A Pope Card Beats a Personal Opinion Card in a Roman Catholic Card Game

Here's a recent offering of an obscure Martin Luther quote from a Facebook discussion group:

Let me quote Martin Luther after he saw the fruits of his actions: "There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads; this one will not admit baptism; that one rejects the Sacrament of the altar; another places another world between the present one and the day of judgment; some teach that Jesus Christ is not God. There is not an individual, however clownish he may be, who does not claim to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, and who does not put forth as prophecies his ravings and dreams." 

This was one of the first obscure Martin Luther I examined in the early days of this blog. Here it is now, 16 years later, and the quote still frequents cyber-space! You can see my early post here in 2006 as I began honing the craft of tracking down obscure quotes.   Back then, it was most often Roman Catholics utilizing it, typically without any meaningful documentation. Rome's defenders were busily cut-and-pasting outrageous Luther quotes taken from hostile secondary sources.  Over the years I've done a number of blog posts on this quote. In 2007 I revisited this same obscure quote: Luther: Sola Scriptura Had a "Devastating Effect"? Then in 2010 I did Luther: There are nowadays almost as many sects and creeds as there are heads, revisited again in 2012 with Luther: There are almost as many sects and beliefs as there are heads. In these later entries one will find meaningful documentation and analysis of what Luther said and why he said it. There's enough there to shut down Rome's defenders if they utilize this particular quote. 

Here's though another apologetic angle that one can apply to many obscure and outrageous Luther quotes brought up by Rome's defenders.  Most of those people that bring these sorts of quotes up don't really care about contexts or history anyway (despite the claim of being "deep in history"), so save yourself some time by avoiding lengthy expositions of actual facts. Many Luther-bashers don't care about facts. 

The argument "Let me quote Martin Luther after he saw the fruits of his actions" is an example of a genre of Roman Catholic argumentation against Luther that flourished previous to the Twentieth Century. Many pre-1930 Roman Catholic controversialists put forth the conclusion that the Reformation was a failure: it didn't produce any real fruit, and Luther's own words and the state of Protestantism at the time prove it. If one were to trace post 1930 scholarly Roman Catholic argumentation in regard to Luther, this line of argumentation isn't much utilized.

Why then should old Roman Catholic argumentation about Luther be favored over more recent Magisterial opinions about Luther? For instance, Pope Francis has been friendly and ecumenical towards Luther and does not use anti-Luther argumentation like, "Let me quote Martin Luther after he saw the fruits of his actions." There are also a number of papal statements from John Paul II favorable towards Luther. I could even produce statements from Benedict XVI very favorable to Luther.

Wouldn't it be more consistent for Rome's defenders to actually follow the authoritative direction of... the Roman Catholic Church? Rather, it seems like a lot of the people that want to quibble about "authority" are actually not... following the perspective of their own authority, but rather are pulling from the negative way Roman Catholics responded to Luther long ago.

If you come in contact with those defenders of Rome that bash Luther, try responding with this question: who is the pope... you or Francis? Why I should I trust your personal opinion about Luther rather than actual statements from the Pope about Luther?  If this were a Roman Catholic card game, a Pope card beats your personal opinion card.