Was Luther Right? Indulgences, Purgatory, Saints and All That | Prof. Michael Root

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2019

⏱️ 69 minutes

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Summary

This talk was hosted as part of the ongoing DC Young Adult's Speaker Series, hosted at St. Charles Borromeo Church, Arlington, VA. The lecture was held on March 11th, 2019 and sponsored by the Thomistic Institute and the Diocese of Arlington. The talk handout is available at: tinyurl.com/u5ndo2d

For more information about upcoming TI events, visit: thomisticinstitute.org/events-1

Speaker Bio:

Michael Root is Ordinary Professor of Systematic Theology at The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC. Root is a native of Norfolk, Virginia and studied at Dartmouth College (B.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D. in theology). He was received into the Catholic Church in August, 2010. His particular theological interests are ecumenical relations, eschatology/last things, and grace and justification.

Root has been a member of the US and international LutheranCatholic dialogues, the US LutheranUnited Methodist dialogue, the AnglicanLutheran International Working Group, and the AnglicanLutheran International Commission. He served on the drafting teams that produced the LutheranRoman Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I can only refer to Luther tonight in some broad strokes.
0:04.0	On the handout, there are some further references if you want to do some further reading on Luther, some online, some in some recent books.
0:15.0	But there's also a rather sweeping question. Was Luther right?
0:20.0	Now, as was mentioned, for the vast majority of my
0:23.7	adult life, I was a Lutheran theologian. I was the academic dean of a Lutheran seminary.
0:30.3	And late in life, I was received in the Catholic Church. Now, when you ask somebody who, after
0:36.7	30 years of working in the Lutheran church,
0:40.1	leaves that to become a Catholic, is Luther right, you can probably guess my answer.
0:45.5	I'm not going to sort of convert back the other way before you tonight, probably.
0:51.3	But even if you reach the conclusion that in some basic sense, Luther was not right,
0:57.0	we still have to ask in what way?
1:00.0	And where did he go wrong?
1:03.0	As Catholics, what could we learn about a better understanding of the faith by asking the question, is Luther right? Now, let me first
1:13.6	make a distinction. I don't want to separate, but I want to distinguish Luther from the Reformation.
1:19.6	They are connected, but you cannot conflate the entire Protestant Reformation with Luther.
1:28.3	The Protestant Reformation begins, generally is said, with Luther perhaps,
1:34.3	nailing 95 theses of indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
1:41.3	The slight majority of scholars today would say that never happened. We know
1:45.7	he nailed them on that day. He may never have actually nailed them up. But the Reformation
1:50.3	was a complicated event, as much political as it was theological. So understand the Reformation,
1:57.5	I believe. You have to place it in the context of a struggle going on since
2:03.0	about the year 1,000 over lay control, the control by lay rulers of the churches in their
	...

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