Was the Reformation Necessary?
A leading Romanist theologian, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, has stated that Roman “Catholics have no reason to celebrate” the five-hundredth anniversary, next year, of the beginning of the Reformation. He insists that the Reformation was unnecessary: “If we are convinced that divine revelation is preserved whole and unchanged through Scripture and tradition, in the doctrine of the faith, in the sacraments, in the hierarchical constitution of the Church by divine right, founded on the sacrament of holy orders, we cannot accept that there exist sufficient reasons to separate from the Church”.
Readers of this Magazine will clearly see, however, that none of the grounds of Müller’s case against the Reformation are based on the Bible’s own teaching. In what may be seen as an attack on the Pope’s willingness to use accommodating language towards those outside his own fold, Müller also condemns the “Protestantisation” of the Roman Church on the basis of “a secular vision”. He claims that the Roman Catholic Church alone can guarantee “an encounter with the mystery of Christ because in Him we are repositories of a supernatural revelation to which all of us owe total obedience of intellect and will”.
Underlying all of this is the completely unbiblical and antichristian error that mankind is dependent on the Roman Church to transmit God’s revelation and, consequently, that separation from Rome is separation from the Church of Christ. Upon this wicked and arrogant imposture is based the claim to total obedience of people’s intellect and will. Underneath the surface, Rome’s totalitarian nature never changes, since its teaching leads inevitably to spiritual slavery and political repression. AWM