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Outside the Church The Protestant Error
Outside the Church The Protestant Error
| The Protestant Error |
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by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange The doctrine of purgatory was denied by the Albigenses, the Hussites, and the Protestants. Luther began, in 1517, by denying the value of indulgences, saying that they had no value before God for the remission of the punishment due to our sins (Denz., no. 758). Then he went on to maintain that purgatory cannot be proved by Holy Scripture; that the souls in purgatory are not sure of their salvation; that we cannot prove the impossibility of merit in purgatory; that the souls in purgatory may sin by attempting to escape the sufferings they are undergoing. Later on, Luther reached the doctrinal root of all his negations, namely, justification by faith alone. Then he affirmed the uselessness of good works and hence the uselessness of purgatory. Supported by popular favor, he became more and more audacious. In 1524 he published his book on the abrogation of Mass. In this work he says that the denial of purgatory is not an error. Finally, in 1530, he denied absolutely any necessity of satisfaction for our sins. To uphold this, he said, would be an injury to Christ, who has satisfied superabundantly for all sin. For the same reason he denied that the Mass is a true sacrifice, particularly a propitiatory sacrifice. We have here the radical denial of a life of reparation, as if the sufferings of the saints for the expiation of sin would be an injury to the Redeemer. Now the first and universal cause does not exclude second causes, but grants them the dignity of causality, somewhat like a sculptor who should make statues which live. Thus the satisfactory merits of Christ do not exclude our own, but rather create them. Christ causes us to work with Him and in Him. St. Paul said: "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:12; Col. 1:24 ). Again: "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ, in my flesh, for His body, which is the Church." Certainly nothing was lacking to the sufferings of Christ in themselves, but they lacked fulfillment in our own flesh. Calvin and Zwingli followed Luther in denying indulgences, in denying the sacrifice of the Mass, and purgatory. Protestants of the present day have separated from their masters on this subject. Many of them admit an intermediate state between hell and heaven. They will not call it purgatory, but do say that the souls there can still merit and satisfy. Some hold that the sufferings of hell are not eternal. Now this temporary hell does not at all resemble the purgatory taught by the Catholic Church, according to which all souls in purgatory are in the state of grace and can no longer sin. This is but one more example of the variations and contradictions to be found among Protestant Churches. The chief Catholic theologians who wrote against this Protestant error are Cajetan, Sylvester Ferrariensis, St. John Fisher, John Eck, and St. Robert Bellarmine. St. John Fisher speaks thus to the Lutherans: "In suppressing the sacrifice of the Mass you have excluded the sun which illumines and warms each day of our life, and makes its influence felt even in purgatory." The Church condemned this Protestant error. The Council of Trent declares: "If anyone says that the man who has repented and received the grace of justification is forgiven and released from obligation to eternal punishment, in such fashion that he no longer has any obligation to temporal punishment, whether in this world or in purgatory, before he can be given entrance into heaven: let him be anathema" (Denz., no. 840). In the fourteenth chapter, which corresponds to this cannon, the Council affirms the necessity of satisfaction for sins committed after baptism: satisfaction in the form of fasting, of almsgiving, of prayer, and of other exercises of the spiritual life. These satisfactions are not meant for the eternal punishment, which was remitted by the sacrament of penance or by the desire of the sacrament, but for the remission of temporal punishment, which is not always remitted entirely, as it is in baptism (Ibid., no. 807 ). The Council quotes these words of Scripture: "Be mindful therefore from whence thou art fallen, and do penance and do the first works." (Rev. 2:5). "For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance" (II Cor. 7:10 ). "Do penance" (Matt. 3:2; 4:17 ). "Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance" (Ibid., 3:8). And if this reparation, this satisfaction, has not been paid in this world, the soul will have to undergo the satisfactorial punishment of purgatory. Taken from "Life Everlasting" by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. |
