A Roman Catholic Scholar Looks at Causes of the Reformation

Originally posted 5/20/10

Joseph Lortz was a German Roman Catholic theologian. He's best known for his work on Martin Luther and the Reformation. In his book The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), he has a chapter entitled "The Causes of the Reformation." One particular "cause" caught my attention. He states,

"When Luther asserted that the pope in Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined" (p. 37).

This type of sentiment is far different than that usually expressed by Roman Catholics. Typically, Luther is the grand innovator that tore the church asunder. Lortz though does something many don't bother to do- he sees a flow to history. In his chapter preceding this statement, he lists a number of ways in which the West was more than ready to grant that the pope in Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy. Here's how Lortz explains this comment:

The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon. This situation in which both contenders claimed to be pope (at one time the number increased so that many spoke of the "cursed trinity") was in the main corrected by the efforts of the German Emperor Sigismund at the Council of Constance in 1414. These statements are true, but the account they give is sketchy and superficial; they tell us nothing of the real significance of the Schism.

The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution.

The split caused by the Western Schism was far from being merely the concern of theologians; no area of public or private life remained untouched; even the economic sphere was affected, mainly because of disputes in regard to the possession of benefices. Provinces of the Church, religious orders, universities, even individual monasteries and parish houses were divided. For decades, all experienced this profound division in all sectors of daily life. Good people on both sides, even saints, were not only unable to bring about unity, but in their allegiance to one or the other of the contenders they themselves were in sharp opposition. We find, for example, St. Catherine of Siena on the Roman side and St. Vincent Ferrer on that of Avignon. Furthermore, the settlement of the Schism at the Council of Constance did not really solve the problem. The triumph of the Conciliar Theory at Constance, and even more at Basel, extended the life span of the Schism from 1378 to 1448, when it finally came to an end in the person of the Antipope Felix V. The confusion and uncertainty about the valid pope and the true Church is manifest in the amazing twists in the allegiance of Nicolaus of Cusa and Aeneas Silvio dei Piccolomini, later to become Pius II, both of whom had begun by defending the Conciliar Theory in its most radical form.

This was an experience shared by the entire West — one which would leave its imprint in Western consciousness for a long time to come. The memory of this experience was still fresh a century later. It is not too difficult to see the effects of the Western Schism in preparing the way for the doctrines of the Reformation. When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined (pp. 35-37).

Lortz on Luther's First Mass: Proof of Psychosis?

I've been reading The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964) by Roman Catholic theologian Joseph Lortz. Lortz's claim to fame was his Luther research. He was a well-respected theologian, known for being one of the first Roman Catholic writers to positively re-evaluate Luther. Previous to Lortz, most Roman Catholic evaluations of Luther were destructive, more or less following in the footsteps of Cochlaeus. Lortz though saw Luther as a fundamentally honest religious man.

While Lortz says many positive things about Luther, he did offers criticisms as well. He still viewed Luther as a heretic, prone to subjectivism, and also sharing guilt (with the Roman Catholic Church) for dividing the church.

That being said, as Jared Wicks says, for Lortz "his criticism was penetrated by amazement over Luther's pulsating spiritual richness, the wide range of his talents, the vastness of his productive labor for the new community, and the concentration of all his thought on God's grace revealed in Christ and transmitted by the Gospel."

To highlight the approach of Lortz, consider this contrast. Recently I took a look at Luther: The Rest of the Story By Ken Hensley. While Hensley post-dates Lortz, Hensley goes backward, returning to destructive criticism of Luther. Hensley evaluates Luther's first mass and determines the fear Luther felt during the mass was fear that was instilled by his own father. After the mass, Luther's father embarrassed his son in front of everyone. At the first mass, Luther claims to have been "without faith" during this period in his life. Luther also mentions that as a devout monk he hated God. These statements question the validity of Luther's call to the monastic life. Luther in essence, needed to learn to cope with his father, he didn't need the monastery. Luther wasn't called by God to be a monk. He was a man with a faulty image of God that wrongly chose the monastic life. Luther's struggle was based on the father he loved, feared, but could please. This transferred to Luther's understanding of God: Luther feared that he could not please God. While Hensley says Luther loved Hans Luther, he hated God and viewed him as angry deity. Thus, Luther's first mass stands as proof of a man with deep psychological issues.

Contrarily, here's how Joseph Lortz describes Luther's first mass (pp. 118-123):

Luther was soon ordained (1506). For every priest, the experience of celebrating his First Mass is of the greatest importance. For a man like Luther, who was so powerfully governed by the emotional level of experience, it was of even greater importance. He has left us a number of accounts of his First Mass. If we take the essential elements of these, we find that according to Luther he was so profoundly moved that he would have been swept from the altar if the assistant priest had not held him back. It may be questioned whether he was really tempted to rush from the altar. Perhaps in later years he was yielding to the tendency to speak in superlatives, but there is no doubt that he was profoundly moved. Luther also tells us why: he was deeply impressed by the nearness of the awesome majesty of God, who is addressed in the Canon as the living and true God.

Luther's experience shows us first of all that he was a religious man, forced to his knees as it were by the tremendous reality of God. We see in his experience something which cannot without some restrictions be called healthy. Does this entitle us to speak of mental illness in his case? We see that he was often profoundly moved, subject to strong depressions, restless at intervals, and, later in life, subject to violent changes of temper. All of this is quite apparent and shows that Luther had a tempestuous character, and that in his soul raged forces that were beyond his power to control. It tells us, too, that we are dealing wits a soul obsessed with anxiety in the face of sin and the divine judgment and caught in the net of scrupulosity. But scrupulosity is a weakness proper to a tender conscience; thus there is no reason to speak of mental illness in the proper sense of the word, at least at the time of his First Mass. This possibility is further excluded when we realize the tremendous amount and the fine quality of the works that Luther produced unceasingly. (Whether one could speak of a psychosis in Luther's case in the more restricted medical sense of the word is a matter for psychiatrists and does not concern us here.) At any rate we should be quite clear about the meaning of "mentally ill." It seems that the rather loosely used schema "manic depressive" (when it is not used in the sense of insanity) can be quite easily verified in the average mentally healthy individual if that individual is unusually sensitive. It is quite easy to say what Luther was not: he was not balanced, moderate or prudent, not restrained; one might say that he was quite uninhibited, that in a typically Germanic way he escapes classification and categorization. His lack of restraint is shown by all sorts of exaggerations; they indicate a violent impulsiveness which extends even to the falsification of objective facts in such impossible forms that the reader is utterly amazed. What Christian conscience will, for example, be able to accept his statement that he preferred Christ to all the devils, because he stood in such deadly terror of Him?

Whether the violent depressions of the year 1527/8 are correctly described by the Danish psychiatrist Paul Reiter as mental illness in the strict sense, is a matter for doctors to decide. But the entire mental structure and the intellectual and spiritual work Luther turned out (as Reiter himself admits), show that mental illness is by no means a sufficient explanation. At any rate it is impossible to declare simply that Luther was mentally ill. If one were so inclined,a whole book could be filled with individual examples which point in the direction of mental illness, but if we are going to keep a just proportion, we would have to match this with ten or more volumes which would positively prove Luther's mental, spiritual, and religious health.
The one conclusion we can come to now from Luther's experience at his First Mass is that he was entirely preoccupied with the anxiety that he felt as, with all his sins, he stood alone before the sovereign majesty of God. It is true that in the Canon, the living and true God is directly addressed, and that the Canon is preceded by the solemn, threefold Sanctus addressed to the divine majesty, but that is not the whole story.

The Preface has nothing of the awesome and exalted tone of the Sanctus; rather this prayer is a great lifting of the mind and heart, a great surge of adoration and praise which embraces heaven and earth and joins the voices of men to the song of the angels, but Luther was unaware of all this.

Furthermore, the Canon itself begins with the wonderful and consoling words: "Te igitur, clementissime Pater,per Jesum Christum, Filium Tuum, Dominum Nostrum, supplices rogamus." That is: "We humbly call upon Thee, most merciful Father, through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord." God is not addressed as the Judge who threatens to punish all the defects, but as a kind and loving Father. And the sinner approaches the Father not on his own, but through our Saviour, the Mediator, Jesus Christ. This is precisely the formula which Luther will later say contains all of the Christian message, but for some reason Luther did not see it then. He undoubtedly knew these words by heart as he did the rest of the Canon, but did not realize them. He was so deeply involved in those ideas which he had from his early days, the preaching he had heard, the Ockhamist theology he had learned, and above all his own peculiar disposition and correspondingly unique experiences, that he was simply blind to the solution for which he was striving so violently and which was given to him here, word by word.

This was so characteristic of Luther. He could not accept anyone else's solution. He was so individualistic and in a sense so narrow that only solutions of his own appeared valid. Luther was capable of assimilating only those things which were adapted to the peculiarities of his personality. He was an individual in the strictest sense of the word and this influenced his every act; it was the source of both his greatness and his limitations.

Here again we see a fact of primary importance: Luther never really understood the Missal as a compendium of the theology of grace and the sacraments. Some have objected to the emphasis I place on Luther's experience at his First Mass or feel that I make too much depend on this thesis. Luther did finish that Mass and later, at breakfast, he had been able to talk in calm and collected fashion with his father; for years afterwards he continued to celebrate Mass.

The important thing to note, however, is that no one ever asserted that Luther continued in his disturbed state for a long time. (If this had happened, beyond doubt he would have been mentally ill.) But note this: Luther's experience at the time of his First Mass was no isolated or independent event: it is an instance of the disposition which was central to Luther's character and caused him so much trouble. On the one hand he was an introvert, and on the other, he had a one-sided concept of the severity of an avenging God who demanded good works of His creature.

If the experience at the time of the First Mass were unique, the objection would be valid; however, the various observations we have made on Luther's life as a young monk agree in the points mentioned, and reinforce one another. Therefore, there is no question of trying to draw too many conclusions just from the First Mass.

In Luther's experience at the time of his First Mass, the same struggles of conscience appear which beset him in the monastery. Naturally, Luther's later assertions about the unceasing tension he was under are not to be taken too seriously. We know that on occasion he himself described his early life in religion as a calm and peaceful one. But his struggles of conscience were extremely severe. With unending perseverance he tried to get to the bottom of his problems and find a way out. In so doing, he was relentless in the war he waged on himself. We can accuse him of a good deal of imprudence, but we cannot say that he did not take his problems seriously enough. He brought them into the presence of God as he struggled with all his might to reach the complete solution.

Anxiety weighed him down—anxiety at the burden of sin which he saw in himself and which endangered his immortal soul, and made him feel the pains of the damned. (Even if Luther's description of this experience is expressed in terms taken from Tauler and has a rather elaborate literary coloring, still no one can deny that it was part of Luther's objective experience and a burden that weighed terribly on him.)

From the psychological point of view, we have before us a man who was extremely troubled by a serious type of scrupulosity. He had developed a real talent for disputing with himself, bringing forward arguments and counterarguments, and by so doing, tortured himself by running around in circles.

But the religious aspect is more important. Luther experienced his anxiety so terribly, largely because at one and the same time he longed so profoundly for a kind and loving God. To be free from sin and to reach this kind and loving God was Luther's problem and all his powers were directed to this end.


So, will Hensley or Catholic Answers, or any of the other recent Roman Catholic apologists be going out to purchase books by Lortz? My guess is no. My question is this: why are the works of men like Lortz, Wicks, and many other Catholic theologians typically ignored by the modern day Romanist-apologist? There are enough nuggets of negativity in Lortz's book to satisfy a hungry polemicist. One of my guesses is that saying anything even remotely positive about Luther is an admission of Roman Catholic guilt over the Reformation.

Erasmus as a Problem, not a Reformation Solution

I recently posted Erasmus was Wrong, Luther was Right, Says Roman Catholic Scholar. In that entry, I took a brief look at Roman Catholic scholar Harry J. McSorley's condemnation of the position argued by Erasmus against Luther on the will.

Erasmus's Diatribe was well received. The Pope, Emperor, and Henry VIII all approved of the work. That's not hard to imagine- when the leading scholar of the day sides against the enemy of the Roman Church, whatever he put forth probably would've been seen as a helpful hand.

It's interesting to note that certain later Roman Catholic scholars have quite a negative perspective on the abilities of Erasmus as a defender of Romanism. For instance, Franz Xaver Kiefl evaluated the debate between Luther and Erasmus and found that Luther understood Christianity on a much deeper level than did Erasmus. He notes Erasmus was a man of Renaissance learning. Kiefl notes the negative impact of the Renaissance on Christianity, and contrarily sees Luther’s positive impact of being God’s “powerful instrument of Providence” in the work of Church “purification”.

Similarly, Roman Catholic scholar Joseph Lortz was troubled by the work of Erasmus. Lortz saw Erasmus as the threat to the Church, not Luther. Lortz explains that this view is not new: during the sixteenth century the papal nuncio Aleander recognized it also:

“There was only one man on the Catholic side who in some measure recognized in time the danger embodied by Erasmus. This was the papal nuncio, Aleander, himself a humanist of some standing... [he said] ‘God forbid that we see fresh papal briefs to Erasmus couched in the same tone as that printed at the beginning of his New Testament and containing an approving explanation by the pope of a work in which he expresses views on confession, indulgences, divorce, papal authority, etc., which Luther has simply to take over. But the poison of Erasmus works even more dangerously…”

“Erasmus at length came into contact with Luther. But Catholics did not see the true Erasmus even in this controversy. They applauded his book on free will, because it contradicted Luther; but they failed to see that the primary aim of the book was to propose an optimistic morality that left little room for grace, sin and redemption" [Catholic Scholars Dialogue With Luther (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1970), p. 7]

In his book The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), Lortz goes into greater detail. Lortz outlines the deficiency of humanism as an interpretive framework by which to do theology. Recall, Erasmus was a leading humanist scholar. Lortz notes,

"Through its contact with antiquity, humanism emphasized the natural powers of man, particularly the power of his will... this new approach was incapable of grasping the real nature of salvation, and the function of grace in the process of salvation was neglected. Both points of view showed dangerous tendancies to interpret Christianity in a moralistic sense, so that humanism became a force that tended to destroy Christianity (p. 64-65).

Lortz though clarifies this in regard to Erasmus:

"Though he did not deny the reality of grace and talked of the insuffiiency of man despite his free will in a most orthodox manner, he did preach Christianity primarily as morality. In the practical order he so emphasized man's own powers of intellect and will that he came dangerously close to moralism.

-snip-

In his disputation on freedom of will, any number of times we are told in the most orthodox fashion, at times quite emphatically, that all of man's powers and gifts come from God, that man must beware of pride and self-sufficiency, that everything a man can do with his intellect and will belongs to God (Diatribe,75). But for one thing, this Diatribe was written by Erasmus as a proof of his orthodoxy, and secondly, the picture of man which Erasmus gives us in his pedagogical and moral tracts, in his letters and by his example, is more to the point. The answer is not too encouraging. At the very least we are forced to assert that he did not draw the practical consequences from his statements that attribute everything to God and His Grace. (p.73)

Of course, Luther pounced on this. Luther saw the inconsistency in the argumentation of Erasmus. Lortz views this inconsistency of Erasmus's position by explaining that he had an underlying skepticism towards dogma. Lortz states,

[Erasmus] has no more concept of dogma as an exact statement of Chrisitan teaching than did the men of the Enlightenment or modern liberal Protestants. No one recognized this fact more clearly and made more of it than Luther in the First Preface to his work Vom geknechteten Willen" (p. 71-72).

-snip-

We must say something more on the adogmatism mentioned before. If, as Erasmus thought, dogma is something superfluous; if, as he thought, the doctrine of Christianity could and should be restricted to a few general points, Erasmus was quite near the erroneous interpretation which would equate Christianity with monotheism. When this is done, Christianity becomes indistinguishable from the other higher religions and thus, relativism is just around the corner.

If all this is true, then we have to agree that Erasmus constituted a grave threat to the Church—not because of the frequently frivolous and mocking criticism he directed at it, but because of his adogmatism, moralism, and relativism.

The pope at the time was the humanist Leo X who had a great regard for Erasmus and was quite unaware of the threat which the latter constituted for the Church. Thus we find the papal delegate Alexander writing from the Diet of Worms in 1521: "For heaven's sake, don't send us any more privileges for Erasmus. The man is doing far more harm than Luther ever can." Luther was precisely the one who recognized and rejected the danger from the quarter of the humanists. With all the violence of his characteristically one-sided approach, Luther turned from the cultural morality he found in the humanists to the religion of faith as he found it in St. Paul [pp. 73-74].

From time to time, I come across Roman Catholic laymen attempting to argue that Erasmus eventually beat Luther in their written debate, or that "Luther met his match." Based on the comments of McSorley and Lortz, I simply don't see how a Roman Catholic would ever want to assert that.

A Roman Catholic Look at Causes of the Reformation #1

Joseph Lortz was a German Roman Catholic theologian. He's best known for his work on Martin Luther and the Reformation. In his book The Reformation: A Problem for Today (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), he has a chapter entitled "The Causes of the Reformation." One particular "cause" caught my attention. He states,

"When Luther asserted that the pope in Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined" (p. 37).

This type of sentiment is far different than that usually expressed by Roman Catholics. Typically, Luther is the grand innovator that tore the church asunder. Lortz though does something many don't bother to do- he sees a flow to history. In his chapter preceding this statement, he lists a number of ways in which the West was more than ready to grant that the pope in Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy. Here's how Lortz explains this comment:

The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon. This situation in which both contenders claimed to be pope (at one time the number increased so that many spoke of the "cursed trinity") was in the main corrected by the efforts of the German Emperor Sigismund at the Council of Constance in 1414. These statements are true, but the account they give is sketchy and superficial; they tell us nothing of the real significance of the Schism.

The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution.

The split caused by the Western Schism was far from being merely the concern of theologians; no area of public or private life remained untouched; even the economic sphere was affected, mainly because of disputes in regard to the possession of benefices. Provinces of the Church, religious orders, universities, even individual monasteries and parish houses were divided. For decades, all experienced this profound division in all sectors of daily life. Good people on both sides, even saints, were not only unable to bring about unity, but in their allegiance to one or the other of the contenders they themselves were in sharp opposition. We find, for example, St. Catherine of Siena on the Roman side and St. Vincent Ferrer on that of Avignon. Furthermore, the settlement of the Schism at the Council of Constance did not really solve the problem. The triumph of the Conciliar Theory at Constance, and even more at Basel, extended the life span of the Schism from 1378 to 1448, when it finally came to an end in the person of the Antipope Felix V. The confusion and uncertainty about the valid pope and the true Church is manifest in the amazing twists in the allegiance of Nicolaus of Cusa and Aeneas Silvio dei Piccolomini, later to become Pius II, both of whom had begun by defending the Conciliar Theory in its most radical form.

This was an experience shared by the entire West — one which would leave its imprint in Western consciousness for a long time to come. The memory of this experience was still fresh a century later. It is not too difficult to see the effects of the Western Schism in preparing the way for the doctrines of the Reformation. When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined (pp. 35-37).

Sippo vs Lortz Revisted

A few years back I had an interesting exchange with Catholic apologist Dr. Art Sippo.


When I recommended the works of Catholic historian Joseph Lortz on Luther, and pointed out that Lortz was pivotal to the change in Catholic scholarship toward Luther, Dr. Sippo stated:


"[Catholic historian joseph Lortz] was a Nazi just like Adolph Hitler. Both of them were Luther fans."

"You know, come to think of it, If Mr. Swan rally thinks that being a Nazi doesn't disqualify Fr. Lortz as a Luther expert, why doesn't he go right to the top and advocate the opinions of Adolph Hitler himself!"

"Mr. Swan wants us to believe that a man like Fr. Lortz who held to these "lofty ideals" can be trusted to interpret Luther correctly! Frankly, I would be embarrassed to be associated with him."

Well, if Dr. Sippo won't listen to me, perhaps he'll listen to his Pope:

Question: Where does Luther scholarship stand today? Have there been any attempts to research Luther's theology, beyond existing historical investigations?

Cardinal Ratzinger: Nobody can answer this question in a few sentences. Besides, it would require a special kind of knowledge which I do not possess. It might be helpful, however, briefly to mention a few names which represent the various stages and trends of Catholic Luther scholarship. At the beginning of the century we have the decidedly polemical work by the Dominican H. Denifle. He was responsible for placing Luther in the context of the Scholastic tradition, which Denifle knew better than anybody else because of his intimate knowledge of the manuscript materials. He is followed by the much more conciliatory Jesuit, Grisar, who, to be sure, encountered various criticisms because of the psychological patterns in which he sought to explain the problem of Luther. J. Lortz from Luxembourg became the father of modern Catholic Luther scholarship. He is still considered the turning-point in the struggle for an historically truthful and theologically adequate image of Luther. Against the background of the theological movement between the two world wars, Lortz could develop new ways of questioning which, subsequently, would lead to a new assessment of Luther.

Source (PDF alert)

Catholic Apologist Art Sippo on Catholic Historian Joseph Lortz

Here are some recent words of wisdom from Roman Catholic apologist, Dr. Art Sippo:

"Mr. Swan is like a broken record."

"Get over it, James. You are a cheer-leader for one of the evilest men in history who has led millions into perdition. You should be ashamed!"

"[Catholic historian joseph Lortz] was a Nazi just like Adolph Hitler. Both of them were Luther fans."
"You know, come to think of it, If Mr. Swan rally thinks that being a Nazi doesn't disqualify Fr. Lortz as a Luther expert, why doesn't he go right to the top and advocate the opinions of Adolph Hitler himself!"

"Mr. Swan wants us to believe that a man like Fr. Lortz who held to these "lofty ideals" can be trusted to interpret Luther correctly! Frankly, I would be embarrassed to be associated with him."

"Man you love those Nazis! Who cares about Lortz? He is passe."

In my discussion with Dr. Sippo, I recommended a few different Luther biographies for Roman Catholic laymen to read. My usual procedure is to list a few Catholic and Protestant biographies. I say, read books from both sides. The facts of the Reformation are simply the “facts”- that is, dates, events, etc are simply what they are. However, the context and the interpretation historians use to analyze these “facts” vary.

Some historians are conservative, while others make bold pronouncements and speculative verdicts. I tend to gravitate towards those who are more conservative. That is, those who gravitate more towards letting the facts simply be the “facts” get my attention more than those who speculate, have underlying gripes, or are experimenting in the pseudo-science psychohistory. For lack of better term, I’ll call this second group, liberal historians. Of course, these are broad categories, and do not always capture a particular writer accurately. But in many instances, this distinction works with biographers of Luther.

In my recommendations, I suggested Roman Catholic historian Joseph Lortz’s (1887-1975) two-volume set, The Reformation in Germany (1939). Lortz is credited with being key in the Roman Catholic reevaluation of Luther. Lortz more or less abandoned a 500-year Catholic precedent of vilifying Luther and attacking the “person” Luther rather than focusing on evaluating his theology. Many Roman Catholic writers followed after Lortz in this approach, and have produced some interesting historical evaluations from the Roman Catholic perspective. It should be fairly obvious that in my recommendation, I view Lortz as a conservative historian rather than a liberal historian (as I have defined these terms above).

Now, I am a Protestant, so I assume automatically Roman Catholics are suspicious of any author or book I recommend… they have every right to do... in fact, I encourage it. Go out, get the books I suggest, and prove that there either is, or is not, an underlying slight of hand being pulled in my recommendations. Prove I’m trying to deceive Roman Catholics by my recommendations. Prove that the books I recommend are those that try to whitewash the “real” Luther.

Now if you go to a good college library and track down Lortz’s books, you will find that Lortz is strikingly critical of Luther. While Lortz sees Luther as an honest man, he evaluates him as the victim of his own subjectivism. Isn’t this one of the BIG charges against Protestantism? They typically argue Roman Catholics have certainty while Protestants rely on their own subjective opinions? Well, this is similar to how Lortz evaluates Luther’s theology. Lortz ultimately concludes Luther was rightly declared a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.

Lortz views Thomism as the only legitimate Catholic theology. Luther being trained in Occamism, was unable to fully understand the scriptures. When Luther attributed error to the Roman Catholic Church, he attributed Occamist theology to her: “Luther rejected a Catholicism which was basically not Catholic.”

Roman Catholic historian Jared Wicks summarizes Lortz’s criticism of Luther:

[Lortz] pointed out extremes in Luther, such as a lack of restraint in fulminating against his opponents. Lortz found in Luther an extravagance ill-befitting a teacher submissive to the word of God. Impulsive in interpreting the Scriptures, Luther distorted the full message of the New Testament by subjective selectivity [link].

Now, stop and ask, why in the world would James Swan recommend a book like this? It is so obviously against Protestant theology, and champions a distressing critique of Luther’s theology. I do so, because at least Lortz is playing the game in the right ballpark. He doesn’t waste his time in speculative psychohistory (a.k.a., “guessing”). He doesn’t waste time in futile discussions as to whether Luther was a depraved sex maniac (Denifle), a psychopath (Grisar), a manic-depressive (Reiter), or best understood via “crisis development” (Erikson). He doesn’t waste his time trying to uncover if Luther was demon possessed (Cochlaeus) or in contact with Satan (Patrick O’Hare).

Lortz spends his time presenting facts and then evaluates them from a Roman Catholic perspective of Rome having the (alleged) fullness of truth. While I strongly disagree with Lortz fundamentally, I can at least appreciate his efforts, and deal with them rationally, theologically, and historically. In my opinion, oftentimes the method is more important than the conclusions.

Catholic apologist Art Sippo though doesn’t share my respect for Lortz’s work on Luther. Dr. Sippo says,

With regard to Lortz, you betray your ignorance. Lortz has been marginalized by Catholic Scholarship over the last 3 decades because of his Nazi sympathies and overly "German" loyalties. No serious scholar Catholic scholar refers to his work anymore. The glowing reviews by the three prots you refer to prove my point. Lortz ignored what had gone before and wrote exactly what Lutherans (and the Nazis who co-opted the Lutheran ministers into their German Church Movement) wanted to hear. I am not surprised that prots would find him congenial.

And also:

Your allegation that mine is a 19th Century view of Luther a damnable lie. The view I support is also that of Preserved Smith, Fr. Hubert Jedin, Paul Reiter, Eric Ericsson, Herbert David Rix, and Richard Marius among others. All of these are 20th Century Scholars. The only "catholic" historians you quote from are a Nazi and an ecumaniac. Sorry. You will get no takers on this board for your 16th Century view of Luther.

Now isn’t this an irony: I have to defend a Roman Catholic historian that I don’t even fundamentally agree with against the charges from Roman Catholic layman / apologist, Dr. Art Sippo. According to Dr.  Sippo, Joseph Lortz was, is, and forever will be a Nazi. Now, that’s indeed a serious charge. But let’s suspend judgment for moment, and evaluate this form of argumentation. Say for instance, I was an expert on neurology, but I was also a member of the Taliban. Does being a member of the Taliban automatically prove that I cannot be an expert on neurology? No, of course not. In the same way, even if Lortz was a lifelong Nazi (he was not), it doesn’t necessarily mean he could not have been an expert on Luther.

When one looks at the life of Lortz, concluding that he should be characterized as “a Nazi” is indeed a twisting of the facts in order to poison the well against him. The facts of the matter are that Lortz had an early involvement with the Nazi party, and he understood it in a flawed idealistic sense. He thought that modernity had been so infected with subjectivism (which gave rise to secularism), that only a government combined with the church could defeat it (Luther was highly responsible for the rise of secularism according to Lortz).

In 1933, Lortz saw the early Nazi party as a vehicle for turning things around. By 1935, Lortz was becoming disillusioned with this. He began rethinking his involvement with the Nazi party, seeing that it would not be the vehicle to eliminate the problem of secularism. It was infected with anti-Christian sentiment, and thus itself was infected with secularism. He continued to distance himself from the Nazi Party, and by 1937 he wanted to cancel his membership in the Nazi party. He was told he could not: no one was allowed to withdraw from the Nazi party.

Note that his books on Luther were written after he intellectually and emotionally had distanced himself from the Nazi party (1939). After the war, the British Military required Lortz to go through a de-Nazification process. After which, he resumed his career in academia. Krieg notes, "For the next three decades, his writings played a significant role in the spiritual and theological renewal that eventually manifested itself in the Second Vatican Council’s Decree on Ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (November 21, 1964)" [Robert A. Krieg, Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany (New York: Continuum, 2004),56].

Despite this biographical information, Catholic apologist Art Sippo maintains Joseph Lortz was a lifelong Nazi. This is the main reason his work should be avoided. I've asked  Dr. Sippo bluntly: Can you show anywhere in Robert Krieg's Book Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany (New York: Continuum, 2004) where he asserts and proves Joseph Lortz was, is, and forever will be a Nazi? Did you get this from him, or are you just trying to slander one of your fellow Roman Catholics? Do you believe Lortz lived his entire life dedicated to Hitler, or to the Roman Catholic Church? Please provide documentation if you choose the former. Otherwise, I can only conclude you're making it up as you go along. Also, In answering this question, you may want to re-read Krieg's chapter on Lortz. Review page 80:"Lortz also contributed to the effort of Germans to acknowledge their failure in protecting Jews from Nazi persecution."Now, that's fairly odd behavior for a lifelong Nazi. Dr. Sippo's original reply was incoherent:

Frankly, I am disappointed byut not surprised. I have come to expect this type of nonsense from prots. If I were touting some Nazi's views you would be all over me about it. You obviously are not familiar with how subsequent Catholic Scholarship has dismissed Lortz but it is absolutely necesary for your apologteic against Luther's critics to use Lortz. Well you can't use him. He has been compromised and is of no value to you. A knowledgeable Catholic such as myself will dismiss Lortz and his Nazi credentials makes you suspect. Give it up. Move on. Lortz is trash.

His second response followed along the same lines:

Mr Swan claimed that Lortz had never been a Nazi. Dr. Krieg documents that Lortz in fact WAS was a Nazi. End of story. Mr. Swan was wrong. An apology is due to me.

Mr. Swan has proposed Fr. Lortz as a Luther expert. I refuse to accept that because of his Nazi past and the fact that the consensus of CATHOLIC scholarship is that Lortz did not understanad Luther and misrepresented him. End of story.

Well, possibly Dr. Sippo didn't even understand this basic question. The question asks if the man's entire life can be characterized into the phrase "Nazi." Dr. Sippo has not answered my question, because he can't without admitting his biggest gripe against Lortz is fallacious. Sippo has not shown anywhere in Robert Krieg's Book Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany where he asserts and proves Joseph Lortz was, is, and forever will be a Nazi, nor did he provide anything as proof for his constant assertion that he was a lifelong Nazi. He ignored the fact that Lortz's book was written after he repudiated the Nazi's. So, we can drop this whole "Lortz is a Nazi" thing- as Dr. Sippo has not in any way, proved that he wrote his books on Luther with Hitler in mind. I harp on this for one reason: Dr. Art Sippo doesn't know what he's talking about. His constant vitriol against "Prots" is not based on reason. If it were, he would be able to prove his assertions.

Dr. Sippo also asserts, “No serious scholar Catholic scholar refers to his work anymore.” He says also,

I dug out my copy of Catholic Theoloigans in Nazi Germany by Robert A. Krieg, a professor from Notre Dame. He had this to say about Lortz on Page 82:

Nevertheless as subsequent studies have shown, Lortz misrepresented Martin Luther's life and ideas. Concerned with stessing Luther's common ground with the Roman Church, Lortz made too little of the reformer's distinct theological orientation and his deliberate decision to break away from Rome. Thus Lortz's theological conviction about a single church led him to minimize significant aspects of Luther's life and thought. Similar to his mistaken view of National Socialism, Lortz forced historical data into a preconceived theory. For this reason, Victor Conzemius has described Lortz's view of church history in general and of National Socialism in particular as "idealism separated from reality."

In response, I would like to post a broader context of Krieg’s words:

Lortz was motivated in his study of Martin Luther by the theological conviction that there was one true church. Because Lortz took seriously Christ's prayer "that they may be one" (John 17:11), he judged that Catholic scholars needed to take a fresh look at Luther's life and thought, thereby questioning the prevailing Catholic view that the reformer was filled with rancor and was unstable. Lortz believed that if the Protestant and Catholic churches were united, they would help to bring about a new epoch in the West—an epoch characterized by the overcoming of secularism and the flourishing of a Christian society. Guided by these religious commitments, Lortz emerged as a Catholic pioneer in ecumenism. Indeed, his Reformation in Germany (which appeared in its sixth German edition in 1982) was, according to Hans Kung, "epoch-making." Nevertheless, as subsequent studies have shown, Lortz misrepresented Martin Luther's life and ideas. Concerned with stressing Luther's common ground with the Roman church, Lortz made too little of the reformer's distinct theological orientation and of his deliberate decision tobreak away from Rome. Thus Lortz's theological conviction about a single church led him to minimize significant aspects of Luther's life and thought. Similar to his mistaken view of National Socialism, Lortz forced historical data into a preconceived theory. For this reason, Victor Conzemius has described Lortz's view of church history in general and of National Socialism in particular as "idealism separated from reality." [Robert A. Krieg, Catholic Theologians in Nazi Germany (New York: Continuum, 2004), 82].

First, Krieg is not arguing that the previous approaches to Luther that Lortz abandoned (Denifle, Grisar, etc.) are worthy approaches. In other words, the previous tendency to vilify Luther and focus on him as a “person” rather than looking at his theology is not being put forth as a good method to do Reformation history. Neither does Krieg affirm the approach of psychohistory. In other words, Krieg doesn’t champion Dr. Sippo’s approach to Luther.

I wouldn’t disagree with the method Krieg uses to say that Lortz misrepresented Luther’s life and ideas. Note, Krieg provides this comment to substantiate this point: “Concerned with stressing Luther's common ground with the Roman church, Lortz made too little of the reformer's distinct theological orientation and of his deliberate decision to break away from Rome. Thus Lortz's theological conviction about a single church led him to minimize significant aspects of Luther's life and thought.” Krieg is not arguing from a psychohistory perspective, or a vilifying perspective. He’s evaluating Lortz as I would: within the realm of a conservative approach to history.I would though, disagree with Krieg’s point that Luther made a “deliberate decision to break away from Rome.” Thus, I would defend Lortz’s theses.

Krieg’s comment, “Nevertheless, as subsequent studies have shown, Lortz misrepresented Martin Luther's life and ideas” is documented with only one study: Otto Pesch, “Theologische Uberlegungen zum ‘subjektivismus’ Luthers,” in Zum Gedenken an Joseph Lortz (1887-1976), ed. Decot and Vinke, 106-149. I haven’t read this study, but it is only one study. Krieg should have provided more than one study to justify his point. Neither can I comment on Pesch’s study, since I haven’t read it. Perhaps Dr. Sippo can provide us with Pesch’s proof, since it was Sippo who brought Krieg into this discussion. I doubt that Art Sippo read this article.

Art Sippo further maintains “If Mr. Swan would read a little more widely in Catholic circles he would find that Lortz is no longer considered a good resource.”

Let’s just continue to point out that Sippo’s only proof for this so far that "Catholic circles no longer consider Lortz a good resource,”is the statement by Robert Krieg that Lortz misrepresented Luther’s life and ideas. I don’t think Krieg ever says that Catholic circles have disregarded Lortz. This appears to be only Sippo's point. Which circles? The circle of serious Catholic historians, or the recent batch of pop-Roman Catholic apologists? Is Dr. Sippo even aware that their is still an entire group of Roman Catholic scholars considered in the vein of the "Lortz school"? How ironic. Seriously, If Art can direct me to any information to substantiate this, I’d be interested. I highly doubt he will, but maybe he'll come through. we'll see.

Lortz’s books have been scrutinized and criticized for years, as are many Luther biographies. I have never denied this. I have maintained Lortz’s books good for Roman Catholics to check out, simply because, as Krieg notes Lortz was “a Catholic pioneer in ecumenism.” As I stated earlier, Lortz is at least playing the game in right ballpark (contrarily, Dr. Sippo is not by his appeal to Denifle and Grisar, etc). I have already stated I disagree with Lortz in some major ways- yet his work stands as an attempt to look at Luther charitably, rather than using hatred and pyschohistory. I would never say Lortz, or any biography is flawless.

Has Sippo ever read Lortz? Does he have his books? Can he direct me to any recent studies from anybody saying that he is, and always will be a Nazi, and this is the reason he should be forgotten? If this is true, Why has the Lortz school of Roman Catholic theologians remained to this day? Are they Nazis as well? Are Catholic scholars Harry McSorley and Jared Wicks Nazis also?

Since Krieg utilized Otto Pesch’s study, and Sippo by default has so far only substantiated his claim with Krieg (who relies on Pesch). Pesch opinion seems to have some bearing on the whole matter. How does Pesch feel about Catholic Luther studies?

Catholic interest in Luther and his theology since the end of the Second World War has developed in such totally unexpected ways, and has produced such surprising results, that the yield of earlier decades can only be considered a prelude or even an aberration, and in any case a phase in the history of theological research which today is obsolete. It is therefore proper to begin a resume of this field with the end of the Second World War.

The situation at that point was, to be sure, dominated by two great works which had appeared at the beginning of or during the war — the history of the Reformation by Joseph Lortz which first appeared in 1939/40, and the three-volume study by Adolf Herte of the influence of Cochlaeus on the Catholic interpretation of Luther. Both works — and that will always be their merit in the history of Catholic theology — initiated a decisive change in the style of Catholic Luther research. While Herte's work provided an examination of conscience which is irrefutable in the sobriety of its documentation, Lortz gave an impetus for future Catholic study of Luther which is still felt today. These works are characterized by the concern to regard and elucidate Luther, his work and his theology in the twofold perspective of church history and biography. Historically, Lortz described, with a previously unknown fairness, the negative aspects of the church's teaching and life in the Middle Ages, and thus proved the necessity and urgency of a thorough-going reform. Biographically, Lortz described the man Luther as a person caught in a deep inner conflict progressively disturbed by the condition of the church, and thus virtually forced to form his new theology and finally to act as a Reformer. Thus Lortz created a basis for fundamentally taking Luther seriously as a religious figure, in spite of all his criticism at specific points. Thus it was possible for him to emphasize the subjective purity of Luther's desire and thereby to transfer an essential part of the guilt for the tragic schism in belief from Luther to the church of the late Middle Ages. This is precisely the change in style which Lortz brought about, (#4) and which has been, in spite of a few later regressions into the old "style", irreversible.

Footnote #4: It is well known that the most important works leading up to Lortz are the defamation of Luther by H. Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, 2 vols., Mainz, 1904/09 (Vol. I. 2nd ed.. 1904), and the pathological interpretations of Luther by H. Grisar, Luther, 3 vols., Freiburg/Breisgau, 3rd ed., 1924/25, and Martin Luthers Leben und sein Werk, Freiburg/Breisgau, 2nd ed., 1927. This pathological interpretation of Luther has representatives today on the Catholic as well as on the Protestant side, such as P. J. Reiter, Martin Luthers Umwelt, Charakter und Psychose. 1 vols., {Copenhagen, 1939/41 ; M. Werner, "Psychologisches zum Klostererlebnis Martin Luthers", Schweizensche Zeitschrift fur Psychologic, Vol. 7, No. 1. 1948, pp. 1-18 ; the articles by R. Weijenborg (cf. footnote 5); E. Grossmann, "Beitrag zur psychologischen Analyse der Personlichkeit Dr. Martin Luthers", Montasschrift fur Psychiatric und Neurologic. Vol. 132, No. 4, 1956, pp. 274-290. It is not so regrettable that this type of interpretation is attempted — if successfully or not is another Question. It is, however, regrettable that the claim is consciously or unconsciously made to have adequately handled a historical and theological problem, and even to have said the last word on it. [Otto H. Pesch, OP, Twenty Years of Catholic Luther Research (Lutheran World 13, 303-304].

Addendum 2018
This blog entry was edited and reformatted January, 27, 2018. The original can be found here. Nothing of any significant substance has changed in this entry from that presented in the former. The original source for Dr. Sippo's quotes is no longer available online. His words were taken from Patrick Madrid's Envoy Forums (no longer extant).