ROME (Reuters) – Pope Francis, in a visit to Rome’s Lutheran church on Sunday, said both sides, Catholics and Lutherans, should seek forgiveness for past persecutions.
“There were terrible times between us. Just think of the persecutions, among we who have the same baptism. Think of all the people who were burned alive,” he said in improvised comments at the end of a joint prayer service.
“We have to ask each other forgiveness for this, for the scandal of division,” he said.
The Lutheran Church was born of the rebellion by Martin Luther, who nailed his 95 theses criticizing the Vatican to the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517.
Rome condemned Luther as a heretic because the Vatican feared his teaching undermined the doctrine of the Catholic Church and the authority of the pope.
The Reformation that followed split the western Church and sparked wars between Protestants and Catholics, leaving divisions that live on five centuries later.
Theological dialogue between Roman Catholic and Lutherans began in the late 1960s after the Second Vatican Council.
Reflecting this to the recent attacks across the world including Paris, Baghdad and Beirut where the Islamic State run a series of attacks that in totality claimed more than 200 lives in just a day, do we foresee a day before the coming of Christ when the Islamic State is a world recognized State like the Vatican and their Supreme leader can hold talks with world governments just like the Pope?
It is shocking to even imagine that right? Well imagine it this way, the Catholic Church, for the apology the pope is suggesting they should seek, they were the Islamic State Back then. They killed in horrendous manners, tying people to stakes and burning them alive. Some were thrown in cages with wild animals for refusing to accept the authority of the Pope above that of God. Some were literally torn by their limbs from horses that were pulling in different directions.
Read here some of the ways the Catholic Church was executing people.
The leopard can never Change her spots.
Take your time to read here how the Catholic Church has corrupted Christianity.
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