NCRegister Armstrong: "Did Martin Luther Kill a Man in a Duel in 1505, and Then Seek Refuge as a Monk?"
The Catholic Monitor found it amusing that Pachamama and Francis apologist Dave Armstrong who writes for the National Catholic Register said "The founder of Protestantism, Martin Luther, shows himself remarkably 'Catholic.'" [https://www.ncregister.com/blog/martin-luther-on-suffering?utm_source=feedburnerutm_medium=feedutm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegisterDailyBlog+National+Catholic+Register and https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/02/ncregister-armstrongs-blasphemy-on.html]
It is ironic because the apparently pro-Luther Armstrong in a post tilted "Lightning and Monastic Vows: Did Martin Luther Kill a Man in a Duel in 1505, and Then Seek Refuge as a Monk?" brought forward evidence showing that Luther possibly was a killer:
B. Sears, in his article, "The Religious Experience of Luther in the Cloister of Erfurt," Bibliotheca Sacra and Theological Review (1848), elaborates:
In 1505, Alexius, a friend of Luther in the university, was assassinated. Soon after . . . lightning struck near his feet.The most fascinating and (shall we say) "creative" or "inventive" Protestant take on all this comes from Dr. Dietrich Emme, who has done extensive research on Luther's early years at Erfurt (from 1501-1505). He is the author of Martin Luther seine Jugend- und Studentenzeit 1483-1505 : eine dokumentarische Darstellung (1986) and Martin Luthers Weg ins Kloster: Eine wissenschaftliche Untersuchung in Aufsatzen (1991: Martin Luther's Path to the Monastery: a Scientific Investigation).
[Footnote: Such is the view in which the testimony of Luther, Melanchthon, Mathesius, and other early witnesses is best united. The representation of less competent and later witnesses, that Alexius was killed by lightning is now abandoned by all the historians.]
(p. 521)
Information on him is scattered and incomplete on the Internet, and mostly in German or other languages, but there is an article in English, from the Catholic magazine, Thirty Days: "Struck, But Not By Lightning," by Tommaso Ricci, No. 2, 1992, pp. 62-64):
"Did Luther choose to enter a monastery or was he sent to a monastery because he had killed a fellow student in a duel? This question has never left me and over the years I collated whatever useful material there was available in a bid to find the answer," . . .
Although the Church and an imperial decree prohibited them, duels were a commonly deployed method of settling disputes between private citizens. Among students in particular it was not considered manly to resolve quarrels by seeking recourse to a higher authority. Emme is convinced that on April 16, 1503 Luther fought a duel and emerged from it seriously wounded. There is mention of Luther's wounds in Tischreden (Table Talk) . . .
Emme believes it unlikely that the young Martin managed to injure himself so seriously in such a casual way and the supposition is that the tale replaced the true story of a duel . . .
Dietrich Emme sustains . . . the assumption that at the outset of Luther's religious itinerary there was a tragic event. He has collated a considerable quantity of converging clues to this effect. The first is that according to the registers of the University of Erfurt for January and February 1505, when Luther sat at the examination and was then promoted to the position of magister of the Arts Faculty, a student had died, Hieronymous Buntz, it is written, was "not promoted because immediately after the examination he fell ill with pleurisy and died a short time later of natural causes". Pleurisy was one of the most frequent causes of death after a duel . . . Emme explains that the "universities were concerned to cover up deaths as a result of duels because they were anxious to keep their reputations and encourage more wealthy, highly placed students to join . . . "
Other clues are to be found, according to Emme, from an analysis of Luther's decision to enter a monastery and why he chose to join the Augustinian hermits. This monastery was one of the few which by statute were not subject to the jurisdiction of the local ecclesiastical authority (the archbishop of Mainz) but of Rome . . . there was no safer refuge. The Protestant theologian Nikolaus Selnecker (1530-1592) relates that Luther entered the Augustinian hermits' monastery at Erfurt "secretly and by night (clam et noctu) and for two days groups of his companions and friends, of students and others kept watch on the buildings and plaid siege to it to win Luther back. But the entrance was limited so strictly that for a month no one was permitted to approach Luther" (Oratio de divo Lutero, 1590). . . .
Another clue is that Luther did not enter the monastery as a postulant or as a lay brother. He, a recently promoted magister, was given the humblest jobs to do in his first six months there. He had to churn the milk to make cheese, he had to clean the latrines and he was generally treated as a slave. . . .
Emme followed the Lutheran trail according to the clues he found. But, says the author, "I made an effort to give sense and coherence to details of the life of Luther relegated to the shadows to date and left there unexplained. Others have simply skipped over these facts. But that is too easy. So whoever has criticisms and objections to raise should do so." [http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2009/05/lightning-bolt-and-luthers-vow-to.html?m=1]
Francis Notes:
- Doctor
of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt
the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church
in such a situation:
"[T]he Pope... WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See."
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said "the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church."
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
- "If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
- "Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?": http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
- LifeSiteNews, "Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial
weight behind communion for adulterers," December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows "sexually active adulterous couples
facing 'complex circumstances' to 'access the sacraments of
Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'"
- On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
"The AAS statement... establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia
has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense."
- On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
"Francis' heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the
Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters
magisterial documents."
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
- Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: "212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted...Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden" [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
- Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times "Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003": http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]