6/20/2023 0 Comments Colloquy of regensburg![]() Some were more cautious – justifiably so, because article nine, the authority of Scriptures, spelt trouble. Nothing is to be found in it which does not stand in our writings.” “For they have committed themselves to the essentials of what is our true teaching. “You will marvel when you read the copy … that our adversaries have conceded so much,” he wrote to his friend William Farel. Even John Calvin was pleasantly surprised. Even the commendation of good works was interpreted in Augustinian terms, “not in so far as they are our doing, but to the degree that they flow from faith and are the doing of the Holy Spirit.” When they arrived at article five, Contarini’s hopes appeared particularly close to being realized, as the doctrines of justification by faith, interpreted as trust ( fiducia), and of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness on the believer were readily accepted, as was assurance of God’s forgiveness of penitent believers in spite of their lapses in obedience and faith. Other representatives were the Protestants Philipp Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and Johannes Pistorius and the Roman Catholics Johannes Gropper, Julius Pflug, and Johann Eck. His appointment as papal legate to the Colloquy of Regensburg looked like the crowning of his hopes. His outspoken views on these matters made him a leader of the spirituali, a loose group of likeminded Christians. In fact, he used his position to address his concerns about the Roman Catholic Church, especially regarding the rampant corruption and abuses of power. This conviction continued after his appointment as cardinal in 1535. Well familiar with Luther’s writings and the Augsburg Confession, Contarini kept nurturing hopes that Protestants and Roman Catholics could reunite. The difference is that Luther had carried them much further. In fact, other Reformers, such as Jacques Lefevre, had arrived to similar interpretations of the Pauline letters. It sounded a lot like Luther’s conclusions. It was on the day before Easter 1511 that he first came to the realization that the Christian is justified by faith alone apart from his works by the merits of Christ alone. ![]() Still, he believed optimism was a Christian duty, since the future belonged to God who cared for His church.īesides, his own life stood to him as a testimony of a possible middle way. Just five years earlier, he had confessed to Cardinal Reginald Pole his frequent bouts of sadness. A man of his times, Contarini knew nothing about positive thinking messages. ![]() He agreed with many Lutheran ideas, but had no intention of leaving the papal church.īy all appearances, circumstances weighed against hopes of reconciliation. After the pope’s excommunication of Luther and the reformer’s condemnation at the Diet of Worms, Contarini had stayed in touch with the religious struggles in Europe. A patrician and humanist, he had been involved in the ideological fervent of his times. Seeking Reformīorn in 1483, Contarini still held memories of the formal unity that used to bind the church. Young people had known nothing but conflict. By then, disagreements between the two parties had continued for twenty years. It was a hope many had long relinquished. The colloquium was the one scheduled at Regensburg, Germany, in 1541, with the hope of a reconciliation between Protestants and Roman Catholics. “I thank God,” Cardinal Gasparo Contarini wrote as he prepared to travel to Germany, “… for the colloquium, and for the good beginning that has already been made, and I hope in God that irrelevant considerations will not intrude themselves, and that, as I have many times said to his Holiness, there will not be such a great disagreement in the essentials as many believe.”
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