The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1953-12-04

hand is really the undoing of the
false witnessing in this case. 1t is what
is known as confessional let
ter" It was obtained for doing the good
work" connected with an indulgence, in
this case donation for the rebuilding of
St. Peters in Rome. To get it, one did not
need TO show any signs of repentance or
make a confession But the letter was only
q permit TO seek out proper eonfessor
who was empowered to abSolve from sin,
even reserved sins In this case, and who
could then grant the indulgence on the
condition of sorrow and confession. Without
that latter there just wasn't any indulgence.
Why This misrepresentation
Why this Misrepresentation of matter
which is abundantly clear in history? The
Church readily admits the abuses in prac-
tice of the indulgence system at the time
of Luther and no attempt is made to di-
minish or excuse the facts. But why this in
sistence on presenting as the Church's
teaching something which the Church never
taught-except that it is presumed to dis
credit her by showing that she ladled out
forgiveness for money and nothing else
without concern for the rights of God in
the matter?
Tetzel did misrepresent the teaching of
the Church on the matter of indulgences
which could be applied TO the souls in Pur-
gatory. His mistake was to hold that per-
son could obtain an indulgence for another
tthe dead while in the state of sin. Cardinal
Cajetan pointed out on more than one oe-
casion between 1917 and 1919 that this was
opposed to the teaching of the Church
and stated that such false preachers can
not pass as representatives of the Church"
But ii is not this that the film makes the
big point about, but the question of an in
diligence being forgiveness of sin without
sorrow or confession.
Tetzel throughout is pictured as coarse,
ignorant, indulgence-monger, interested in
nothing but money and unconcerned about
doctrine. The view is as unhistorical as the
discredited view that he was a grossly i'm
moral man. 1t is clear that he was theolog-
gian interested in his theology, for all his
imprudent preaching concerning indulgen-
ceS for the dead.
Bfblss-Lstin and Chained
3 II is a part of popular fable but no part
of scholarship that Martin Luther was the
first TO bring the Scriptures out of Latin
into the German language. In the film a
fellow-monk tells Luther not to dream of
the Scriptures in German, Latin was good
enough for st. Jerome and st. Augustine;
it would have to do tor Martin Luther also.
In case the audience missed the point in
tended (the point being that the Church,
of course doesn't want people to find out
what is in the Bible so she kept it hidden in
LATIN, there is the sequence in the castle of
Wartbarg with the page-boy
The film shows Luther talking to page
boy who is standing at his desk while Luz
ther is preparing the German translation
of the New Testament The boy picks up
the manuscript and reads Gas If hearing
them for the first time) Our Lords words
contained in the promise Of the Eucharist
The intention is to give the impression that
this is the first time anyone was ever able
to know what was in the Bible unless he
could read Latin.
What are the facts? The truth Is that
there were 81 separate editions of the Scrip
lures in German before Luther made his
own translation Nine of them were avail
able before Luther was even born Is this
an obscure fact which the producers of the
film might have missed, How could 1t be
ii is known by all who know, even super
ficially, the Luther period.
And the matter of the Chained Bible.
Some fables die and others are given arti-
ficial respiration. One such Bible is pictured
"a casual camera shot, that's ALL One of
my students saw the film and reported that
when the camera turned on the Bible
woman near him said to her companion,
Look they did chain the Bible" That's
exactly what the shot was meant to say
that the old and discredited nonsense
about the Church claiming the Bible was
true and here was the proof The truth is
that, once there we're Protestants, they also
chained Bible and other books. For what
sinister reason? The same one the tele-
phone company has in mind when II chains
its phone-books to the booth. Here, how.
ever, it is meant to perpetuate lie about
the Church.
f. Relics and the Church's use of them
would have to come into the film some
where and they do. When Luther goes to
Rome in his early days as a monk, we are
told that kissing the relics of Saints Peter
and Paul "saves your soul from 1900
years of flames"
Again, when the vicar general, Won
Staupitz, gets a shipment of several cases
of relics he remarks triumphantly that
these, plus the one the monastery already
has, will take a total of 1,902,202 years off
Purgatory
1t is bit late TO explain to anyone that
when the Church says that some good work
bears an indulgence of say, ten years, she
is not teaching that the indulgence takes
ten years off Purgatory. The Church needs
a criterion by which TO indicate the value
of the indulgence; the standard is the pen.
itential system of the early Church and
an indulgence 'of ten years" would mean
a remission of what would have been tenn
poral not Purgatorial punishment equal TO
that Too had the PRODUCERS of the film did