Pastor David reflects on how Pope Francis was able to declare that Protestant Reformation was officially over 500 years after it’s inception. How were they able to do it?

<p>Pastor David reflects on how Pope Francis was able to declare that Protestant Reformation was officially over 500 years after it’s inception. How were they able to do it?</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

How the Papacy Was Able to End the Protestant Reformation

Father in heaven, we thank You for this beautiful Sabbath that You've given to us, this reminder of creation and redemption.

And as we pause for a few moments of reflection on Christian history and education, we pray that You would bless us.

Speak to us, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen.

This is the 500th year since the Protestant Reformation 2017.

Remarkable event, Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on the door of the Wittenberg Chapel, and it sparked not just a reformation, but really it was a revolution.

I have a quotation from a historian just marveling at the events that transpired after that document was nailed to the Wittenberg Chapel, how a revolution erupts from a commonplace event, a tidal wave from a ripple is cause for endless Astonishment.

The Reformation caused for, and I quote, transfer of power and property in the name of an idea.

So the Protestant Reformation was not just about theology.

There was a dramatic power shift that took place in Western Europe.

Germany became Protestant, the Scandinavian countries became Protestant, England became Protestant, and we are living in Protestant America today.

Here we are, 500 years after the Reformation, and I read a fascinating piece in the Catholic Herald reflecting on the Protestant Reformation, and I quote, somewhere in Pope Francis's office is a document that could alter the course of Christian history.

It declares an end to hostilities between Catholics and evangelicals and says the 2 traditions are now united in mission because we are declaring the same gospel.

The Holy Father is thinking of signing the text in 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation alongside evangelical leaders representing roughly 1 in 4 Christians in the world today, and the article goes on, Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over.

He believes, it ended In 1999, the year the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification, the doctrine at the heart of Luther's protest.

There's a lot that we can go and grapple with about the statement that is made here in the Catholic Herald.

I agree with this assessment, by the way.

Francis is convinced that the reformation is already over Here we are 500 years After the Reformation and I agree with this assessment The Reformation in a sense in Mainline Protestant circles is over.

This is a correct assessment by Pope Francis.

Now to be clear from the very beginning, this presentation today is not about theology, about the rightness or wrongness of Protestants versus Catholics, nor is this to talk about who is saved or who is not saved.

And by the way, I believe that there are going to be Protestants and Catholics in heaven, amen?

People that are not associated with denomination, so that's not what this is about at all.

And just So that you know, full disclosure, our son Hudson was born at Providence, a Catholic hospital.

And we were ministered to, blessed, stellar mother baby unit.

We felt loved and appreciated and so I have warm feelings About Catholic institutions, that's not what this is about at all What I want to do today is just for a little bit reflect on history and ask the question why and how this was made possible.

After 1517, the Protestant Revolution is declared over 500 years later.

And this is a lesson from history that we as Seventh-day Adventists can learn and apply, believe it or not.

You actually have to go to the year 1540, September 27, not too far away from the nailing of the 95 thesis there in Wittenberg, Pope Paul III was sitting forlornly in his private reception hall, waiting to meet a small band of priests that filed in.

He had a prominent nose, balding, walked with a noticeable limp that he earned as a soldier in Spain.

And I have a quotation here on the screen from the Catholic author Malachi Martin.

In his book he paraphrased what Leola said to the Pope and here it is.

Holy Father, the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church are in mortal trouble.

Needed is a modern weapon to fight this totally new warfare.

Given us a new charter like no other, give us a new charter like no other, we will go anywhere at any time, at any cost to life and comfort in order to do anything.

See, you can just grasp the gravity of what is taking place here.

Pope Paul III recognizes that there is a transfer of power taking place in Western Europe.

Protestantism is spreading like wildfire.

Leola walks in and says, look, we need to do something about the Protestant Reformation.

And the secular historian put it this way.

The Protestant Reformation being a revolution, it would seem logical that the Catholic Counter-Reformation devised at the Council of Trent in 1545 and went on to 1553 should be called a counter-revolution.

The order founded by Leola as the Society of Jesus was to reconquer the countries lost to Protestantism.

So there was a concerted effort in the Protestant Reformation or the counter-Protestant Reformation to bring Protestantism back, to bridge the chasm, as it were.

And it's ironic that in 2017, the first Jesuit Pope would declare That it has been completed.

We are living in a Historical time when you look at it Not in terms of decades, but in terms of centuries.

There's a lot of conspiracy theories out there about Jesuits.

The way that the Jesuits and the Society of Jesus were successful in bringing Protestantism back was through education.

Let me read you a quotation from the historian.

This order established by Ignatius Loyola found its special mission in combating the Reformation as the most effective means of arresting the progress of Protestantism, it aimed at controlling education.

More than any other agency, it stayed the progress of the Reformation and it even succeeded in winning back territory already conquered by Protestantism.

Although employing the pulpit and the confessional, it worked chiefly through its schools of which established and controlled large numbers.

It goes on, the Jesuit system of education was intended to meet the active influence of Protestantism in education.

It was remarkably successful and for a century following 1584, nearly all the foremost men of Christendom came from Jesuit schools.

In 1710, they had 612 colleges, 157 normal schools, 24 universities, and an immense number of lower schools.

This is just Protestant revisionist history.

I have a book in my library, cover's falling off.

This is 1 of my most provocative books I have in my library.

It is From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life.

This man sat down to write this book when he was 84.

He had written like 40 books before that.

And just in case you think that this was a senile old man just thinking and documenting, the critics went wild when this book hit the press.

And by the way, this man is a secular historian.

1 of the critics said that this book showed the erudition and the brilliance of a man that could not have written this book when he was 50.

From Dawn to Decadence, in short, is peerless.

This astonishing and monumental work may fairly take its place alongside Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, a timeless classic.

This book, I don't get any royalties from anything, but this book is phenomenal.

He starts chapter 1 with the Protestant revolution and the reformation.

And I about fell out of my chair, when he ended chapter 1 with this quote.

You can look up the quote afterwards so you know I'm not making things up.

Here it is, from dawn to decadence, from the brilliant historian Jacques Barzun.

Ends chapter 1 on the Reformation with this quote.

Meanwhile, by care and thought and continual revised methods the Jesuits shone as schoolmasters, unsurpassed in history, unsurpassed in the history of education.

Their success was due to the most efficient form of teacher training ever seen.

They knew that born teachers are scarce as true poets and that the next best cannot be made casually out of indifferent materials.

So they devised a preparation that included exhaustive learning and a severe winnowing of the unfit from every phase of long apprenticeship.

In other words, they were serious about education.

So serious that if you were a half-baked teacher, you were cut.

The Jesuits set up schools by the scores.

In the mid-17th century Europe, there were more schools than pupils than in the mid-19th century.

Indeed, there soon was complaint of too many schools for the population.

How the Papacy Was Able to End the Protestant Reformation

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