Despite the services it has rendered, the Catholic Church is unfaithful to Christ by its priestly hierarchy, its worship, its sacraments, its dogmas, its superstitious, formalist and authoritarian spirit.
In the XVI century, favored by the general awakening of minds (The Renaissance, the great discoveries, the printing press, America, Copernicus theory), a great reform movement took place.
The Reformation did not want to create a new religion: but it wanted to restore the Christian religion, by ridding it of the tutelage of the Roman Church and by bringing it back to the very sources of the Gospel. The reform was born from an ardent need for spiritual freedom, deep faith, superior morality.
Luther was born in Saxony in 1483 to poor and pious parents. Showing an early desire to learn, he studied in turn in Magdehourg, Eisenach and Erfurt. Following a deep spiritual crisis. he entered the convent of Erfurt, but the strictest devotions did not give him peace of mind. It was then that he began to read the Bible (the chained Bible).
Appointed preacher and professor at Wittenberg. he places the Holy Book at the base of his teaching. A trip to Rome (1510) made him see up close the turpitudes which scandalized him. In 1517 a monk, Tetzel, came to sell indulgences in Wittenberg. Luther, indignant at this shameful traffic, displays on October 31, his 95 theories against indulgences where he exposes his ideas on true repentance and on salvation by faith. The pope, after having sent him two legates in vain excommunicates him. Luther publicly burns the bubble of excommunication. Translated before the diet of Worms (1521), he vigorously defends his religious principles. Supported by a good part of public opinion and by some princes, he can continue his work of Christian renovation. He died in Eisleben in 1546.
Luther was the great reformer of Germany. His first job was to translate the Bible into the German language. It is on the word of God contained in the Bible and explained to the people that it is based. He tried to prevent the Reformation from falling into reprehensible excess (Peasants' Revolt), He wanted to formulate his beliefs about his Church (Alessburg Confesslon)
Prepared by Luther and a few other theologians and written definitively by Mèlanchton,
His writings, widely spread, carried his teaching far away. His warm and living piety. His familiar and colorful words, his enthusiastic character, won sympathy. We can criticize him for having relied too much on the temporal power of the German Princes, for having separated too much (unlike Calvin) the Christian faith from social life and for not having completely broken with certain Catholic theories (consubstantiation) .
With this little historical account of the Church, we clearly understand the role that the Emperor Constantine played and how the Roman Catholic Church was born and was constituted until today. We also understand that the Church as we see it today in its functioning, its dismemberments is very far from being the model that the Lord has left us. hence the need for another reform. For as Luther did not want to create a new religion: but he wanted to restore the Christian religion, we no longer want to create another Christian religion, but to restore pure, disinterested evangelical morality, with its requirements and its holy joys.
