![]() The agreement was attained only after a tremendous effort, but neither Rome nor Wittenberg would accept it. ![]() Surprisingly enough, an accord was reached on the doctrine of justification, the Catholics assenting to justification by faith (without the Lutheran sola). The colloquy touched lightly on the doctrines of original sin and the bondage of the will, the Protestants being protected at these points by the authority of Augustine. Bucer was more optimistic, taking note of the presence of an unusual number of princes and moderate Catholics. Though not a collocutor, John Calvin was a Strasbourg delegate to the diet, at the special request of Melanchthon.Īn attendant at the previous colloquies of Frankfurt and Worms, Calvin had little hope of success at Regensburg. Toward achieving the first, he appointed theologians from both sides to take part in a colloquy: Roman Catholics John Eck, Julius Pflug, and John Gropper, and Protestants Philip Melanchthon, Martin Bucer, and John Pistorius. Launching the Diet of Regensburg on April 5, 1541, the emperor declared that it had two purposes: first, the establishment of religious unity, and second, the gaining of aid against the Turks. Emperor Charles V saw his Holy Roman Empire further jeopardized by internal division between Catholics and Protestants, and he summoned an imperial diet to meet in the Bavarian city of Regensburg (Ratisbon). In striking parallel, sixteenth-century European Christendom also faced a military and ideological threat from the East, the dread Turk, whose Ottoman Empire held the Balkans and pushed northeast beyond the Crimea. Today the sincere desires of many on both sides for Protestant-Catholic unity are buttressed by the common threat of militant Communism. The claim, though not quite true, does serve to point us back to Reformation days. Last year’s colloquium at Harvard University upon the occasion of Augustin Cardinal Bea’s visit to this country has been hailed as unprecedented. The current informal but flourishing dialogue between Protestants and Roman Catholics is a salient aspect of the modern ecclesiastical scene.
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