{"id":240,"date":"2010-10-28T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2010-10-28T04:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/returntorome\/?p=240"},"modified":"2015-03-13T13:30:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T17:30:17","slug":"louis-bouyer-on-the-reformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2010\/10\/louis-bouyer-on-the-reformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Louis Bouyer on the Reformation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Three days before Reformation Day (October 31), I bring to your attention one of my favorite essays, penned by the president of Ignatius Press, Mark Brumley. Entitled,\u00a0\u201cWhy Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation,\u201d<\/a> Brumley writes:<\/p>\n

Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified sufficiently well that even non-experts can get the gist of it. Here\u2019s what seems a fairly accurate but simplified summary of the issue: The break between Catholics and Protestants was either a tragic necessity (to use Jaroslav Pelikan\u2019s expression) or it was tragic because unnecessary.<\/p>\n

Many Protestants see the Catholic\/Protestant split as a tragic necessity, although the staunchly anti-Catholic kind of Protestant often sees nothing tragic about it. Or if he does, the tragedy is that there ever was such a thing as the Roman Catholic Church that the Reformers had to separate from. His motto is \u201cCome out from among them\u201d and five centuries of Christian disunity has done nothing to cool his anti-Roman fervor.<\/p>\n

Yet for most Protestants, even for most conservative Protestants, this is not so. They believe God \u201craised up\u201d Luther and the other Reformers to restore the Gospel in its purity. They regret that this required a break with Roman Catholics (hence the tragedy) but fidelity to Christ, on their view, demanded it (hence the necessity).<\/p>\n

Catholics agree with their more agreeable Protestant brethren that the sixteenth century division among Christians was tragic. But most Catholics who think about it also see it as unnecessary. At least unnecessary in the sense that what Catholics might regard as genuine issues raised by the Reformers could, on the Catholic view, have been addressed without the tragedy of dividing Christendom.<\/p>\n

Yet we can go further than decrying the Reformation as unnecessary. In his ground-breaking work, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism, Louis Bouyer argued that the Catholic Church herself is necessary for the full flowering of the Reformation principles. In other words, you need Catholicism to make Protestantism work \u2014 for Protestantism\u2019s principles fully to develop. Thus, the Reformation was not only unnecessary; it was impossible. What the Reformers sought, argues Bouyer, could not be achieved without the Catholic Church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the whole thing here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three days before Reformation Day (October 31), I bring to your attention one of my favorite essays, penned by the president of Ignatius Press, Mark Brumley. Entitled,\u00a0\u201cWhy Only Catholicism Can Make Protestantism Work: Louis Bouyer on the Reformation,\u201d Brumley writes: Interpreting the Reformation is complicated business. But like many complicated things, it can be simplified […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,32,115],"tags":[219],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholicism","category-christianity","category-protestantism","tag-reformation-day"],"yoast_head":"\nLouis Bouyer on the Reformation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Three days before Reformation Day (October 31), I bring to your attention one of my favorite essays, penned by the president of Ignatius Press, Mark\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2010\/10\/louis-bouyer-on-the-reformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Louis Bouyer on the Reformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Three days before Reformation Day (October 31), I bring to your attention one of my favorite essays, penned by the president of Ignatius Press, Mark\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/returntorome\/2010\/10\/louis-bouyer-on-the-reformation\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Return to Rome\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-28T04:01:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-03-13T17:30:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_EDwCU3KWQnY\/Suiyb-BS2RI\/AAAAAAAAASw\/H_rGfG6yhC8\/s320\/Martin+Luther.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Francis J. 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