Cardinal Muller speaks out honestly about Martin Luther. Edward Pentin reports here that the German Cardinal gets it right about Luther.

Criticizing other prelates who say Luther’s revolution was the “work of the Holy Spirit”

Cardinal Müller, however, said the Protestant Reformation was not a “reform” but a “total change of the foundations of the Catholic faith,” and that today’s Catholics often discuss Martin Luther “too enthusiastically,” mainly due to an ignorance of theology.

He reminded readers that Luther called the sacrament of Holy Orders “an invention of the Pope — whom he called the Antichrist — and not part of the Church of Jesus Christ.”

“That is why we cannot accept Luther’s reform being called a reform of the Church in a Catholic sense,” he said. “Catholic reform is a renewal of faith lived in grace, in the renewal of customs, of ethics, a spiritual and moral renewal of Christians; not a new foundation, not a new Church.”

The cardinal said it was therefore “unacceptable” to assert that Luther’s reform “was an event of the Holy Spirit.” On the contrary, he said, “it was against the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit helps the Church to maintain her continuity through the Church’s magisterium, above all in the service of the Petrine ministry.”

The Holy Spirit, he stressed, “does not contradict Himself.”

If you want to see true reform in the church look to St Francis who also confronted a church that was riddled with corruption, greed, graft and spiritual complacency.

Francis stood barefoot in the snow humbly waiting to see the Pope. Take time to read about Luther, on the other hand, his violent heresy, his breaking his religious vows, his violence against the peasants, his vulgarity, despair, mendacity and dishonesty.

This man was a revolutionary, not a reformer, and while we can recognize that some good things came from the Protestant Revolution we should not be starry eyed about it. More harm than good came from it, and we should commemorate the Reformation with realism, not romanticism.