A Roman Catholic Cardinal, Professor, lazy scholar and spreader of lies. Typical even today. |
Roman Catholicism, which claims to be “infallible”, is, on the contrary, probably the greatest disseminator of “urban legends” in history. For
centuries, following the Reformation, absolute lies and untruths were told by
Roman polemicists, and repeated, and repeated, and continue to be repeated down
to this century. Here, for example, is one for which the source was “from an ‘ex-Calvinist’
turned Roman Catholic” – (I wonder where that came from?) – no doubt a person
seeking to do “due diligence”, but who is most likely to pick up and pass on
more of these lies and untruths, which were started and disseminated by the “princes”
of “the Infallible Church”.
James Swan has made a career out of untangling these falsehoods.
(There is no other way to describe them.)
In this his
most recent blog post, James sorts out a quote from the work “The
Bible and the Rule of Faith” (1875), by the French Theology Professor and later Cardinal and Archbishop of Quebec.
From this “Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval”, Louis Nazaire Bégin, James provides this quote:
From this “Doctor of Theology, Theological Professor in the University of Laval”, Louis Nazaire Bégin, James provides this quote:
As to the heads of the Reformation
in the sixteenth century, I do not wish to judge them myself, for fear of being
accused of partiality. I prefer only quoting some short passages of their
writings, and repeating the polite speeches they make about one another; the reader
can then pronounce for himself as to the sanctity of the origin of
Protestantism. The sincerity of Luther is well described in this confidential
letter to his friend Melanchthon, August 30th, 1530: 'When once we have nothing
more to fear, when we shall be left in peace, then will be the time to rectify
our deceits, lies, and errors. 'Peter,' he says elsewhere, 'the greatest of the
Apostles, lived and taught contrarily to the Word of God.[58] 'Moses, he says,
had a tongue, but a hesitating tongue, which stammered—a tongue of death, of
anger, and of sin. Collect all the words of wisdom of Moses, of the gentile
philosophers, and you will find that they only express idolatry or hypocrisy. [pg
216]
Here is James’s commentary on that:
Upon checking the source I
discovered that it wasn't simply one quote, but three strewn together in the
typical Roman Catholic polemical style that has so characterized their
treatment of Luther throughout the centuries. While the Cardinal claims an attempt to avoid
"partiality," any writer that simply throws a bunch of quotes
together without a context or historical background is indeed being
"partial." Notice in the first quote (the letter), Luther is presented
as a behind-the-scenes liar. In the second quote, Luther characterizes the life
and teachings of the apostle Peter as contrary to the Word of God. In the third
quote, Luther says all of the words of Moses amount to idolatry. In one short
paragraph, the impartial Cardinal has presented the lying,
apostle-slandering, law despising Martin Luther. Elsewhere in the
book Bégin says Luther was "a real chameleon" in doctrine
and modified his opinions day to day (pp. 49-50). Given Bégin's overall
treatment of Luther, I would posit he hadn't actually read much Luther but
relied on the opinions and citations of secondary sources.
For more details and actual sources, read the rest of this post here.
It is a very lazy thing indeed to do what this Roman Catholic Cardinal and Professor has done – to re-hash old polemics. That has been the method of Roman Catholics apologetics since the time of the Reformation.
It is a very lazy thing indeed to do what this Roman Catholic Cardinal and Professor has done – to re-hash old polemics. That has been the method of Roman Catholics apologetics since the time of the Reformation.
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