From the desk of the pastor for Nov. 9, 2025

The Lord be with you! Today we begin examining one of the most complicated and most contentious events in the Church’s history: the Protestant Reformation. This sad escapade of unintended consequences changed the course of history for all mankind.

Although Protestants now accept this moniker without much ado, “protestant” was originally meant as an insult. For their Catholic opponents the nickname highlighted their resistance to Rome and lawful authority. At the time protestants preferred to be called “Evangelicals.” Not only did this name express the protestant love of Scripture, it also pointed to the newness of life that protestants thought they were starting. Accordingly, in this article and those to follow, we will use the term “Evangelical Revolution” instead of Protestant Reformation.

The roots of the Evangelical Revolution were many and varied. First, the wealth of the Church’s bishops had increased considerably over the previous few centuries. Whereas at the fall of the Western Empire bishops were comparable with minor nobility, by 1500 some archbishops had greater fortunes than dukes. Second, the Renaissance had sparked a renewed interest in ancient times and a deep appreciation for Roman and Greek culture. Humanists like Erasmus helped the educated classes to appreciate the art and thinking of the ancients. Third, and perhaps most importantly, theology had made a wrong turn and led many into deep doubt. The inability for many brilliant men - like Luther and Calvin - to see the limits of their thinking doomed them to oppose instead of reform the Church.

The essence of this revolution was the thought that each individual could know the state of his soul with complete certainty. Luther reached this certainty by proposing that the act of Faith guaranteed salvation from Hell and salvation only consisted in the forgiveness of sin. Calvin concluded that the community of believers could be known by the sign of election. Accordingly, as long as a person was in the right group, he knew that he was going to Heaven. By making salvation something knowable in this way, the Protestants could claim that the Church’s Magisterium was unnecessary at best and hurtful at worst.

Unfortunately, the state of one’s soul cannot be known with complete certainty because grace is invisible and imperceptible. The effects of grace can be noticed - especially consolations - but grace itself is beyond human perception. For grace is nothing other than the participation in the Trinity. Since only God can know God as God, any believer on earth will be confronted with a limit to what he can know about grace.

If this debate seems arcane and confusing, it is! The next few articles will go over Luther, Calvin, and the radical reformation followed by the Catholic Counter Reformation. The Church would emerge purified and strengthened, but many souls and lives would be lost. God be merciful to us all.

In His Sacred Heart,
Fr. John