The Quotable Sippo #6

I have an occasional feature called, "The Quotable Sippo." It's very simple, I just let Catholic apologist Art Sippo speak for himself. Recently, Dr. Sippo provided some of his insights, and well... let's just let the good doctor speak for himself:

"You have GOT to be kidding! Swan is a throwback to an era of Protestant apologetics where Luther's mental illness, vulgarity, moral ambiguity, hypocrisy, and open dishonesty were ignored. Not even Martin Marty (himself a Lutheran) or Richard Marius (another modern Protestant Luther scholar) make any pretense about this anymore. Read Marty's short biography of Luther from a few years back and Marius' two books "Luther: An Experiment in Biography" and "Luther: the Christian Between God and Death". Swan pretends there was no dark side to Luther and as if the Protestant apostasy of the 16th century was in continuity with the previous 1500 years of the historic Christian religion. The Catholic Faith is the Faith of the New Testament, the Apostles, the Fathers, and the Saints. Protestantism is a denial of that Faith, seeking to replace it with man-made wishful thinking."


"Mr Swan refuses to admit the possibility that Luther was mentally ill. He just dismisses it all. IMHO he is dishonest in doing so. As a CAtholic, my main concern is that Luther CONTRADICTED 1500 years of Christian teaching and practice, creating his own religion and encouraging others to do so until they started contradicting his opinions. Then Luther wanted to kill them. The question to ask is: "Did Luther advocate REFORMING Catholicism or DESTROYING it?" The answer is that he wanted to totally annihiliate it. Furthermore he was condemned as a heretic and excommunicated. The excommunication remains in force. As a Catholic, that is all I need to know about him. That in itself is a greater crime than any of the mere pecadilloes that Swan wants to dismiss. And remember that the only Catholic Swan wants to emulate on Luther was Fr. Lortz, a card-carrying NAZI before and during WWII. When the Catholic bishops condemned Hitler's "Mein Kampf", Lortz wrote a pamphlet defending Hitler. Lortz's opinions about Luther were founded on the NAZI view that Germainc civilization was superior to the corrupt culture of non-Aryan Europeans. He was an asdvocate of totalitarianism and an opponent of democracy. Lortz's views are not held in high regard by Catholic scholars. But Swan thinks he was the BEES-KNEES. A murrain on Swan and his ilk! Follow where the Holy Spirit has led the Catholic Church, and let the dead bury the dead."