Martin Luther’s Reformation of the Catholic Church and the Challenge to Rome

Into this cauldron of massive change emerging from medieval times came Martin Luther, an Augustinian priest and trained lawyer. Though not the first reformer, he nonetheless sought to bring change to Catholicism, the Mother Church. It was becoming increasingly fossilized and unresponsive, failing to speak to the spiritual concerns of its flock and more significantly to Luther, himself, trying to understand the basis of salvation. Luther found the church to be guilty of corruption by misusing its spiritual authority to sell indulgences for sins committed, with the goal of raising funds for the construction of St. Peter’s in Rome (starting in 1506). His assessment was aided by his visit to Rome and introduction to the opulence, gaudy wealth, and unholy lifestyles of the priests in the church (Mullet, 2015).

The Martin Luther statue in Wurms, with other reformers and proto-reformers around the central plinth.

Luther, the progeny of Augustinian ideology, was overburdened by the notion of personal sin. Through study of the Bible, he came to reconcile his feelings with the promise of a justification based on God’s forgiveness for sin. Yet contained in this seed pod of a self-reflecting conscience was the notion that not only was the individual responsible before God, but also the individual could and should be the sole arbiter of one’s relationship with God unimpeded by another earthly entity such as a human priest or the church itself (Mullet, 2015).

In 1517, with the inauspicious beginning of (purportedly) nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenberg church door—a common way to create public debate—Luther started a conflagration within Catholicism. He spread his theological ideas in writings printed and distributed by the local printer. As his ideas became circulated, storm clouds built as the authorities in Rome pushed back. A Papal edict was issued, calling Luther to repent of his positions and threatening him with excommunication from the church (Mullet, 2015).

On December 10, 1520, Luther burned the edict that condemned him. The following year he was summoned to the Diet of Worms to appear before a tribunal, which demanded that he recant his writings and positions. He responded by boldly saying that his conscience was captive only to the word of God and that he could not act against his conscience, for to do so was neither “safe, nor sound.” His response was, “Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me” (Mullet, 2015).

Thus arose the Reformation (reformation of the Catholic Church) and the rise of Protestantism (new sects splintering off from the Catholic Church in protest). The growth of religious individualism that emerged at this time was based on Luther’s concept that an individual must have a direct relationship with God (although Luther was to become dogmatic about his own positon in time). Therefore, it is not surprising that religious individualism was matched by the growth of political individualism. This, too, was fueled by the ability to print opinions and spread them widely.

Persecution of Witches by Secular and Religious Authority

Illustration, “The Witches of Warboyse,” from A Compleat history of magick, sorcery, and witchcraft, 1715-1716.

A tragic legacy of the Reformation was the upswing in the persecution of practitioners of witchcraft. Forging an unlikely alliance built on common aims, Catholic and Protestant authorities, in conjunction with local secular authorities, carried out witch hunts to achieve its deadly result. Beginning in the 15th century and continuing until the mid-18th century, mostly women (75–85%), but men as well, were tried for allegedly adhering to practices of the craft. Estimates suggest that 80,000 people were tried and some 50% were executed, many by burning at the stake (Doward, 2018). Through misguided perceptions and unsubstantiated beliefs that witches performed their healing magic by being in league with the power of the devil, folk healers, midwives, or those simply considered strange were blamed for misfortunes and disasters: people and animals that contracted disease; hailstorms that wiped out local crops; or towns that burned. So too, those who today would be seen as having mental illness or senility would be persecuted out of prejudice and fear (“The Witch Trials,” n.d.).

This witch mania demonstrates the period’s inadequacy of traditional remedies (including prayer, relics and holy water) to combat evil present in the world. Often religious zeal lay behind the persecution of witches, based on views of church authorities. Women were viewed as inferior to men, as the source of sin and carnal pleasure. As religious authority was perceived to weaken, the sense grew that secular authority was needed to keep people safe. It was frequently the judicial powers of the local secular authorities that were the agents responsible for condemning those accused of witchcraft, because ecclesiastical courts in many instances lacked the ability to issue the death penalty. Through the witch trials and executions that followed, the power of secular, state authority actually increased considerably (“The Witch Trials,” n.d.).

Women accused of witchcraft were likely to be aged, shunned, isolated, and both vulnerable and feared. These poor individuals were the scapegoats of misfortune. That such wide-scale persecution went by the name of protecting good people from the supposed malevolent intentions of followers of the black arts takes nothing away from the fact that a 200-year pogrom was a supported expression of misogyny. Inherent in these actions was both gender oppression and publicly sanctioned genocide (“The Witch Trials,” n.d.).

New Worlds to Explore, Dominate, and Colonize

As European rulers consolidated their political power and gained in wealth, they looked to advantage themselves in seeking lands and resources in the New World, occasioning an age of naval exploration, military conquest, and colonization. England, France, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands led the way in this venture abroad. Rising venture capitalists known as trading companies funded much of the exploration and settlement in the New World and were granted royal charters to large tracts of land. From these arrangements came the benefits and resources of precious metals, tobacco and potato plants, cod and beaver skins, as well as other exotic and valuable goods (History.com Editors, 2019).

But the interaction with the indigenous “Americans” resulted in destruction. Contact with Europeans was often characterized by violence and the introduction of diseases to which the native peoples had no immunity. This led to massive devastation and depopulation up to 90% in areas hardest hit. So too would come enslavement of slaves to work the plantations that would drive the economic machinery of wealth creation for the rich. Native peoples were driven from their land, forced to convert to Christianity, and compelled to perform forced labor (“Genocide of Indigenous Peoples,” n.d.).

The view of human nature as depraved when there are not external controls is reinforced by the unfolding of colonization abroad and territorial consolidation within Europe. In the New World, it led to dehumanization of abducted Africans, and destruction of native languages, cultural practices, and religions of both Africans and First Nations peoples. At home, on the European continent, religious and state warfare among fractured Christian sects remained as well as continued pogroms and coercion by both church and state to convert those of Jewish and Islamic faith.