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The Colloquies between Catholics and Protestants, 1539–41

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2010

Cuming
Affiliation:
Pädagogische Akademie, Graz, Austria
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Summary

Ranke, whose judgments always deserve respect, said of the Colloquy of Regensburg:

If I am not mistaken this was a period of vital importance for Germany and even for the world. For Germany… [came] at last the possibility of reforming the ecclesiastical constitution of the nation, and, in relation to the Pope, of giving it a freer and more independent position, exempt from his temporal encroachments. The unity of the Church, and with it that of the nation, would have been maintained, and even more immense and enduring results would have emerged. If the moderate party, by whom these attempts began and were guided, could have maintained its ascendancy in Rome and in Italy, the Catholic world must have assumed a very different aspect.

While it is true that the ‘might-have-beens’ of history are unprofitable speculations, yet the possibilities behind that Colloquy of Regensburg have been too much neglected.

Has any Catholic scholar writing with authority spoken favourably and sympathetically of the Colloquies which took place between Catholics and Protestants in Germany in the period 1539–41? From John Eck who took part in them down to Dr Hubert Jedin, author of the magisterial history of the Council of Trent, as far as I am aware, the Colloquies have been dismissed as ill-grounded and irresponsible attempts at reconciling Catholic truth with heresy by unauthorized means—a movement bound to fail because it was undertaken by the wrong people, with the wrong methods, and with wrong ends in view.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1970

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