of killing and torturing people, labeling different beliefs as heresies, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, they would have been lucid - were it not for the detail that the manual and religious rules that sent so many thousands of people and women to torture and to the stake abounded, to a much greater extent, in Protestant communities. What seems most fundamental, however, is to note that Lutheranism emphasizes that it never prohibits good works, as long as they are “true,” and this seems to be the most important point to resolve any incompatibility between the faith of Lutherans and the Catholic faith.

Then we would have to debate what gives truth to a work: in the view of this passage, the correct observance of the Commandments, and not the established religious practices, described as “childish and unnecessary.” These practices still characterize to a large extent the routine of the faithful in the Catholic Church: “rosaries, worship of saints, monastic life, pilgrimages, fasts and prescribed holy days, brotherhoods, etc.” Now, it does not seem very clear why meditating repeatedly on prayers contained in the biblical text, or meditating on the virtues of those whom God has pleased to overcome sin, or seeking silence and isolating oneself from aggressors, or going on pilgrimages to give testimony in other communities, or following the liturgical calendar, could harm one's faith. There is abundant evidence that these paths that many follow, on the contrary, strengthen faith, especially during adversity. It is curious how, having emphatically asserted the importance of faith, one then concludes by removing and disregarding that which strengthens it.

Considering the great diversity of experiences and personalities within the Church, why would devotion and reflection on the lives and works of other Saints be inconvenient? The Augsburg Declaration itself seeks support in the works of Saint Paul and Saint Augustine. Would their works have been carried forward if the Church had not preserved their memory with devotion? Would not the consequence of this proposal make the existence of the text itself unfeasible? The Lutheran statement continues:

“Our opponent also no longer extols these unnecessary works as much as he did in the past. Moreover, they have also learned to speak now of faith, about which they did not preach at all in former times. Now, however, they teach that we do not become righteous before God by works alone, but they add faith in Christ, and they say that faith and works make us righteous before God. This doctrine may bring a little more comfort than when it teaches only to trust in works.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, Of Faith and Good Works).

It seems difficult to find evidence to support this assertion, since these works that they claim are unnecessary are still very well assimilated by the Catholic Church - if by “opponent” Luther and the seven princes refer to the critics of Lutheranism within the Catholic Church. There has been no substantive change, as article 20 suggests, due to a new proposal from Lutheranism. The prayer of the rosary, the cult of saints, monastic life, pilgrimages, fasts and prescribed holy days, brotherhoods, etc. at that time continued and still continue to be part of the daily life of every Catholic and are associated with the strengthening of faith, not in opposition to faith.

At this point it also seems symptomatic of a divisive spirit not to be happy with what is being said. For if the opponent adhered to what was advocated as more correct, in light of the protest, the statement should congratulate the critic; however, opposition is still expressed. And how could opposition continue to be expressed if the precedence of faith had been assimilated in the way advocated by Lutheranism? The following passage seems to deserve a more detailed analysis:

“Now, however, they teach that we do not become righteous before God by works alone, but they add faith in Christ, and they say that faith and works make us righteous before God. This doctrine may bring a little more comfort than when only works are taught.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, On Faith and Good Works).

Since, by tradition of the Church, during the celebration of the Eucharist, the assembly repeats the words “I believe, but increase my faith”. There is also a ubiquitous consensus on the passage about faith being the first necessary requirement: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, emphasis added). “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God rests on him” (John 4:36, emphasis added). Therefore, it does not seem consistent with the routine of the celebrations and religious life of the Church to affirm that faith was included as an addition to works only after Protestantism. The authors of the Augsburg Confession of Faith themselves recall that this perspective was born and developed within the Catholic Church itself:

“And that no new interpretation has been introduced here can be proven by Augustine, who deals with this issue diligently and also teaches this, namely, that we attain grace and become righteous before God through faith in Christ and not through works, as his entire book De spiritu et litera shows.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, On Faith and Good Works).

After all, Saint Augustine was Catholic, as was the entire tradition that arose from his thinking, founding the documents and formulations of the Catholic Church on the same proposed bases. So why found a religious movement apart from the Church, giving it a different name, if this perspective is already accepted within the Church? It also does not seem very clear why Luther suggests that this proposal is based solely on Saint Paul: “This doctrine regarding faith is openly and clearly treated by Paul in many passages, especially in Ephesians 2: “By grace you have been saved, through faith; and this not from yourselves, but it is the gift of God; not of works, so that no one can boast, etc.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, On Faith and Good Works). The fact is that Christianity is not exhausted in Saint Paul. Other Apostles complement Saint Paul’s preaching, as we know, most notably Saint James, that faith, to be alive, also needs to have good works:

“My brothers, what does it matter if someone says he has faith in God and does not prove it through works? That kind of faith does not save anyone. If a brother or sister suffers from lack of clothing or from hunger, and they are told, “Try to live peacefully and keep warm and eat as much as you can,” and they are not given what they need to live, will such an answer do any good? In the same way, faith, if it does not translate into works, is dead in itself. (Letter of Saint James 2:14-17) After all, it is not through negligence or incorrect interpretation of the Holy Scriptures that we come to the concern for good works, as an element that gives life to faith, but through the Holy Scriptures themselves and the Gospel, that this conclusion is reached and this knowledge is transmitted. The Apostle Saint Paul himself writes to the Ephesians: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance, that we should walk in them.” (Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians 2:10).

Christ himself also explains the different attitudes of faith, of believing in him or not, according to the quality of one’s own works:

“Now this is the condemnation: the light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds will not be exposed. But he who does what is true comes to the light. Then it is clear that his deeds have been done in God.” (John 4:19-21).

Could this passage from the Augsburg Confession of Faith then be a false dichotomy at the service of division, ignoring an important part of the biblical canon that supports the importance of good works, in order to hinder reconciliation and justify a focus solely on faith, without taking works into account? As we have seen in the Gospel, not only are the lives of Saint James and Saint Peter marked by works in connection with faith, their conduct as acts of expressed love, but also the teachings of Christ.

There are several parables that teach that it is necessary to dignify oneself through worthy acts and works, for the correct atonement of sins. All the miracles performed by Christ, in which he awakened the faith of those he healed, were good works that he exhorted the Apostles and disciples to continue: “My Father is still at work until now, and I am at work too.” (John 5:17) And Christ He also recalls the prerogative that, by being united to Him, good fruit and good works will be produced: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). It could be argued, then, that union with Christ would be a preceding cause, a condition for producing good works, and that good works do not interfere with the divine quality assimilated by faith. But Christ then points out that branches that do not produce fruit will be discarded. Thus, the purpose is important, producing good fruit, which leads to believing in Christ, adhering to the faith.

Peter’s faith alone in believing that Jesus was the expected Messiah was not enough: his actions mattered, and at first they did not correspond to the faith and love expressed. There was a need to reiterate faith and love through corresponding actions, to care for the flock: if you love Me, then “feed My sheep”. Caring for Christ’s flock is a work. Let us also recall Christ’s praise for the work of the seventy disciples in casting out demons (“I saw Satan fall like lightning”): once again in this passage, Christ delegates tasks, works. Faith was undoubtedly the principle, but it serves the purpose of works. And we could also recall the central importance of the washing of feet at the Last Supper, when Christ designates the service of one another as He had served them. Service could never be considered dispensable or secondary, since it is a direct instruction.

Even so, it seems more important than analyzing the coherence of the proposal with the Gospel to once again rescue the context of the time that could have given rise to this approach by Luther and his followers, before discarding the Augsburg Confession of Faith as a bad work. For we know that good works were being used to publicize merits, in contradiction with the Gospel, just as we know that today many faithful and priests perform rites to obtain human approval, without conversion of heart. “Be careful not to do good deeds in public just to be seen by others. If you do this, you will receive no reward from your Father in heaven. When you give to the poor, do not tell everyone about it. The hypocrites do this in the synagogues and on the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the poor, do not let even your closest friend know about it. Then your alms will be kept secret, and your Father who sees everything done in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4)

Luther could have gone into more detail about what bothered him about the exaltation of works as a guarantee of salvation, since it was certainly the publicity given to these works that he considered “childish and unnecessary” that was the origin of the problem of simulation. Faith was simulated through works that did not necessarily correspond to adherence to the values ​​of the Gospel. This external simulation of good works to suit the vision of others, human precepts, is effectively condemned by Our Lord Jesus Christ, who warns us of this danger. When Luther suggests that the origin of good works should return to the domain of faith, he seems to be motivated to preach the Gospel. He could have recalled Christ's statement that prayers and works should be kept in an intimacy of which only God has knowledge - in the domain in which faith develops. Therefore, Luther seems to want to denounce the straying from this path, because once one begins to give too much publicity and value to works, vanity grows, and thus faith does not develop. Although the text of the Augsburg Confession of Faith does not invoke this aspect or passage to justify itself, we can understand, from the context, that perhaps the motives of Luther and his followers were legitimate, due to the many superstitions incorporated into devotions, preferred by many faithful and part of the clergy, for being less demanding than the teachings of Christ.

Continuing in his defense of faith as the first requirement for conversion, and as a sufficient element to produce good works, Luther and his followers also criticize the conscience that focuses on certain ways of life and religious procedures:

“In sermons of the past, this consolation was not promoted, but poor consciences were urged to their own works, and various kinds of works were undertaken. Some were driven by conscience to monasteries, in the hope that there they could gain grace through monastic life. Some devised other works with the purpose of meriting grace and making satisfaction for sins. The experience of many of them was that they did not achieve peace through these things. For this reason it was necessary to preach this doctrine of faith in Christ and to treat it diligently, so that it would be known that it is only by faith, without merit, that one apprehends the grace of God.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, On Faith and Good Works).

This passage seems extremely important to understand the Lutheran faith, since Luther “rescued” a nun from his cloister and married her. This perspective on the harmlessness of monastic religious life seems to justify his and his followers’ distancing themselves from the Catholic Church. However, why couldn’t adherence to monastic life be the result of the faith embraced by people who take these vows? When addressing the issue, Luther does not seem incorrect in stating that the experience of monastic life did not guarantee peace to many who adhered to certain religious formulas; but it would be worth analyzing in more detail whether the reason for this was due to the focus on works and neglect of faith, or for several other reasons.

In fact, in that century and in many subsequent centuries, we know that cloisters served to shelter people who did not fit into the strict conduct required to belong to a class or group. Women who lost their virginity were mandatorily confined to monastic life because they had no other life option. In practice, the rapist was free from any obligation and, by placing the blame exclusively on the woman, this violated the woman's free will and the remission of sins. Many married men were incontinent, and even so were not sent to the cloisters by their families. This certainly gave a picture of societies that claimed to be Christian, yet were very violent towards women, maintaining their primitive aspects of gentile peoples, with practices that would be incompatible with the conduct of Jesus Christ himself, who surrounded himself and was accompanied by free and independent women during his work and preaching. In this sense, monastic life as a social solution for undesirable people in families represented an injustice that had to be fought against, incompatible with the Gospel, which perhaps justified this disenchantment of Lutherans with religious life.

But there are as many possible reasons for the lack of peace as there are people who can be measured, since each person should be discerned in their singularities, diverse gifts and vocations. Within the monasteries, it should not be ruled out that difficulties in fraternal coexistence could have prevented some from achieving peace; because even though they sought to isolate themselves from the world, the monks and nuns could not isolate themselves from each other. There are several reports in which the lack of peace and quiet among the religious occurred due to abuse of power by their superiors or colleagues - and not due to the rule of life they adopted. Two centuries ago, Bocaccio had already denounced the terrible details that monasteries sheltered under the appearance of chastity.

However, it would be worth remembering that some not only found peace, but also bore fruit and were sanctified, despite the difficulties and abuses within the cloister. Saint Rose of Lima and Saint Bernadette Soubirous, Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, Saint Clare and many others could be cited. Just as one should not attribute to a monastic way of life the success necessary to achieve peace, one should not discard it, since there were many who obtained benefits.

In addition, the argument that faith is the sufficient explanation for being saved should make the rules that are followed in religious life harmless, or at least neutral, in theory. So much so that the Confession of Faith states:

“Instruction is also given to show that here we are not speaking of the faith possessed also by demons and the wicked, who also believe the accounts that tell that Christ suffered and rose from the dead; rather, we are speaking of true faith, which believes that we obtain grace and the remission of sins through Christ.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 20, On Faith and Good Works).

For if the faith to which it refers is the “true” one, for this purpose, what would follow is that the details of how the person achieves discipline and strengthens his or her own faith would therefore be indifferent; there would be no sense in rejecting monastic vows and other ways of religious life ex ante, since it is argued that it is not the routine of activities that guarantees faith. To be consistent with the main argument that only faith matters, the routine activities of a life of prayer and prayers in a monastery would then have to be accepted as having the same effect as the life of contracts and business, something that is presented as convenient for survival, but that does not necessarily guarantee the attainment of salvation or true faith. However, the secular, intermediate activities of carpentry, business, and war are accepted as worthy and useful activities by the statement in question; but the divine, end-activities related to intensifying contact with God and the Holy Scriptures, prayers and dates set aside to dedicate oneself to divine affairs, should be discarded – which seems contradictory.

It would still remain, in theory, to consider how one attains true faith. Wouldn't true faith be precisely that which translates into doing good works, which has a preference for the light, since it does not want to hide bad works, as Christ taught? In this passage, the Augsburg Confession of Faith does not propose what the initial cause of true faith is, nor the criteria for judging a faith as true, or discerning a faith as superficial. A person dedicated to a routine of prayers and good works - such as Saint Paul or Saint Augustine - may well have obtained from these benefits to achieve true faith, and the Augsburg Confession itself uses their good works to assert faith. However, the example of their lives is not considered, nor is it considered how they adhered to faith, or obtained good results; curiously, only their works - letters and books - are taken into account. But these letters, considerations and books were not products obtained directly from faith: in the meantime there was a series of works resulting in works with communities, giving rise to the reflections that are contained in the works of these two reference Saints.

The Confession reiterates that it does not dismiss the importance of good works:

“It is further taught that good works must and should be done, not that they may be trusted to merit grace, but for the love of God and for his praise. It is always faith alone that apprehends grace and the forgiveness of sins. And since through faith the Holy Spirit is given, the heart also becomes capable of doing good works. For before, while it is without the Holy Spirit, it is too weak.”

But the problem remains: determining the origin of this true faith - according to the Augsburg Confession, it would be God himself, it is said, the Holy Spirit. Do Lutherans not consider that God manifests himself through activities that, in turn, result in good works, with faith thus being acquired or strengthened? The question would then arise: why do some persist in faith, and others abandon it? Faith is transmitted through evangelization, and evangelization is a good work - in turn resulting from essential activities, prayer, discipline, daily reading. Without works there would be no good works of the Apostles, and without the humility in attributing to God the authorship of these works that they accomplished, faith in Christ would not have reached us, nor would it have established itself as something that is ours. So it seems difficult to consider true or feasible a faith that is independent of works, as something separate, or that considers them secondary, even though we do not find any merit in our works, but rather merit from the Lord. As Christ himself suggested, bearing good fruit is a sign of being connected to the vineyard of faith in Christ, but believing in Christ means believing in an instruction of service, of performing good works. Regarding the worship of the Saints, the Lutheran document states that

“Our teachers teach us that we should remember them in order to strengthen our faith by seeing how they received grace and were helped by faith; and, further, in order that we may take an example from their good works, each according to his vocation, just as His Imperial Majesty may follow, in a salutary and piously manner, the example of David, in making war on the Turk; for both are invested with a royal office, which requires them to protect and defend their subjects. However, it cannot be proved from Scripture that one should invoke the saints or seek help from them. “For there is one reconciler and mediator between God and men, Jesus Christ,” 1 Tim 2:60 who is the only Savior, the only High Priest, Propitiatory, and Advocate before God Rom 8:61 And he alone has promised that he will answer our prayer. And to seek and call upon this Jesus Christ from the heart in all our needs and concerns is also the highest divine worship according to Scripture: "If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, etc."

We consider that this proposal by Luther is also in line with what is defended in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: the Saints must be honored with the memory of their example, to strengthen our faith and so that their good works may serve as an example. The precedence of Christ over all the Saints is also naturally affirmed by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, Lutheranism seems to consider the devotions of the faithful to the Saints as an abuse and excess, as the document continues.

“Since, therefore, in our churches nothing is taught about the articles of faith that is contrary to Sacred Scripture or to the universal Christian church, and only a few abuses have been corrected, which partly have been introduced by themselves in the course of time, and partly have been established by force, we feel obliged to list them and to indicate the reason why in these cases modification was admitted, so that the Imperial Majesty may see that we have not acted here in an unchristian or petulant manner, but that we have been compelled to permit such modification by the commandment of God, which must be respected more than any custom.”

Once again, Luther needs to be understood in a historical context, because in medieval times, in transition to the Renaissance, refusing devotions to a Saint in favor of studying the Word of Christ, while managing limited time and effort, could be questioned as a breach of conduct: the Augsburg Confession of Faith speaks of something “partly established by force.” In fact, any Saint would rather approve of dedicating efforts to the Word of Christ than to one’s own life. And, at this point, Luther may be referring to the Virgin Mary, mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who gained a very important role in the establishment of new parishes, temples, and sanctuaries, often placing her at the center of attention and portrayals of the Gospel in frescoes, paintings, and statues.

Luther, however, does not seem to contemplate the activity that the Saints continue to exercise from eternal life, through miracles and intercession, and their favors that lead the faithful to the essential content of Christ’s message. For in the Psalms and in the Apocalypse there is a record that the Saints remain alive and active in the Temple, “they serve him, day and night”, sheltered “in the tent of the Lord”:

“Then one of the elders spoke to me and asked me, ‘Who are these in white robes, and where do they come from?’ I answered him, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will shelter them in his tent. They will hunger no more or thirst, neither will the sun nor any heat scorch them, for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd and will lead them to springs of living water. and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:13-16, highlights added)

And at the same time, they rest from their work, because the works continue:

“Then I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ Yes, says the Spirit, so that they may rest from their labors, for their works follow them.” (Revelation 14:13).

Now, the Augsburg Confession of Faith itself draws on the work of Saint Paul and Saint Augustine, proving that the Saints continue to work and intercede, through their works, so that the faith of the faithful does not deviate or become corrupt. The Augsburg Faith is based on the works of the Saints.

Continuing the reading, in article 22 of the Augsburg Confession of Faith, the Lutherans defend the communion of both species - which is done today in the Catholic Church, without any need for contention. It is indubitable and self-evident that all the faithful prefer to receive communion of both species, and they leave much stronger in faith with the complete Eucharist.

In the following article, on the marriage of priests (art. 23), the permission granted by the Lutherans is given for the reason of incontinence, which is what they justify. The argument does not seem sufficient, given that Taking into account that incontinence also occurs in marriages, but this does not necessarily mean that they are broken or undesirable. The document finds much support in the biblical canon to recommend marriage, there is no doubt about that. Today, the thesis that priests would be better off if they could have the freedom to marry without giving up their pastoral duties still finds restrictions in the Church - Raimondo Spiazzi, O.P., advisor to Pope Pius XII, recently developed a similar thesis, very well founded, demonstrating that there was no support in the historical evidence that celibacy should be a matter of canon law, but he had to withdraw it under the risk of being penalized. The ecclesiastical authorities ignored the benefits for the communities and were very irritated by the attempt to reverse the idea that prevails today, that the Church is at the end of time, demanding complete and integral commitment from priests.

But in principle, there are already functions within the Church in which authorities celebrating Mass are authorized to marry - the deacons. On the other hand, it is clear that there is a huge gap between the training of deacons and bishops, who are much more capable of transmitting the Word and governing the complex demands of this office. So, even if in theory it could be considered desirable for priests to marry, in practice, although there are exceptions, what is seen is a greater and better level of proficiency in the exercise of celebrations by celibate priests.

There is nothing to prevent us from believing, however, that the marriage of the Apostles was important in introducing the family as a project to be incorporated into the Church - so much so that, although the Gospels do not mention Saint Peter's wife, Christ, when he healed Saint Peter's mother-in-law, allowed her to also place herself at His service. The invisibility of Saint Peter's wife in the Gospel has not yet been the subject of the analytical work of any Saint or Doctor of the Church. But Luther delves deeper into this problem, recalling the divine disposition regarding human nature, having God created man as a single gender, male and female, therefore having conceived of the human race as formed by a pair, a couple.

When the Augsburg Confession of Faith recalls, however, the words of Christ, when teaching about marriage, in Saint Matthew 19, it uses the event to consider that few people have the gift of chastity. In this passage the text seems a little confusing, because Christ was stating on that occasion that not everyone was fit for the rigor of marriage, in response to a question about the legitimacy of divorce. It was, therefore, a statement precisely to the contrary: getting married was the greatest challenge of maintaining chastity and dedication until the end, and not the opposite, remaining outside of a marriage. Thus, the generalization of the problem of continence, to justify that it would be better to marry, does not seem to find support in the Gospel, since the commitment of marriage, for Christ, is a much more serious, indissoluble and absolute duty, something that demands aptitude and, if one cannot fulfill it until the end, it is better to remain single, is what he suggests. Lutherans then recall the words of Saint Paul: "Because of impurity, each man should have his own wife"; and also that "It is better to marry than to be incensed", in addition to recalling the advice given by Saint Paul to Saint Timothy, that the bishop to be chosen by each community should have only one wife, so as to be irreproachable. But in this passage, the first and preceding advice of Saint Paul is omitted, not to marry:

“For I wish that all men were even as I myself am; but each has his own gift from God, one after this manner, and another after that. But to the unmarried and to the widows I say, It is good for them if they remain even as I am. But if they cannot contain themselves, let them marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.” (1 Corinthians 7:7-9, emphasis added)

Saint Paul’s main advice is to “be like him”, from which we can deduce that they should not marry or remain widowed; and only if they cannot follow this advice, should they marry. He certainly had in mind greater mobility for the mission of evangelizing the people, while the faithful remained single or widowed. There would be no contradiction, of course, in the fact that Lutherans still positioned themselves in favor of the marriage of priests as a possibility. However, the justification for this openness should be accompanied by the full message, that marriage is an onerous duty and that Saint Paul did not suggest that they should marry: it would be better to remain single or widowed, if they were called to missions of evangelization. It should also be remembered that Christ instructed that it is worth leaving aside a life project focused on family and possessions, in order to follow Him, as we mentioned earlier, proposing this radical initiative to two volunteers who presented themselves to him: and that the Apostles and disciples should go on an evangelizing mission, traveling through the cities and entering the houses that welcomed them, “two by two” (Mark 6:7-13).

This passage from the Augsburg Confession of Faith should also be analyzed in its broader context. For the fact is that priests in the sixteenth century, as well as in subsequent centuries up until our time, stopped preaching the Gospel following the model of the first impulses of evangelization in the Early Church. With the conversion of the Roman Empire and all of Europe, evangelization would only gain new momentum after the great navigations, and missionaries have always been, from that beginning, a minority within the clergy. Even today, we do not see missionary bishops and archbishops, who have taken on governmental responsibilities and remain based in the most central locations, and not in the most inhospitable and peripheral places.

Until Luther's time, therefore, the priests of the Christian communities for the most part did not travel to preach from city to city, and had settled in fixed parishes and dioceses, although they took turns and changed headquarters regularly. The contradiction is evident between a Church that demands celibacy and unconditional availability from priests, and a Church at the end of time, but which at the same time does not establish a routine of pilgrimages or missionary service to be carried out, allowing the highest authorities of the Church to always be installed in the same headquarters, generally safe and luxurious. It made sense, then, that Luther would propose lifting the requirement, since the pastors would be preaching only in their communities, which would not be incompatible with family life and caring for children. Interestingly, neither he nor the seven princes who signed the declaration delve into the reasons and analysis, as if they were on the surface of this legitimate proposal, faithful to the idea of ​​seeking greater coherence in the Church's provisions on the clergy, even though they could not see the legitimate basis of their claims.

Regarding the Mass (art. 24), Luther anticipated the movement of the Second Vatican Council, consolidated through the Sacrosanctum Concilium, which reestablished the liturgy in accordance with the simpler rituals of the early Church, replacing the Council of Trent. He and the other Lutherans criticize Masses commissioned by intentions: they consider it undesirable that the Mass has become a work to obtain all kinds of benefits from God, and that this would be to perpetuate the purpose of the Mass with individual interests. He also criticizes the purpose of celebrating Masses to raise money.

It seems difficult to give an opinion in this article, since the intentions are usually read only at the beginning of the Mass, and one must consider the need for mercy in view of the many requests that the faithful present to God by rendering due worship to Him. It would be impious to consider it undesirable to celebrate a Mass for the recovery of the health of a loved one, especially since there is no evidence that the Apostles and first disciples prohibited it, or even did not do so. Saint Maximus relates in the Life of the Virgin that the Apostles gathered when Our Lady suffered, before going to sleep. Wouldn't it have been appropriate to have held a celebration with this special intention for her health? One must also consider the costs of maintaining the Church and maintaining religious services. Saying additional Masses to obtain more offerings, and with this maintaining free hospital services for the poorest, or financing missionaries in non-Christian places, would provide more than worthy reasons for celebration and for collecting offerings. There is no incompatibility between seeking to improve the opportunity to receive offerings and the fulfillment of the purposes that bring the Church together.

Regarding confession, art. 25, Luther criticizes the penances established at the end of the sacrament by priests:

“In times past, preachers, who taught much about confession, did not mention even a single word concerning these necessary points, but only tortured consciences with a long enumeration of sins, with satisfactions, indulgences, pilgrimages, and the like. And many of our opponents themselves confess that we write and treat of true Christian repentance more appropriately than has been done previously for a long time.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 25).

It seems important to emphasize that, at least at this time, there are no longer determined penances such as enumeration of sins, satisfactions, indulgences, pilgrimages, or the like. These promises are voluntary initiatives of the faithful themselves, and not penances established by confessors. The confessional today functions as a place of spiritual care and guidance, so the focus of the statement on comforting and providing absolution seems to be in full agreement with the current practice of the Church. And in this passage a certain inconsistency arises with Luther's main idea, that one should not trust in works, when it is stated that “we write and treat of true Christian repentance more appropriately”. Because according to the Catholic faith, and as the Lutheran faith also suggested in previous articles, it is God who provides the sinner's repentance, as well as the forgiveness of sins, and not a human work of convincing, of better explanation or of more appropriate interpretation of the sacrament. Regarding the distinction of foods, fasts, ceremonies, clothing, and similar orders, Lutherans state three reasons for including the topic as a controversy in their time:

“First, by this they obscure the grace of Christ and the doctrine of faith, which the gospel sets before us with great seriousness, insisting vigorously that we consider the merit of Christ as something great and precious and that we know that faith in Christ must be placed far above all works. (…) This doctrine was almost completely extinguished by the teaching that grace was merited by prescribed fasts, distinctions in food, clothing, etc. Secondly, such traditions also obscured the commandments of God, for they were placed far above the divine precepts. Only this was considered Christian life: observing feasts in this way, praying in this way, fasting in this way, dressing in this way. This was what was called the spiritual, Christian life. At the same time, other necessary and good works were considered worldly things, non-spiritual, namely, those that each person must do according to his vocation, such as, for example, that the head of the family work to support his wife and children and raise them in the fear of God, that the mother of the family give birth to children and watch over them, that a prince and magistrate govern the country and the people, etc. Such works, ordered by God, should be considered secular and imperfect. Traditions, however, had to have the splendid name of being the only holy and perfect works. For this reason there was no limit or end to the making of such traditions. Thirdly, these traditions became a great burden to consciences. Because it was not possible to keep them all, and the people still thought that this was necessary divine worship. Gerson writes that many fell into despair because of this and some even committed suicide because they had not heard any consolation from the grace of Christ. One sees in the Summists and theologians how consciences were confused.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 26, Of the distinction of foods).

The Augsburg proposal seems to take the absurd situation as a rule; since there is, in fact, no such important focus in canon law or in the tradition of the Church on traditions related to ephemerides. The works of the Saints, valued by the Catholic Church as models of devotion, do not deal with any aspect related to food or clothing, except when to prevent the capital sins of gluttony and vanity. Therefore, although we could recognize that, in the practice of popular piety, in small communities, these details gain a greater proportion in feasts and celebrations, such as the determination not to eat meat on Good Fridays, these details are part of a broader context of memory of Christ. On a day when we remember the sadness of the crucifixion and death of Christ, it would not be appropriate to hold a feast, so it is suggested that we abstain from meat and drink to reflect on a sad moment. If mere human tradition is enough to be Catholic, saved, or to take faith as sufficient, we are certain that it is not, in any and all times in which we look at the teachings transmitted by the Church. The complete absence of regulations and theological studies sponsored by the Church regarding these details of food and clothing is perhaps the greatest proof of this.

Now: the Lutheran document itself recalls the importance of fasting to face trials, referring to the Gospel (St. Luke 21,34; St. Matthew 17, 21; St. Mark 9,29; First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians 9, 27). So there does not seem to be any reason for controversy in this article, considering that the Church can define the most propitious times to practice the fast that the Gospel and the Apostles teach.

Considering that the Christian life is a life in communion, it makes perfect sense that certain fasting practices are collectively agreed upon and consented to, but there is no record of them being obligatory, nor a condition for declaring oneself Christian and Catholic. It seems, once again, that Luther is referring to a provincial reality that is specific to him, and it does not seem entirely useless to denounce it in this way, considering that in many small rural communities, the strict observance of these calendar traditions is considered sufficient to claim a faith superior to that of others, harboring in this tradition the sin of pride.

In the following two articles, Luther addresses monastic vows (art. 27) and the power of bishops (art. 28). Regarding monastic vows, the signatories of the Augsburg Confession of Faith consider them null and void. In addition to criticizing the fact that those who take these vows are very young, still without full awareness and knowledge, they consider that “all divine worship instituted and chosen by men, without a commandment and order of God, to obtain justice and the grace of God, is opposed to God and contrary to the holy gospel and the order of God.” From this they conclude: “It follows, therefore, that these customary vows were improper, false divine worship.”

Luther’s criticism forgets the mandate that Christ granted to the Church to decide on issues that would arise later, the power of the keys. References are abundant in the Gospels and in the Last Supper itself, Christ again asserts the delegation that he grants to his friends, stating that whatever they ask, the Father will grant them. Therefore, the Gospels are not limited to the text fixed by them, they open themselves to the subsequent development of the Church. Now, living in a monastery with a vow of chastity, by one’s own choice, does not contravene God’s commandments. Each person will be able to judge what is best for themselves and for their own salvation, and the fraternities that welcome the faithful who wish to live a life of prayer and work for the community would have something to celebrate with this. Monasteries are not harmless spaces; they receive the faithful and requests, produce food and distribute Church goods, perform weddings, protect families, and provide education.

However, the declaration offers a negative perspective that is contrary to God's commandments, because it formulates a different structure for marriage and family life. To consider marriage as something mandatory, because God created a female for every male, and a different option contrary to the divine plan, would mean ignoring the fact that Christ did not have a wife. In its teaching on marriage, the text of the Augsburg Confession of Faith itself recalls that there are different vocations - not everyone has a vocation for marriage.

But Luther’s criticism seems well placed when expressing the reason for his discomfort with monastic vows: not so much the way of life, or the vocation to chastity, but rather the fact that various orders were considered more evolved states of Christian perfection: “In addition to all this, they also persuaded people that the invented spiritual orders are states of Christian perfection.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 27, On Monastic Vows). Lutherans then abhor the idea that the vows of “poverty, chastity and obedience” could be a source of any perfection, taking these virtues as “simulations”. In fact, not all those admitted to these religious orders were poor. They chose poverty, which Luther considers a “simulation”. They also force themselves into chastity, which is then considered useless, for the purposes of virtue, since, for the text, they thus deprive themselves of free choice. The problem of monastic vows for Lutherans would also be based on the biblical canon:

“Saint Paul says in Galatians 5: ‘You who seek to justify yourselves by law have fallen away from Christ, and you have fallen away from grace.’ Therefore, those who want to be justified by vows are also cut off from Christ and have fallen away from grace, for they steal the honor of Christ, the only one who justifies, and give this honor to their vows and their monastic life.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 27, On Monastic Vows, § 14)

We believe that Luther’s criticism of monastic vows also makes some sense, in a medieval period, when religious life was considered a social criterion of prestige. Vows will not necessarily lead anyone to peace or paradise if these vows are not fulfilled by a legitimate dedication to the Gospel. Christian perfection is effectively about fulfilling the provisions of the Gospel, which are not about following laws, but about a way of life open to incorporating those most in need through service to others.

We do not understand, however, how Lutheran theologians could ignore the passage that follows Jesus’ demand, in the face of a volunteer wanting to achieve perfection, that he leave everything behind – family and possessions – and follow Him:

“Peter began to say to him, ‘See, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for my sake and the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times as much now in this age, houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (= Mt 20:17ff = Lk 18:31-34)

What follows from the analysis of the Gospel is that responding to this call implies receiving even more family and many more goods, because the family and the goods incorporated into the Church multiply. The monasteries are full of visiting families, adopted by the monks, who then incorporate them as their own family members. The lands of the monasteries gradually grow, incorporated by donations, and the monks enjoy many goods and the company of many family members, while they seek heavenly goods. Perhaps the Lutherans’ lack of knowledge about the reality of the Monasteries was the reason for rejecting this way of life, or perhaps medieval monasteries did not allow this contemporary reading, because they kept people isolated in chains. But brought to the present time, observing the great movement of the monasteries, the conferences they dedicate to the most needy and the free hospitality, the opening of theology courses to the community, the circulation of books and works, the frequent trips and participation in councils, the work in the outskirts, perhaps Luther could change his mind.

Luther continues to point out his perspective:

“But the common people conceive many pernicious opinions from the false exaltation of the monastic life, when they hear that the celibate state is extolled without any moderation. The result is that the people are in the matrimonial state with a bad conscience.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 27, On Monastic Vows, § 16)

Now, we have seen that it is not false to exalt the life of those who abandon family and possessions to follow Jesus Christ on his pilgrimages to evangelize different places. And we have also seen that this does not imply losing family or possessions, but results in expanding beyond the concept of private property and a family of blood ties: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” he asked. And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48-50)

There were many Saints who had visions of Christ and other Saints, and who received the command to convert and change their lives from God Himself, such as Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Father Anchieta, and others who founded new orders for evangelization - the Jesuits, in addition to the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, made the vow to give their own lives in liberation for a prisoner. After Luther, it would be appropriate to raise this question: should an instruction received from God in the intimacy of faith not be heard or followed? Where could one claim that these summons are false, if they are instructions that God personally gives, and that have yielded numerous conversions and benefits to evangelization?

With regard to the power of bishops, Luther preached the separation of Church and State - which effectively occurred within the Catholic Church.

“Therefore, the spiritual and temporal powers must not be confused or confounded. For the spiritual power has the command to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments. Nor must it invade the office of another. It must not enthrone or dethrone kings, it must not abrogate or undermine civil laws and obedience to government, it must not make and prescribe laws to the temporal power regarding secular matters, as Christ himself said: “My kingdom is not of this world.” Also: “Who made me a judge over you?” And Saint Paul, in Philippians 3: “Our citizenship is in heaven.” And in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter ten: “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.” In this way, ours distinguish the offices of both authorities and powers and command that both be held in honor as the highest gifts of God on earth.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 28, On the Power of Bishops, § 4)

It seems important to understand that Luther and his followers wrote at a time when the distinction between civil law and canon law, advocated by Napoleon centuries later, had not yet been made. The separation between divine law and temporal law had been accepted since the Encyclical Letter Immortale Dei, by Pope Leo XIII:

“God divided the government into two powers: the ecclesiastical power and the civil power. The former is assigned to divine things; the latter to human things. Each of them is sovereign in its own right; each is enclosed within perfectly determined and drawn limits, in conformity with its nature and its specific purpose. There is, therefore, a circumscribed sphere in which each exercises its action iure proprio (= within the scope of its own right)” (Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter Immortale Dei, n. 19).

In the jurisprudence of canon law, cases brought before ecclesiastical tribunals are refracted, considering that the Church recognizes, in the words of Pope Pius XII, “a sound and legitimate secularity of the State” (Pius XII, L’Osservatore Romano, 24-25 March 1958).

This would indicate a convergence between the Augsburg Confession of Faith and the current practice of the Catholic Church, in which ecclesiastical authorities do not interfere in the procedures adopted by the public powers of the temporal government. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states that "It is the duty of citizens to collaborate with civil authorities for the good of society, in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity and freedom. Love and service of the country derive from the duty of gratitude and the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their role in the life of the political community. (Catechism, 2239)

However, since the Second Vatican Council, some things have changed in the Church's approach to the prompt approval of every government decision. Although the Catechism preaches the separation of powers and the duty of obedience to civil authorities, and the Church is well established with regard to various concordats, the agreements of the See with the governments that host the Apostolic See are obliged not to determine contradiction to what is provided for by Canon Law in matters of faith, as is the case of the Brazilian Agreement of the See, of 13/11/2008, Legislative Decree no. 7107, of 02/11/2010), by the clause of respect for religious freedom and the right to exercise the services inherent to its own mission, observing the requirements of the law (articles 2 and 8 of the aforementioned Convention of Headquarters with the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church).

The Catechism also provides that the Church is concerned with the temporal good of the faithful:

The Church pronounces itself on economic and social matters, whenever the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls so require. She is concerned with the common temporal good of men, by reason of its ordination to the sovereign Good, our ultimate end. (Catechism, 2458)

And, in this regard, it diverges from the matter proposed by the Lutheran Confession, which states that “it should not enthrone or dethrone kings, it should not abrogate or undermine civil laws and obedience to government, it should not make and prescribe laws to the temporal power regarding secular matters”, taking upon itself the right to exempt itself from duties that go against the Catholic faith, not needing to ask permission to dismiss rulers who offend Christ or the Church, and resisting even by force of arms, having exhausted all possibilities, if it is convenient and necessary:

“The citizen is obliged in conscience not to follow the prescriptions of the civil authorities when such prescriptions are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of individuals or to the teachings of the Gospel. Refusal to obey the civil authorities when their demands are contrary to those of right conscience is justified by the distinction between the service of God and the service of the political community. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21). “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29):

“When public authority oppresses citizens beyond the limits of its competence, they must not refuse to comply with the objective demands of the common good; but they are permitted, within the limits defined by natural law and the Gospel, to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens against the abuse of this authority.”

Resistance to oppression by political power will not legitimately resort to arms except in the following ways: conditions:

1 – in the case of certain, serious and prolonged violations of fundamental rights;

2 – after all other remedies have been ex

hausted;

3 – if it does not cause worse disorders;

4 – if there is well-founded hope of success;

5 – and if it is impossible to reasonably foresee better solutions. (Catechism, 2242-2243)

It seems that, although in theory the Church pronounces itself on civil matters in committees and legislative processes, in practice this device provided for in the Catechism of the Church of resistance to civil power has been rarely used, with the practice of the Catholic Church, in its decisions in ecclesiastical courts, being much closer to Lutheranism than to the Catechism (see, for example, Prot. No. 0102/22 of the Interdiocesan and Appellate Ecclesiastical Court of Brasilia). Thus, rapprochement between the Lutheran and Catholic denominations in this aspect also does not seem impossible.

Regardless of this similarity in practice, would there be some contradiction in theory? What would be the reading, in light of the Gospel, of the relationship between divine power and temporal power, in the Augsburg Confession of Faith? We note a possible contradiction. For although bishops should not interfere in temporal matters, we have the following affirmation:

“When, however, the ordinaries are negligent in such ministry, the princes have the obligation, whether they do it willingly or not, to pronounce right in this matter to their subjects, for the sake of peace, to avoid discord and great disturbances in the territories.” (Augsburg Confession of Faith, art. 28, On the power of bishops).

Now, if it seems reasonable that a prince or temporal power should interfere in the divine jurisdiction of bishops, why would it not be reasonable for bishops to interfere in temporal jurisdiction, when this fails to guarantee the necessary effects? The grounds for preventing bishops from interceding on temporal matters that could compromise the well-being of the faithful could also not be based on the passage from Luke 12:14: “Who made me a judge between you?” For following the request of Christ’s subject to intercede favorably for a fair division of inheritance, Christ gives a sermon on the subject, interceding from his divine place for the resolution of the problem on a temporal level, with recommendations against greed. It could not be ignored that a sermon by Christ against greed, telling the parable of the rich man who dies without enjoying his accumulated goods, will certainly have the effect of moving the resistant party to share his goods with greater equanimity.

However, if we distance ourselves from the details of this article, we will find that Luther and his followers would probably have agreed with the passages of the Catechism of the Catholic Church established since 1992. After all, all Lutheranism is a movement based on the right to resist practices that go against conscience and faith. It seems natural that Luther and the signatories of the Augsburg Confession of Faith would agree with the right to resist a temporal power that exceeded the limits of its own competence, oppressing citizens, since they themselves acted in this way with a higher power, the ecclesiastical power.

What is important to note is that the document was addressed to a temporal authority, Emperor Charles V, and certainly neither the princes who were signatories of the confession would want to confess a faith that reduced their own authority, nor would Luther proceed in this way, since he wanted to obtain the Emperor's favorable opinion so that his proposal would be accepted. It is true that the Confession contained elements that were of interest to the temporal power, namely, the reduction of the Pope's power over the enthronement or dismissal of rulers, and placed both the signatory princes and the Emperor in a position to accept a position in their own interest.

Reflections on the Confutatio

Reading this document provided a better understanding of the reasons that led Luther to protest against the practices of the Catholic Church in his time. Mentioned briefly by the signatories of the Augsburg Confession of Faith: they were complaints about “indulgences, pilgrimages, abuse in matters of excommunication”. Furthermore, they all confessed substantively the same Christian faith that coincided with the Gospel, although we can find variations that seem normal, whose occurrence is natural from the different perspectives in the Church. Logically, it would have been necessary for the analysis to be accompanied by a greater detail of the religious context of his time, although we have touched on the issue.

The additional fact is that Protestantism gave rise to the Reformation, and over time this produced a concern within the Catholic Church not to stray from the content of the Gospel through new practices and traditions. The benefit, therefore, was undeniable, since religious movements were forced to resist Luther's criticism, safeguarding to a greater extent the focus on Christ than on their rules. It is also worth emphasizing the non-divisive spirit with which the Augsburg Confession of Faith raised the controversies:

“It is not to be judged that anything has been said or mentioned out of hatred or to bring shame. We have reported only what we consider necessary to add and mention, so that it may be the better understood that, in doctrine and ceremonies, nothing has been received among us that is contrary to Sacred Scripture or to the universal Christian Church. For it is truly public and manifest that we have diligently and with the help of God (to speak without boasting) prevented any new and impious doctrine from being introduced, spread or prevailed in our churches.”

The Catholic Church was responsible for the split by ordering the excommunication of those who came to demand greater care with doctrine so that the original values ​​of the Gospel could be preserved, without cautiously reviewing, or at least initially, their practices. The reaction to the papal bull was visceral, as it presented a public criticism of the Church, and this is evident in the lack of dialogue with the priest, in a bull formulated based on third-party reports: “It is difficult for us to express, in our sadness and distress, what has reached our ears for some time now, through reports from trusted men and from general rumor,” states the bull Exsurge Domine. And before that, it lets slip the discomfort with the self-identification with the holy apostles, to a certain degree of arrogance, and with the hierarchical break, signaling a certain attachment to authority: “He [the heretic] reproves them [the holy apostles] for violating your teaching, instead of imploring them.”

Apparently, the bull was not based on a dialogue or a call by Luther to discuss his criticisms in order to reconcile those who protested; and, later, when the Augsburg Confession of Faith was published, expressing the desire for reconciliation, there was also no movement by the Church in that direction, but only the Confutatio, a document produced by some theologians, which, according to the Lutherans, would have been read, but not officially published - what we have available is a note they made of the Confutatio.

Even though the Protestants' arguments were not entirely accurate, the changes that the Church underwent after the Second Vatican Council, also returning to the practices of the early Church, abandoning excessive new traditions and condemning abuse, prove that the points raised by the Lutherans were not completely unreasonable after all.

It is clear, however, that the Church's approach to Luther's recommendations failed to prevent the schism of the Church and the subdivision of the Christian movement into other denominations. Nor can we ignore the fact that the Augsburg Confession of Faith refers to the Catholic Church as "opponents" and "adversaries" on several occasions. If it did, it seems to have arisen because Luther was effectively excommunicated and placed under public judgment in order to exclude from the bosom of the Church those who followed him, fearing that they would call themselves another denomination, thus leading to the division of the Church.

And at this point, we should reflect coherently on the great ineffectiveness of the institution of excommunication. For excluding members of the Church who seek to give an authentic meaning to the Gospel, because of controversy, is a procedure that creates additional obstacles to achieving reconciliation. It would be hypocritical to consider that the mere formalization of an exclusion, supposedly made by the believer himself who departs from the doctrine, would aim at reconciliation. For it is much more difficult to settle controversies with someone who has been excommunicated than with someone who is within the same bosom of the Church.

Considering, further, that the Spirit of the Augsburg Confession of Faith was to find a minimum common denominator to obtain tolerance and protection for the faith they practiced, we should remember that Our Lord Jesus Christ himself offered the parable of the prompt reincorporation of the prodigal son, after having left his father's home in search of his own considerations. And it seems completely absurd that, having produced a Confession of Faith affirming practices that at first seem not far removed from what is acceptable to the Church in today's times, and which are supported by the Gospel and the works of the Saints, it would not have acted in the same way as the father of the prodigal son, admitting what was agreed upon and pointing out what could be improved - bathing and dressing the returning son - so that he could be promptly reinstated, in a gesture of welcome for his return, and of concord.

However, the Church proceeded to the opposite exercise, refuting these articles, in order to continue excluding the Lutherans, which then gave rise to Melanchthon's Apology. If on the one hand the Lutherans stopped treating the Catholic Church as the bosom of their own family, addressing the clergy as “opponents” or “adversaries”, at the same time it is clear that the ecclesiastical authorities were not capable of deconstructing this hostility, deepening the differences. The opportunity and openness to a “friendly” review of the text, with which the declaration was submitted to Emperor Charles V, could have been taken advantage of, in order to find the common ground that makes Lutherans and Catholics part of the same family. Overlooking theological controversies that are not substantive, and living with criticisms of monasticism, would have been essential to guarantee what was of greatest importance to God, keeping those who are loved within the same Church. And after all, the divergences that were pointed out by the Catholic refutations at that time would not make as much sense in this time after the Second Vatican Council. Let us first see what was the Lutheran reaction to the refutations prepared by the ecclesiastical authorities to Lutheranism.

Analysis of Melanchthon's Apology.

The apology of Melanchthon, a disciple of Luther, was created to address the refutations in response to the Augsburg Confession of Faith, during a meeting of the Schmalkaldic League (Schmalkaldischer Bund). The apology was published in 1537 and is divided into 37 parts that are dedicated to defending the Confessio Augustana, the name by which the Augsburg Confession of Faith document also became known, in its Latin title. The text “Confutatio Augustana” was written by Johann Eck, a counter-reformation Catholic theologian. In turn, Melanchthon's text, in response to Eck and his associates, only received a response later, with the Council of Trent (1545-63). The Apology is available at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6744/pg6744-images.html .

The Confutatio was originally written at the request of Emperor Charles V on July 5, 1530, shortly after the publication of the Augsburg Confession of Faith on June 25, 1530. The Roman theologians, who had been convened by the emperor on June 27, 1530, disagreed with the articles of the Augsburg Confession of Faith, and the emperor asked them to prepare a “moderate response.” Johann Eck, John Faber, Conrad Wimpina, and John Cochlaeus prepared the Confutatio, initially 280 pages long. The emperor reportedly accepted only 12 pages of this material, and after 6 weeks of editing the text, on August 3 of that same year, Alexander Schweiss, secretary to Emperor Charles V, read the material. Interestingly, the text was not publicly released and we only have a copy of what was written down by the Lutherans. Apparently, it was not an official position of the Catholic Church. The text of the Confutatio written down by the Lutherans can be found at https://bookofconcord.org/other-resources/sources-and-context/roman-confutation/

Melanchthon's apology is about 250 pages long, a length proportional to the Confutatio document that was previously rejected by the Emperor. Several articles of the Confession are accepted as acceptable in the Confutatio: 1, 2 in part, 3, 4, depending on the interpretation given by concupiscence, 5, 6, but with the addition of works, in article 7, it is recalled that the Church cannot exclude sinners, in article 8 it is recalled that it is accepted, 9 is accepted, in article 10, it sees no offense, in article XI, it is also agreed upon, in article 12, the first part is accepted, and the second is rejected, they accept article 13, they accept article 14, provided that the calling respects ecclesiastical law, they accept article 15, except that religious vows are opposed to the Gospel, they accept “with pleasure” article 16, on political order and civil government, they accept article 17 in full, they accept article 18, they accept article 19 in full, and in article 20 they recall that the proposed doctrine rejecting the importance of good works had already been rejected in the time of Saint Augustine, a thousand years ago. Philip Melanchthon, however, deepens the divergence noted in the Confutatio in some of them, to defend the Augsburg Confession of Faith. This is the case, for example, of the response to article 2 of the Confession, in which the Confutatio recalls the definition of original sin and the effects of baptism, and considers clarifying the meaning that would be given to the concupiscence mentioned by Luther in the text. Melanchthon interprets this in his own way and makes it even more impossible to arrive at a synthesis. There are details in the debate concerning human nature and the reminiscences of sin that seem unnecessary and difficult to determine in a definitive and objective way, since they are investigations of compatibility between the writings of Saint Paul and Saint Augustine.

In article 4, the Confutatio accepts the proposal that it is only through faith and divine grace that one can be saved, and that works alone are not enough; emphasizing that works, however, are important, because of the passages in the biblical canon that support the necessity and convenience of good works. The Confutatio does not mention the parables and quotations from the Gospel listed in this analysis, but it does find important biblical passages about works. The text of the Augsburg Confession also does not rule out the importance of good works, as we have seen. However, Melanchthon states that the opponents of the proposal “stubbornly reject both assertions” that the remission of sins is not due to the merit of men, and that faith in Christ is necessary. Melanchthon then develops several pages of evidence that only faith justifies, ignoring the fact that the Confutatio agrees with this; and continues accusing opponents of disagreeing with this perspective on the importance of faith, ignoring that the Confutatio was based on the Holy Scriptures to mention the importance of works. Melanchthon considers that all merit in good works is divine, and that they are determined by God's command, making no sense whatsoever to mention that any human initiative in good works makes a difference for the purpose of salvation. However, this is not what the Augsburg Confession of Faith states, when it recognizes the importance of good works.

Many accusations against opponents also follow, and about the burden that bishops add to the people; with this, Melanchthon defends the people as victims of abuses by the Church, as if the people were inherently good, and as if they were already saved. He also mixes up the conduct of gentiles, such as Gaius Caesar and Pompey, analyzing that certain conducts and impositions led to civil war. He defends philosophers, epieicheia, leniency, and the oversight of sins, in order to maintain public harmony, claiming that Christ justifies everything in those who have faith. Melanchthon does not delve into the essence of Christ or His works; he reviews the entire biblical canon in search of passages that confirm that faith in Christ would be sufficient for salvation. In a way, he empties the meaning of the words Christ and faith, as if they were sufficient in themselves and did not serve to represent a path to be followed or work to be done. There is a long sermon on the importance of faith in several articles, something that the Confutatio stated that it did not oppose.

In article 11, Melanchthon also makes substantial criticism of the enumeration of sins. However, the Confutatio does not even mention enumeration. It mentions the need to diligently search one's conscience. It does not go into detail about the need to enumerate sins during confession, which seems strange to Catholic practice. One only enters the confessional after knowing which sin one must confess.

The Confutatio dispenses with major disagreement on the second part of article 12, on repentance, bringing abundant citations from the canon, the tradition of the Apostles and the decision of Pope Leo X asserting that satisfaction is a third part of the Sacrament of Confession, after contrition and repentance, which cannot be suppressed. Satisfaction would be to present fruits, the compensation for the sin of which one repents, after contrition and repentance.

Then abruptly Melanchthon's apology completely leaves the domain of theological discussion and analysis of the biblical canon and begins to address, with praise, Emperor Charles V, begging for the remission of sins, asking if God will not grant the remission of sins to his people. A rather strange interpellation, if not rhetorical, since a temporal power in theory would not have jurisdiction to mediate theological questions, as Luther himself proposed, in the separation between State and Church, as if it could arbitrate the issue. In response, Melanchthon goes on to state that there would be much confusion and disagreement among theologians of the Church about the doctrine related to repentance, and that this would be too nebulous a subject to assert certainty: he emphasizes that there are confusing discussions and that people would find themselves with their consciences terrified after the remission of sins, fearful of eternal punishment, because of the application of the sacrament of confession as taught by the Church. He then argues that simplifying repentance into just two stages, contrition and faith, would serve to avoid the labyrinth of “confusion of the sophists”. Indeed, the problem seems to be a false problem: the excessive regulation of confession in analytical categories is nothing more than a deterioration of the Gospel and its integral, personalized approach, of unconditionally granting forgiveness to each subject who seeks forgiveness.

It seems difficult, however, to accept that contrition and repentance can be valid if they do not produce any concrete effect, contrary to the sin that one considers redeemed. It seems like a very easy and comfortable conversion from sin to holiness, simply having one's sins forgiven, without having to do anything to make up for the error. In the Gospel we could find support for not demanding any compensation for redemption in the example of Zacchaeus: the offer of compensation, upon knowing that one has been forgiven by Christ, is spontaneous. Melanchthon also recalls the biblical passage from the Gospel that comes to his aid, to support something that the Church disputes: when Christ forgives the adulteress, the only instruction he gives her is not to sin again, without the need for further explanations, given that she had already suffered many setbacks in the public judgment.

However, it is clear that the gratitude that a disciple feels upon being forgiven goes far beyond this instruction not to sin again. Once forgiven, they begin to follow Christ. Consider Christ praising the sinful woman, who had been forgiven much, for washing his feet with perfume, using her hair, shortly before his Passion, and criticizing the teachers of the law who, having been forgiven by Him for their minor sins, offered her nothing special. Even so, this example would favor Melanchthon: Christ does not demand the expensive perfume from the sinful woman; it is something she offers voluntarily, to show Him her satisfaction. In this sense, Melanchthon's criticism seems valid to improve the practice of the Church, because he considers the following: if a person's conscience has been pacified with the certainty of the remission of their sins, and if they no longer sin, why continue to impose more demands in order to comply with the Law? On this point, Lutheranism seems to firmly fight for the gratuitousness of divine love, in not burdening with endless penances the faithful who have had their sins redeemed, something that is close to the practice we find in the Church in today's post-conciliar times. Pope Francis himself, during an audience on October 24, 2024 with members of the College of Minor Vatican Ordinary Penitentiaries, on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of service of the conventual friars minor in the Vatican Basilica, asked priests to do something along the lines of what Luther suggested in 1530:

“Listen, don’t ask so much, don’t be a psychiatrist, please listen, always listen, with gentleness. And when you see that there is a penitent who is beginning to have a little difficulty because he is embarrassed: I didn’t understand anything, but I understood, and the Lord understood. That is the important thing, that is what a great cardinal penitentiary taught me: I understood, and the Lord understood. But please, don’t be a psychiatrist. The less you say, the better. Listen, console and forgive. You are there to forgive.” (Pope Franciscus, Audience of October 24, 2024)

So if the Church has converged in its practice with what Luther preached, why disagree?

It is partly true, but it seems to approach the subject in a contradictory way: because at the same time that he argues that the individual's faith would be sufficient to justify the entire process of repentance, confession and forgiveness, Melanchthon enters into a very detailed theological argument to support this conviction. The fact is that no technical argument, of a biblical, philosophical or theological nature, could be sufficient to contradict the Lutheran movement's conviction that faith is a sufficient and sufficient condition, because of the faith that Lutherans have in faith, faith being something that goes beyond argument. If Luther's followers have faith that faith is sufficient, they cannot see any other possibility, and perhaps that is why they do not take the Letter of Saint James as a canon that requires good works for a living faith.

Regarding the Saints, the Confutatio brings abundant evidence from the biblical canon in favor of the constant intercession of the Saints and the angels in human affairs. And it also recalls that

“If anyone serves me, him my Father will honor”, ​​John 12:26. If, therefore, God honors the saints, why do we, insignificant men, not honor them? (Confutatio, from article XXI)

In this article, Melanchthon begins by making a good defense of the Augsburg Confession of Faith, reminding us that it does not advocate failing to honor the Saints. He recalls Christ’s words that his Apostles and disciples should invoke the Father and himself, stating that

“Here the adversaries first invite us to invoke the saints, although they do not mention the promise of God, nor an order, nor an example from Scripture. And yet they make us conceive greater confidence in the mercy of the saints than in that of Christ, although Christ has commanded us to go to Him and not to the saints.”

Indeed, there is nothing in the Catechism or in the doctrine of the Church indicating that one should not prefer to have recourse directly to Our Lord Jesus Christ, or to God. Nor is there any instruction in the doctrine of the Catholic Church that one should have greater confidence in the mercy of the saints than in that of Christ, or of God. Perhaps Melanchthon was referring to practices: he criticizes the fact that the lives of the Saints are often invoked without the accompaniment of the Holy Scriptures or the Word of Christ.

However, the Saints themselves recommend going to Christ. Therefore, there does not seem to be a necessary incompatibility between what Lutheranism and Catholicism initially propose. However, Melanchthon insists on the contrary. It is certainly out of excessive humility, fearful of presuming it is possible to reach the ear of Christ, and because they find similarities in their own experience, that the faithful invoke the favors of the Saints' intercession before Christ. Trusting also that the Saints will not despise the request, the faithful strengthen and encourage one another to continue on the path of Christ; and it would be appropriate to consider that the goal of the Church is that there be even more people recognized as Saints. Thus, many Saints had a special devotion to Mary, considered the first among them, and if they became Saints, like those whom Luther admires, they expressed gratitude for the intercessions and graces obtained through her, to turn to Christ. How can we disregard the respect and invocation that Saint Augustine has for Mary? From the Church’s repository, we have what this Saint states: “The prayers of the Most Holy Mary before God have more power before the Divine Majesty than the prayers and intercession of all the angels and Saints in Heaven and on Earth.” Why does Lutheranism take from Saint Augustine certain concepts and perspectives as necessary to reestablish a supposed tradition, but discard what he has to say about the merits of Our Lady? In this, Lutherans are, in truth, seeking to be innovators, and not restorers of the practices of the Church in its origins.

Melanchthon’s defense continues in this same direction, and it is not our goal to exhaust each of the parts in which Luther’s follower seeks to confront the Confutatio - even because, as everything indicates, officially the Church has remained using as a reference, at least for theological purposes, the position established by Exsurge Domine; perhaps changed by Nostra Aetate, since Lutheranism could not be treated worse than non-Christian religions, which were respected and welcomed through ecumenical dialogue.

The question then remains: did Luther direct Melanchthon to deepen the differences in the Confutatio, instead of overcoming and clarifying the divergent points? Was there an intention to protect himself and his communities, sheltering himself under a temporal authority built with his support? Or did Luther maintain his theological convictions independent of what his colleagues and collaborators were producing? And did Luther initially have as his purpose the division of the Church and the establishment of his own sect, or was his reaction really to confront the abuses of a Church that, incorporated into the belligerent culture of the medieval European peoples, was not renewing itself?

In general, what we see in Melanchthon's text is an in-depth, highly technical and detailed discussion of theological precepts, with several flourishes in Latin, demonstrating mastery of the very way of thinking that was in vogue at that time in the theological sphere, in the Church. The impression it leaves, therefore, is of having fallen into the trap of Pope Leo X's curse on heretics, transforming what is a simple message, about the life of a Man, accessible to anyone, about love, the remission of sins and salvation, into a complex debate of a philosophical nature, transforming and codifying the Gospel into a system of ideas. This is something that theologians of the Church did and often still do, attached to the need to be more correct than others, thus excluding other perspectives, even those supported by sacred texts, when they do not submit to a doctrinal configuration of fixed ideas. The problem with these systems of thought that Jesus Christ came to combat is that they discard possible interpretations capable of maintaining the integrity of the unity of the Church, producing harmony and bringing human beings closer to God. So much so that, for the most part, Melanchthon's observations are compatible with the doctrine of the Church, but despite this, he continues to disagree.

We can only assume that the problem of discord in the 1500s does not find its main foundations in theological reasoning. Obviously: because Luther had been condemned to excommunication under serious insults, without the Church first reflecting on his causes of protest, judging based on the reports of third parties and, at least in the records we have, without a clear defense procedure that respected his dignity as a son and priest participating in the Church. Melanchthon and his followers therefore appear wanting to defend him from what seems to them an injustice.

Final considerations

The fact is that Luther's 95 theses deserved a very rigorous papal bull and insults from Pope Leo X to Luther; but the Augsburg Confession did not result in a counter movement of similar strength. And today we have, as we have seen in the quote, that a good part of the positions adopted in the Augsburg Confession find support in the most recent practices and documents of the Catholic Church – or at least they do not conflict so fundamentally with the core of the Catholic faith.

It remains to analyze the possibility of someone who proclaims to have faith in their own salvation, but produces bad works. Luther does not consider this to be possible. Could faith, then, not be true? Or would there not be bad works on the part of those who have faith? Without going into the analysis of the merit of the works, whether they produced good or bad fruit, it seems impossible to reach any conclusion about faith as a sufficient principle for salvation.

The Catholic Church continues to believe that true faith must be accompanied by good works, but the merit of works has always been the object of assessment by the Holy Spirit, and not by human evaluation by the clergy, the Pope, or the lay people of the Church. The isolated thinking of the Lutheran faith, in which faith alone is sufficient, would not initially be compatible; but the complete Catholic faith, on the impossibility of knowing the true value of works, except through the favor of the Spirit, seems to be. And within the Augsburg Confession of Faith we find elements that could be developed for a desirable convergence, through the greater respect that the Pope has today for priests of lower hierarchy and also through maturity in dealing with theological aspects.

Today, the Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church are two completely separate communities, which extends to the denominations and divisions that later emerged from the Protestant movement. But would it be possible to reconcile Lutheranism with the Catholic Church today, understanding the errors that led to the split between Protestants and the Roman Church at that time? This is the question – I hope a good one – that I am sowing among my readers today.

It is worth remembering that Pope Francis looked favorably on Lutheranism in 2016. Church channels are quick to deny what Pope Francis has said with some frequency, accusing the media of allegedly distorting his words. But rereading the full message that was released, this is exactly what he said, and what I found in it were words favorable to Lutheranism and its compatibility with the Catholic faith:

“During the press conference on the trip from Armenia to Rome, Pope Francis responded to a question about the possibility of lifting the excommunication of Martin Luther, on the occasion of the Holy Father’s upcoming trip to Sweden for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The Holy Father’s words were manipulated by some media outlets. Check out Pope Francis’ full response at the press conference on Sunday, June 26: “I believe that Martin Luther’s intentions were not wrong: he was a reformer. Perhaps some of his methods were not right, but at that time, if we read the story of the Pastor, for example, a German Lutheran who later converted when he saw the reality of that time and became Catholic. At that time, the Church was not exactly a model to imitate: there was corruption in the Church, there was worldliness, there was attachment to money and power. And that is why he protested. He was intelligent and took a step forward by justifying why he did this. And today, Lutherans and Catholics, Protestants and everyone, we agree on the doctrine of justification: on this very important point he did not err. But he provided a remedy for the Church, and later this remedy was consolidated into a state of affairs, a discipline, a way of believing, a way of doing, a liturgical way. But it was not just him: there was Zwingli, there was Calvin and who was behind them? The principles, ‘cuius regio eius religio’. We must insert ourselves into the history of that time: it is a difficult history to understand. It is not easy. Then things moved on. Today, the dialogue is very good and that document on justification, I believe, is one of the richest, richest and most profound ecumenical documents. There are divisions, but they also depend on the Churches. In Buenos Aires, there were two Lutheran churches: one thought one way and the other another way, even within the Lutheran Church itself there is no unity. But if they respect each other, if they love each other, diversity is what has perhaps done us all so much harm and today we seek to get back on the path to finding ourselves after 500 years. I believe that we must pray together: pray! That is why prayer is important.” (https://www.acidigital.com/noticia/31541/o-que-o-papa-francisco-disse-sobre-lutero-e-a-corrupcao-na-igreja?) .

If we observe the Lutheran movement within the historical context, we will see that in the medieval era and in the centuries that followed, the ‘cuius regio eius religio’ also applied to the emperors and kings who were vassals of the pope, when there was still no separation between Church and State. Therefore, the criticism that is made today of Lutheranism, of submitting faith to what is stipulated by earthly principalities, also applies to the Roman Church at that time. In 1955, the Diet of Augsburg came, confirming the rule that each kingdom had the right to choose the old religion or the new forms of Christianity, and in 1661 Joachim Stephani (1544–1623) consecrated the Diet of Augsburg 1555 through the principle ‘cuius regio eius religio’, with the exception of knights (Declaratio Ferdinandei, 1555) and the clergy and ecclesiastical territories (Reservatum ecclesiasticum, 1555), granting freedom of religion within Protestant territories only to those categories of higher social standing. But Pope Francis recalls that “After that, things continued”. After the French Revolution and the American Declaration of Independence, the perspective of the dignity of every person and a more egalitarian legal status grew. At this time, Pope Francis points out that “Today, dialogue is very good”; that, despite differences, “people respect and love each other”.

For those who consider it impossible from a theological point of view to implement this instinctive reunion, or who suppose that the proposal to reincorporate Luther into the list of priests of the Church is naive and inadequate, I must then remind those who have greater prerogatives and precedence over Pope Leo X, over the other theologians of the Church and over myself: the Doctor of the Church, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It is not right for a pope to invoke all the Saints and for the Church, inheriting his legacy, not to listen to this Saint, to insist on the error of discord, when defending something very similar to what Luther defended. For it is she who states: “My little path is the path of spiritual childhood, the path of trust and absolute surrender.” Isn’t this the path of trust and absolute surrender, the path of sufficient faith? And again: “The good Lord says to me: always give without worrying about the results.” Not even we ourselves should evaluate our works… In contrast to Pope Leo X, who accused Lutherans of no longer fearing God, she states: “How can I fear a God who is all mercy and love?” Although she declares that “love is proven by deeds”, she also concludes that “Jesus does not ask for great deeds: only surrender and gratitude”. And finally: “I assure you that God is much better than you believe. He is content with a look, a sigh of love”…

So, will we excommunicate Saint Therese, or re-communicate Luther and his followers? Will we have to revise Dei Verbum and include that works are done by human beings, and not by God (Dei Verbum Cap. I, § 2), and amend Lumen Gentium 11 and 12, replacing voluntary conversion through faith with fear of God, papal authority and contrition? It is up to the Church today to think about this reconciliatory movement, since it was the Roman Church of that time that excommunicated those who defended what we are defending today.

* Literary pseudonym of R. P. Alencar, she is a political scientist, poet and diplomat. She was a student at the São Boaventura Institute.