'NZ CATHOLIC' OR 'NICE NZ CATHOLIC'?

It's a while now since I emailed the letter below to NZ Catholic. Two issues have turned up since, without its inclusion in the Letters column.

Of course editor Michael Otto is entitled to withhold letters from publication. But when they are published, it's with the caveat that the writers' opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the newspaper or its owner, the Bishop of Auckland (which obviously, my letter does not). 

So one wonders why this one hasn't seen the light of day. Perhaps because it's not nice. Unfortunately, the truth often isn't. 

Here's the letter: 

It wasn’t a “Reformation anniversary marked in Auckland” (NZ Catholic, Nov. 19). According to Cardinal Gerhard Muller, in truth it was the anniversary of “a revolution against the Holy Spirit”. “Luther”, says Cardinal Muller, “abandoned all the principles of the Catholic faith, Scripture, Tradition and Magisterium. The Reformation was disastrous”.

Luther deleted seven books from the Bible and excused his disordered lifestyle as justified by faith alone, a heresy condemned by the Council of Trent. He would hurl his faeces at the devil who he said, visited him in his cell at night. He was excommunicated.

It mystifies me that Palmerston North’s cathedral walls could be papered with bumf about this man, who had no intention of ‘reforming’ the Church, which as instituted by Christ cannot be ‘reformed’ -  although its members did and always will, need reform.

It astonishes me that Bishop Dunn could give thanks for “the gifts of the Reformation”. Unless he meant Luther’s legacy of 105 saints hanged, drawn and quartered defending the faith in England alone.

It appals me that the Vatican can commemorate Luther with a “special postage stamp” installing him in the place of John and the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the foot of the Cross.

Loving our Protestant brethren doesn't mean rewriting history. This is ecumenism gone mad.