![]() If such a council should come in our day, evangelicals should be ready both to listen and to witness to the biblical faith. Calvin himself wrote as late as 1556 that a “free and universal council” was necessary “to put an end to the divisions which exist in Christendom,” though he was second to none in his criticism of Roman Catholic doctrines. Unity of all Christians is manifestly to be desired. Protestantism is now even more divided than in 1541 and on more crucial issues, bearing in some quarters the onus of the modernist heresy and suffering in general a dilution of historic doctrines. For such talks Catholicism would carry the added burden of the doctrine of papal infallibility, to say nothing of an expanded Mariolatry. They will also face the problems involved in changes that have taken place in both Catholicism and Protestantism since 1541. These will face the problem of surmounting Trent. And though Trent achieved good moral reforms, it also hardened anti-evangelical strands of medieval Catholicism in favor of an exclusive Romanism.īut what of today? Is the time ripe for a return to Regensburg? The day may not be far off when official colloquies will replace the unofficial ones now being conducted. At that time the emperor even assured the Council of Trent (1545–63) that to it would be referred all final decisions of the colloquy. This conclusion was only confirmed by a further Regensburg colloquy in 1546. Rather than effecting reconciliation, Regensburg had demonstrated the depth of the Reformation divide. Hopes were finally dashed by Catholic insistence that final decision would rest with the pope. The emperor vainly tried to terrify Melanchthon into submission by personal threats. He rejected transubstantiation as a scholastic fiction and declared idolatrous the adoration of the wafer. Calvin was specially consulted on the latter point. The collocutors subsequently divided on the question of the power of the church, and then deadlocked on the doctrine of the Eucharist. The agreement was attained only after a tremendous effort, but neither Rome nor Wittenberg would accept it. Surprisingly enough, an accord was reached on the doctrine of justification, the Catholics assenting to justification by faith (without the Lutheran sola). The colloquy touched lightly on the doctrines of original sin and the bondage of the will, the Protestants being protected at these points by the authority of Augustine. Bucer was more optimistic, taking note of the presence of an unusual number of princes and moderate Catholics. Though not a collocutor, John Calvin was a Strasbourg delegate to the diet, at the special request of Melanchthon.Īn attendant at the previous colloquies of Frankfurt and Worms, Calvin had little hope of success at Regensburg. Toward achieving the first, he appointed theologians from both sides to take part in a colloquy: Roman Catholics John Eck, Julius Pflug, and John Gropper, and Protestants Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and John Pistorius. Launching the Diet of Regensburg on April 5, 1541, the emperor declared that it had two purposes: first, the establishment of religious unity, and second, the gaining of aid against the Turks. Emperor Charles V saw his Holy Roman Empire further jeopardized by internal division between Catholics and Protestants, and he summoned an imperial diet to meet in the Bavarian city of Regensburg (Ratisbon). ![]() ![]() In striking parallel, sixteenth-century European Christendom also faced a military and ideological threat from the East, the dread Turk, whose Ottoman Empire held the Balkans and pushed northeast beyond the Crimea. Today the sincere desires of many on both sides for Protestant-Catholic unity are buttressed by the common threat of militant Communism. The claim, though not quite true, does serve to point us back to Reformation days. Last year’s colloquium at Harvard University upon the occasion of Augustin Cardinal Bea’s visit to this country has been hailed as unprecedented. ![]() The current informal but flourishing dialogue between Protestants and Roman Catholics is a salient aspect of the modern ecclesiastical scene. ![]()
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