Luther Was Right, The Council of Trent Was Wrong, So Says Cantalamessa

Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., has long enjoyed the favor of the past three conciliar “popes” (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis). Each of these “popes” has listened quite patiently to Cantalamessa preach heretical propositions that contradict defined articles contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith. Each has kept the Pentecostalist Cantalamessa in his position as the “preacher of the ‘papal’ household” without a word of reproof. 

To wit, consider the following from “Pentecostalism to Apostasy,” which was written by the editor of the anti-sedevacantist Catholic Family News, Mr. John Vennari, in 2002:  

The Council of Trent defined dogmatically that without the Catholic Faith, "it is impossible to please God." (1) The Catholic Church also defined ex cathedra that there is only one true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation. (2) 

Pope Leo XIII, elaborating on this point, taught:

"Since no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God …. we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will …. It cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion if it only be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking …. From all these [proofs] it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and propagate." (3)

1) Session V on Original Sin. See Denzinger n. 787. 

2) The Church has defined this three times. The most forceful and explicit definition comes from Pope Eugene IV when he defined ex cathedra at the Council of Florence on Feb. 4, 1442: "The Most Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes, and preaches that none of those existing outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics, and schismatics can ever be partakers of eternal life, but that they are to go into the eternal fire "which was prepared for the devil and his angels," (Mt 25: 41) unless before death they are joined with her; …. No one, let his almsgiving be as great as it may, no one, even if he pour out his blood for the Name of Christ, can be saved unless he abide within the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church." 

3) Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, apud Denis Fahey, The Kingship of Christ and Organized Naturalism (Dublin: Regina Publications, 1943), pp. 7-8. From these sources, and from countless other magisterial teachings, it is clear that the only religion positively willed by God is the religion established by Christ Himself, the Catholic Church.  

Yet, at the Vatican's Good Friday Liturgy, 2002, the Preacher to the Papal Household, Capuchin Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, said the other religions "are not merely tolerated by God …. but positively willed by Him as an expression of the inexhaustible richness of His grace and His will for everyone to be saved."  (4) 4. All quotes from Fr. Cantalamessa's sermon are from the April 2, 2002 Catholic News Service report.

This, in short, is apostasy. 

St. John, the Apostle of Love, said: "Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is Antichrist who denies the Father and the Son" (1 John 1: 22). Thus, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, any religion that rejects Christ, according to Scripture, is an Antichrist religion. 

Regarding heretical religions, for example, "Orthodoxy" and Protestantism, St. Paul tells us that false creeds are the "doctrines of devils" (1 Tim. 4: 1). 

How, then, can Antichrist religions, and false creeds of heretics, which are "doctrines of devils," be regarded as "not merely tolerated by God but positively willed by Him"? This would mean that God positively wills religions to exist that teach Jesus Christ is not God and the Savior of mankind (as do non-Christian religions). It means that God positively wills religions to exist, such as Protestantism, that teach Christ did not establish the Church, did not establish the Holy Eucharist, did not establish the Sacraments. It also means that those Protestant sects that hold devotion to Our Blessed Mother in abhorrence are positively willed by God. This, despite the fact that Our Lady of Fatima asked for the Five First Saturdays of reparation for the blasphemies against her Immaculate Heart that are the fruit of these false religions. 

In short, Fr. Cantalamessa's sermon means that God positively wills error. God positively wills lies. God positively wills evil. 

Our Lord certainly permits evil, for He does not interfere with the free will of man. But it is blasphemy to claim that God wills it, since God cannot will that which is not good.

Is Jesus Full of Pride? 

Fr. Cantalamessa's blasphemy does not end here. He also claimed that God is "humble in saving," and the Church should follow suit. "Christ is more concerned that all people should be saved than that they should know who is their Savior," he told a large congregation at St. Peter's Basilica, which included Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials. 

It might sound sweet, but Fr. Cantalamessa is indirectly accusing Jesus Christ of pride. When he says, "Christ is more concerned that all people should be saved than that they should know who is their Savior," this is a pious snub to the pre-Vatican II teaching of 2000 years that holds it necessary for the soul to know, love and serve Christ in this world if he wishes to be happy with Him forever in the next. Fr. Cantalamessa is thus advocating the heterodox teaching of Fr. Karl Rahner on the "anonymous Christian." 

In fact, only 50 years ago, if a 7-year-old student in Catholic school mouthed Fr. Cantalamessa's novel doctrine, he would have been deemed unfit to receive First Holy Communion. Now, 40 years into Vatican II's "new Springtime," this apostasy is preached on Good Friday at the Vatican by the preacher to the Papal Household. 

This episode also reveals one of the many disadvantages of the Internet. News of Fr. Cantalamessa's homily was broadcast around the world via the Internet to thousands of Catholics who would have never otherwise heard it. The result is that many Catholics assume the Capuchin's words delivered in St. Peter's somehow approach the level of magisterial teaching. This is not true. Fr. Cantalamessa's Good Friday address is simply another homily filled with errors delivered by a Charismatic. It is that and nothing more. (From Pentecostalism to Apostasy by John Vennari)

Begging to disagree with my former colleague, no, Father Cantalamessa's 2002 Good Friday sermon, delivered in the presence of John Paul II, represented quite accurately the official apostasies of the countefeit church of conciliarism. Individuals are free to seek conversion to the Catholic Church if they are "motivated" to do so. "Unity," however, does not depend upon their doing so en masse on an unconditional basis. There is the need for "spiritual ecumenism" to be practiced in order to let the "spirit" guide "Christians" into a "discovery" of how to "realize" a "true" "unity" that does not "destroy" one's own "traditions." This is what the conciliar "popes" have preached, and it is what Jorge Mario Bergolio, in particular, never tires of repeating ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

Indeed, Cantalamessa, who helped to arrange a "interfaith prayer" service in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2006 during which Jorge Mario "Cardinal" Bergoglio was "blessed" by a bevy of Protestant "clergy," is still preaching heresy with complete "papal" approbation. This is but a brief excerpt from the "homily" he gave in front of "Pope Francis" in the Basilica of Saint Peter on Good Friday, March 25, 2016:   

God shows his righteousness and justice by having mercy! This is the great revelation. The apostle says God is “just and justifying,” that is, he is just to himself when he justifies human beings; he is in fact love and mercy, so for that reason he is just to himself—he truly demonstrates who he is—when he has mercy.   

But we cannot understand any of this if we do not know exactly what the expression “the righteousness of God” means. There is a danger that people can hear about the righteousness of God but not understand its meaning, so instead of being encouraged they are frightened. St. Augustine had already clearly explained its meaning centuries ago: “The ‘righteousness of God’ is that by which we are made righteous, just as ‘the salvation of God’ [see Ps 3:8] means the salvation by which he saves us.”[2] In other words, the righteousness of God is that by which God makes those who believe in his Son Jesus acceptable to him. It does not enact justice but makes people just

Luther deserves the credit for bringing this truth back when its meaning had been lost over the centuries, at least in Christian preaching, and it is this above all for which Christianity is indebted to the Reformation, whose fifth centenary occurs next year. The reformer later wrote that when he discovered this, “I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates.”[3] But it was neither Augustine nor Luther who explained the concept of “the righteousness of God” this way; Scripture had done that before they did:

When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but in virtue of his own mercy” (Titus 3:4-5).

God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our own trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved. (see Eph 2:4-5)

Therefore, to say “the righteousness of God has been manifested” is like saying that God’s goodness, his love, his mercy, has been revealed. God’s justice not only does not contradict his mercy but consists precisely in mercy!   (Luther Was right, Council of Trent Was Wrong, So Says Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap.)

Father Raniero Cantalamessa does not believe that God punishes anyone for his sins as His justice demands, No, punishment as part of God's justice must be dismissed as "vengeance." The only kind of "justice" that Cantalamessa and "Pope Francis" accept as legitimate is their concept of false mercy that reaffirms emboldened sinners in their sins just as firmly as did Martin Luther.

This was not the first time that the nonstop machine gun of heresy, Cantalmessa, has served up his heresy about the Catholic Church's defined teaching on the Doctrine of Justification. He had done so during an Advent "homily" that was published on December 16, 2005:

Even those who spend their lives serving the church must recognize that faith alone will save them, the preacher of the papal household told Pope Benedict XVI and his closest aides.

"Christianity does not start with that which man must do to save himself, but with what God has done to save him," Capuchin Father Raniero Cantalamessa said in his Dec. 16 Advent meditation.

The preacher told the pope and top Vatican officials that they, like St. Paul, must avoid any temptation to think that the good works they have accomplished will guarantee their salvation.

"Gratuitous justification through faith in Christ is the heart" of St. Paul's preaching "and it is a shame that this has been practically absent from the ordinary preaching of the church," he said.

Father Cantalamessa said that the Protestant Reformation debate over the role of faith and works led the Catholic Church to focus so much on the need for the demonstration of faith in actions that it practically ignored the need for faith in the first place.

St. Paul, in his Letter to the Philippians, warned believers of the "mortal danger" of putting their own good works between them and Christ, as if the works would save them, Father Cantalamessa said.

Conversion to the fact that faith in Christ is the only means of salvation "is the conversion most needed by those who already are following Christ and have lived at the service of his church," the Capuchin said.

"It is a special conversion that does not consist in abandoning the bad, but abandoning the good, in a way," he said. "It means detaching oneself from everything one has done, repeating to oneself, 'We are useless servants; we have done only what was required.'" (hCantalmessa Says that Faith Alone, Not Works, Is Necessary for Salvation; "Papa" Benedetto Listens Quiety in Agreement.)

Although Father Cantalamessa was correct to have stated that good works do not guarantee salvation, his assertion that the Catholic Church "practically ignored the need for faith in the first place" after the Protestant Revolt is a bald face lie. Let me repeat this so as not to be misunderstood: Father Raniero Cantalamessa is a bald-faced liar.

As the late Father William Heidt, O.S.B., noted in a class on Hermeneutics at Holy Apostles Seminary in 1983, "Saint Paul taught us that we must believe in the totality of the Deposit of Faith that Christ entrusted solely to the Catholic Church. It is to the Catholic Church alone that Our Lord has entrusted the Deposit of Faith and to her alone that He gave the means to produce an increase of sanctifying grace in the souls of the baptized."

It is clear that Father Cantalamessa rejects this, preferring to believe that Protestants have something to teach the true Church of Christ, the Catholic Church, about Justification. Indeed, to assert that the Catholic Church did not care about Faith in the years following the Protestant Revolt is to dismiss as irrelevant all of the efforts by the missionaries (say, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, the North American Martyrs, Saint Peter Claver, Saint Peter Chanel, Father Junipero Serra, Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet and the Jesuits of the Western United States, Father Jacques Marquette, Father Maximilian Kolbe, et al.) in the four hundred years between the Council of Trent and the "Second" Vatican Council to convert souls to the true Faith. 

Indeed, Father Cantalamessa's lie about the Church ignoring "Faith" is one of the favorite aphorisms of the charismatic movement, which is founded in the belief that a "new outpouring of the Holy Ghost" has taken place to "awaken" the Faith of men whose hearts had grown cold as a result of "rigid" dogmas. And Father Cantalamessa cannot reference the missionary work of the Church in the second half of the Second Millennium as that work was all about the conversion of souls to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

Ah, that is the nub of the matter, is it not?

Father Cantalamessa and the conciliar "popes" believe that what they think is the Catholic Church had need of listening to the "truths" that had been brought to light by Father Martin Luther, which means that the Fathers of the Council of Trent, which met under the infallible protection and guidance of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, were not directed in the fullness of the "truth" that had been "brought to light" by Martin Luther. This means that the Catholic Church's Divine Constitution is defective, that it has had to be "perfected" by heretics such as Martin Luther and others. This is a denial of Holy Mother Church's infalliblity and indefectibility and thus is blasphemy against the very Divine work of God the Holy Ghost, He Who can never fail to guide our true popes and true dogmatic councils in the certain understanding and definition of the truths of the Holy Faith. 

Father Raniero Cantalamessa and the conciliar "popes" are thus at odds with the dogmatic pronouncements of the Council of Trent on Justification. One can see that Father Cantalamessa's own words in December of 2005 and on Good Friday 2016 condemn him when he stated that conversion does not consist of "abandoning the bad, but of abandoning the good, in a way." No one is Justified who remains in a state of Mortal Sin.

Consider Canons IX and XXIX of the Council of Trent on Justification:

Canon IX:  If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

Canon XXIX: If any one saith, that he, who has fallen after baptism, is not able by the grace of God to rise again; or, that he is able indeed to recover the justice which he has lost, but by faith alone without the sacrament of Penance, contrary to what the holy Roman and universal Church--instructed by Christ and his Apostles--has hitherto professed, observed, and taught; let him be anathema. (Session VI, Council of Trent, January 13, 1547.)

The Council of Trent taught dogmatically that Grace may be increased by our penance, prayers, and good works.

Canon XXIV: If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.

Canon XXVI: If any one saith, that the just ought not, for their good works done in God, to expect and hope for an eternal recompense from God, through His mercy and the merit of Jesus Christ, if so be that they persevere to the end in well doing and in keeping the divine commandments; let him be anathema.

Canon XXXII: If any one saith, that the good works of one that is justified are in such manner the gifts of God, as that they are not also the good merits of him that is justified; or, that the said justified, by the good works which he performs through the grace of God and the merit of Jesus Christ, whose living member he is, does not truly merit increase of grace, eternal life, and the attainment of that eternal life,--if so be, however, that he depart in grace,---and also an increase of glory; let him be anathema.

Canon XXIII: If any one saith, that, by the Catholic doctrine touching Justification, by this holy Synod inset forth in this present decree, the glory of God, or the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ are in any way derogated from, and not rather that the truth of our faith, and the glory in fine of God and of Jesus Christ are rendered (more) illustrious; let him be anathema.  (Session VI, Council of Trent, January 13, 1547.)                         

Furthermore, the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification noted at Chapter X:

Having, therefore, been thus justified, and made the friends and domestics of God, advancing from virtue to virtue, they are renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day; that is, by mortifying the members of their own flesh, and by presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified, as it is written; He that is just, let him be justified still; and again, Be not afraid to be justified even to death; and also, Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. And this increase of justification holy Church begs, when she prays, "Give unto us, O Lord, increase of faith, hope, and charity." Session VI, Council of Trent, January 13, 1547.)       

Perhaps most tellingly of all, the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification's Chapter IX specifically and categorically refuted Cantalamessa's praise of Luther's concept of "mercy" and "forgiveness" that he shares in its heretical entirety with Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself:

CHAPTER IX.

Against the vain confidence of Heretics.

But, although it is necessary to believe that sins neither are remitted, nor ever were remitted save gratuitously by the mercy of God for Christ's sake; yet is it not to be said, that sins are forgiven, or have been forgiven, to any one who boasts of his confidence and certainty of the remission of his sins, and rests on that alone; seeing that it may exist, yea does in our day exist, amongst heretics and schismatics; and with great vehemence is this vain confidence, and one alien from all godliness, preached up in opposition to the Catholic Church. But neither is this to be asserted,-that they who are truly justified must needs, without any doubting whatever, settle within themselves that they are justified, and that no one is absolved from sins and justified, but he that believes for certain that he is absolved and justified; and that absolution and justification are effected by this faith alone: as though whoso has not this belief, doubts of the promises of God, and of the efficacy of the death and resurrection of Christ. For even as no pious person ought to doubt of the mercy of God, of the merit of Christ, and of the virtue and efficacy of the sacraments, even so each one, when he regards himself, and his own weakness and indispositioRan, may have fear and apprehension touching his own grace; seeing that no one can know with a certainty of faith, which cannot be subject to error, that he has obtained the grace of God. Session VI, Council of Trent, January 13, 1547.)    

Remember, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., and the lay Jesuit masquerding as "Pope" Francis" believe in the same Lutheran heresy of justification and "mercy" as did Karol Joseph Wojtyla/John Paul II and as does Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

To wit, the conciliar revolutionaries entered into an agreement with the Lutheran World Federation on the Doctrine of Justification on October 31, 1999, four hundred eighty-two years after Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., posted his ninety-five theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification "revisited" the Decree on Justification that was issued by the Fathers of the Council of Trent in its Sixth Session on January 13, 1547.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism's joint declaration made it appear that there are major areas of convergence between the beliefs of the wretched heretic named Martin Luther and the very dogmatic council that condemned those beliefs. Bishop Donald A. Sanborn has offered his Critical Analysis of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification to demonstrate the degree to which the "joint declaration" between the conciliarists and the Lutherans, a "declaration" that was brokered by the direct intervention of the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the time, Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, defected from the authentic doctrine of the Catholic Church. A dogmatic council, one guided infallibly by the hand of God the Holy Ghost as it met under the direction of a true and legitimate Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Paul III, is believed to have failed to express itself clearly on the issue, clouded as it was "at the time" by the "polemics" of the moment. (For another analysis of the conciliar joint declaration on Justification, see The October Revolution, which is found on the anti-sedevacantist Tradition in Action website.)

It must be remembered that one of the reasons that the the conciliar "popes" have been so supportive and nurturing of the heretical syncretists of "The Neocatechumenal Way" is that they embrace the Lutheran heresy on Justification in its entirety:

The central point of the doctrine of Luther is that we can be saved without good works inspired by prayer, penance and charity. Faith alone is sufficient. This faith is essentially a confidence that God forgives sins because of Jesus Christ. As a consequence, the sacrament of penance is useless. (Dictionary of the Catholic Faith, D’Ales, Vol 4, p. 794, article: Reformation).

In the book of Kiko and Carmen, we read: “Man is not saved by good works (…), Jesus Christ did not come to give us a model of life, an example (…). The Holy Spirit doesn’t lead us to perfection, to good works (…), Christianism doesn’t require anything from us (…). God forgives freely the sins of those who believe that Jesus is the Savior.” Here, it is very clear!

In another place, they write that good works are the “signs of faith”, and that they are not Protestant. There is, however, such a great insistence that faith alone is essentially sufficient, that we could say that their doctrine on salvation is Protestant. In the Catholic Doctrine, good works are not only signs, but necessary means for salvation. (A Critique of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, which is found on a Society of Saint Pius X website. it is only a matter of time before the Society of Pius X  takes it place among with the Neocatechumenal Movement as part of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, a place where unity of Faith and worship is not required for admission or retention.)

Our Lord was thus mystically spat upon, slapped, blasphemed, mocked, scourged, crowned with thorns and crucified on Good Friday, March 25, 2016, by the “papal” preacher and the “pope” who listened with great approval to that which denied Catholic truth and praised a heretical teaching condemned solemnly by the infallible authority of the Catholic Church.

There is really little need to say anything else at this point as the apostasy is so vast and so bold that no only those who are intellectually dishonest or willfully blind can refuse to see the truth for what it is.

We are in the midst of the Great Apostasy, and while it is certainly the case that we are now in the season of great Easter rejoicing, it is nevertheless true as well that we must bear the crosses of the moment with courage and joy as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Every Rosary we pray brings great consolation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Every Rosary we pray with in a spirit of meditative reflection helps to win the favor of the very Mother of God, who showers down grace after grace upon those who trust in her intercessory power and maternal protection with childlike confidence.

Our Lady wants us to be participants in her Divine Son’s Easter victory over sin and death. All we have to do is to be willing to suffer a little bit in this passing, moral vale of tears as we refuse to make any compromises with apostates and are willing to lose everything for love of Our Lord and His Sacred Deposit of Faith.

The joys are eternal for those who remain faithful to end after praying fervently for the grace to end their lives well, especially by keeping ever close to Our Lady and Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faith, in the midst of forgettable men who are but minions of Antichrist.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the the Rosary, pray for us.  

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.   

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

A Compendium of Luther's Principal Heresies and Errors

(1) That Our Blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ did not create a visible, hierarchical Church.

(2) That there is no authority given by Our Lord to the Pope and his bishops and priests to govern and to sanctify the faithful.

(3) That each believer has an immediate and personal relationship with the Savior as soon as he makes a profession of faith on his lips and in his heart, therefore being perpetually justified before God.

(4) Having been justified by faith alone, a believer has no need of an intermediary from a non-existent hierarchical priesthood to forgive him his sins. He is forgiven by God immediately when he asks forgiveness.

(5) This state of justification has nothing to do with good works. While good works are laudable, especially to help unbelievers convert, they do not impute unto salvation. Salvation is the result of the profession of faith that justifies the sinner.

(6) That grace is merely, in the words of Martin Luther, the snowflakes that cover up the "dung heap" that is man.

(7) That there is only one source of Divine Revelation, Sacred Scripture.

(8) That each individual is his own interpreter of Sacred Scripture.

(9) That there is a strict separation of Church and State. Princes, to draw from Luther himself, may be Christians but it is not as a Christian that they ought to rule.

These lies have permutated in thousands of different directions. However, they have sewn the fabric of the modern state and popular culture for nearly half a millennium, serving as a good deal of the foundation of conciliarism itself and its own devastation of souls.

Here below are explanations of these lies and their multifaceted implications for the world in which we live:  

(1-2) The contention that Our Lord did not create a visible, hierarchical church vitiates the need for a hierarchical, sacerdotal priesthood for the administration of the sacraments. It is a rejection of the entirety of the history of Christianity prior to the Sixteenth Century. It is a denial of the lesson taught us by Our Lord by means of His submission to His own creatures, Saint Joseph and the Blessed Mother, in the Holy Family of Nazareth that each of us is to live our entire lives under authority, starting with the authority of the Vicar of Christ and those bishops who are in full communion with him. The rejection of the visible, hierarchical church is founded on the prideful belief that we are able to govern ourselves without being directed by anyone else on earth. This contention would lead in due course to the rejection of any and all religious belief as necessary for individuals and for societies. Luther and Calvin paved the way for Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the French Revolution that followed so closely the latter's deification of man.  

(3-6) Baptism is merely symbolic of the Christian's desire to be associated with the Savior in the amorphous body known as the Church. What is determinative of the believer's relationship with Christ is his profession of faith. As the believer remains a reprobate sinner, all he can do is to seek forgiveness by confessing his sins privately to God. This gives the Protestant of the Lutheran strain the presumptuous sense that there is almost nothing he can do to lose his salvation once he has made his profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. There is thus no belief that a person can scale the heights of personal sanctity by means of sanctifying grace. It is impossible, as Luther projected from his own unwillingness to cooperate with sanctifying grace to overcome his battles with lust, for the believer to be anything other than a dung heap. Thus a Protestant can sin freely without for once considering that he has killed the life of sanctifying grace in his soul, thereby darkening his intellect and weakening the will and inclining himself all the more to sin-and all the more a vessel of disorder and injustice in the larger life of society.  

(7-8) The rejection of a visible, hierarchical Church and the rejection of Apostolic Tradition as a source of Divine Revelation protected by that Church leads in both instances to theological relativism. Without an authoritative guide to interpret Divine Revelation, including Sacred Scripture, individual believers can come to mutually contradictory conclusions about the meaning of passages, the precise thing that has given rise to literally thousands of Protestant sects. And if a believer can reduce the Bible, which he believes is the sole source of Divine Revelation, to the level of individual interpretation, then there is nothing to prevent anyone from doing the same with all written documents, including the documents of a nation's founding. If the plain words of Scripture can be deconstructed of their meaning, it is easy to do so, say, with the words of a governmental constitution. Theological relativism paved the way for moral relativism. Moral relativism paved the way for the triumph of positivism and deconstructionism as normative in the realm of theology and that of law and popular culture.   

(9) The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ as it was exercised by His true Church in the Middle Ages by the Protestant concept of the separation of Church and State is what gave rise to royal absolutism in Europe in the immediate aftermath of Luther's handiwork. Indeed, as I have noted any number of times before, it is arguably the case that the conditions that bred resentment on the part of colonists in English America prior to 1776 might never have developed if England had remained a Catholic nation. The monarchy would have been subject in the Eighteenth Century to same constraints as it had in the Tenth or Eleventh Centuries, namely, that kings and queens would have continued to understand that the Church reserved unto herself the right to interpose herself in the event that rulers had done things--or proposed to do things--that were contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law and/or were injurious of the cause of the sanctification and salvation of the souls of their subjects. The overthrow of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ deposited power first of all in the hands of monarchs eager to be rid of the "interference" of the Church and ultimately in the hands of whoever happened to hold the reins of governmental power in the modern "democratic" state. Despotism has been the result in both cases.