Pope Francis is wrong about Luther and justification.

hings the pope says in an inter­view with the press are not Mag­is­te­r­i­al. I sup­pose I must clar­i­fy that before some­one inevitably comes along to accuse me of con­tra­dict­ing my own words. I apol­o­gize, though, for being a bit late on this; the inter­view in ques­tion was in June. I checked my archives; God knows what I was doing at the time that made me miss this.

At any rate, in the inter­view the pope was asked about reha­bil­i­tat­ing Mar­tin Luther, or lift­ing his excom­mu­ni­ca­tion.

(Hon­est­ly, Luther’s been dead since 1546. What would lift­ing an excom­munication even mean? Excom­mu­ni­ca­tions don’t con­tin­ue beyond the grave. Where do they get these reporters?)

Here is part of what the pope said:

And today Luther­ans and Catholics, Protes­tants, all of us agree on the doc­trine of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. On this point, which is very impor­tant, he did not err.

No, no, no. Now see, this infu­ri­ates me as an apol­o­gist (and for­mer Protes­tant). It is one thing to have to cor­rect this non­sense when it comes from the late Angli­can bish­op Tony Palmer. But from the pope? I defend the poor man, but at times he exas­per­ates me.

I point­ed this out in 2014, and I point it out again now: The CDF has said that Catholics and Luther­ans (still less Catholics and “Protes­tants” in the aggre­gate) do not in fact “agree” on jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Here is what the CDF says:

The Catholic Church is, how­ev­er, of the opin­ion that we can­not yet speak of a con­sen­sus such as would elim­i­nate every dif­fer­ence between Catholics and Luther­ans in the under­stand­ing of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion.

And the doc­u­ment goes on to list some of the dis­agree­ments that still exist.

• Luther­ans believe that, even after bap­tism, sin still remains. Catholics teach that bap­tism takes away “every­thing that is real­ly sin.”
• Catholics believe that the “reg­u­la fidei” is the con­fes­sion of God in three per­sons; Luther­ans believe it is their under­stand­ing of jus­ti­fi­ca­tion
• The Church teach­es teach that we are able to coop­er­ate with grace, where­as Luther­ans insist on the “bondage of the will”
• The Church teach­es that good works are the fruit of both grace and the indi­vid­ual whom grace has trans­formed. Luther­ans teach that good works are the fruit of grace alone.

Now, it is true that some con­sen­sus has been reached between Catholics and Luther­ans on jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. But it is not at all true to say, as Pope Fran­cis does, that we all “agree” now, as though there are no dif­fer­ences to speak of. And for him to say that Luther “did not err” on jus­ti­fi­ca­tion is just flat baloney.

I mean, for heav­en’s sake, Luther taught jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith alone. The Coun­cil of Trent con­demned this error. Was Trent wrong? Or was Pope Leo X wrong in Exsurge Domine?

• Leo X con­demned Mar­tin Luther’s view that the sacra­ments give par­don­ing grace
• Leo X con­demned Mar­tin Luther’s teach­ing that sin remains after bap­tism
• Leo X con­demned Mar­tin Luther’s view that a just man sins in doing a good work

And in its Canons on Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion, the Coun­cil of Trent pro­nounced an anath­e­ma on the fol­low­ing views of Luther:

• Canon 5 anath­e­ma­tized the view that Adam’s sin destroyed free will
• Canon 7 anath­e­ma­tized the view that good works before jus­ti­fi­ca­tion are sin­ful
• Canon 9 anath­e­ma­tized jus­ti­fi­ca­tion by faith alone
• Canon 11 anath­e­ma­tized imput­ed right­eous­ness
• Canon 25 anath­e­ma­tized the view that good works are venial sins even for the just man

There are impor­tant dif­fer­ences between Protes­tants and Catholics, and ecu­menism is of no use if we don’t treat them hon­est­ly. We can’t just pre­tend they are not there and wish them away. If Luther “did not err,” did the Church err? Should we all become Protes­tants?

Trent was right; Leo X was right. Luther did indeed err; and in this par­tic­u­lar state­ment, so did Pope Fran­cis. I love Pope Fran­cis; he’s my Father; but no, no, no. He was wrong.