Protestantism denotes the family of Christian movements born of the 16th-century Reformation, breaking with the Roman Catholic Church on three major axes: doctrinal authority (rejection of the pontifical Magisterium in favour of sola scriptura), the doctrine of justification (sola fide), and sacramental mediation (reduction of the seven sacraments to two). With some 720 million faithful worldwide today (Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell 2024)[1], it is the second family of Christianity after Catholicism — but unlike the latter, it stands deeply fragmented: the World Christian Encyclopedia counted in 2019 some 45,000 Christian denominations worldwide, enumerated country by country and overwhelmingly Protestant or independent, against a single Roman Catholic Church[2].
Born of the conflict between Martin Luther and Pope Leo X over indulgences (31 October 1517), the reforming movement was then systematised under the impulse of Ulrich Zwingli at Zurich (1525), of John Calvin at Geneva (1536-1564), before splitting into multiple branches: Lutherans, Calvinist-Reformed-Presbyterians, Anglicans, Anabaptist-Baptists, Methodists, Evangelicals, Pentecostals. Each claims to return to the pure Gospel — but the hoped-for unity never came: from the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529 (twelve years after Wittenberg), Luther and Zwingli broke over the Eucharistic presence, and fragmentation has continued without interruption ever since.
The Catholic Church answered Protestantism with three great magisterial acts: the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which dogmatically defined Catholic doctrine on Scripture, Tradition, justification, the sacraments and purgatory; the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) with its decrees Unitatis Redintegratio (on ecumenism) and Dei Verbum (on Revelation); and more recently the ecumenism of dialogue culminating in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (Augsburg, 31 October 1999) signed between Rome and the Lutheran World Federation, then extended to the Methodists (2006), to the Reformed (Wittenberg, 5 July 2017) and joined by the Anglican Communion.
This hub page presents a summary of the history of Protestantism, its five structural problems, its eleven great classic objections with their Catholic answers in short form (each objection referring to its detailed Ignispedia article), and the contemporary ecumenical assessment. For full doctrinal and historical developments, follow the wikilinks to each thematic article.
History of Protestantism in a few key dates
- 31 October 1517Posting of the 95 Theses at WittenbergConventional founding act
Martin Luther, Augustinian friar and professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, posts (or sends) his Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum against the abuses of the preaching of indulgences by Johann Tetzel. A gesture that became the founding myth of the Protestant Reformation.
- 17-18 April 1521Diet of WormsLuther refuses to recant
Before Emperor Charles V, Luther refuses to recant. The rupture is complete. Bull of excommunication Decet Romanum Pontificem of 3 January 1521 (Leo X). See Martin Luther article.
- 1-4 October 1529Colloquy of MarburgFailed Protestant unification
Landgrave Philip of Hesse brings together Luther, Zwingli, Melanchthon and Oecolampadius to unify the Protestants. Fourteen common articles are approved. The fifteenth, on the Eucharistic presence, shatters the bloc: Luther refuses Zwingli's symbolic interpretation. Protestant fragmentation is sealed in less than twelve years. See Eucharistic Real Presence article.
- 13 June 1525Luther's marriage / Peasants' War70,000 to 100,000 dead
Luther marries Katharina von Bora, a former Cistercian nun. The same year, during the German Peasants' War, Luther calls for military repression in his pamphlet Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants. Toll: 70,000 to 100,000 dead[3].
- 3 November 1534English Act of SupremacyBirth of Anglicanism
Henry VIII proclaims himself "Supreme Head of the Church of England" after the papal refusal to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. Political rupture with Rome, then doctrinal under Edward VI (1547-1553).
- March 1536 — 1564Calvin and the Genevan theocracyThe Institutio christianae religionis
First edition of the Institutio christianae religionis at Basel (1536). Calvin settles in Geneva (1536-1538, exile 1538-1541, return 1541-1564). Ecclesiastical Ordinances of 20 November 1541. Disciplinary theocracy: 58 death sentences + 76 exiles between 1542-1546[4]. Execution of Michael Servetus at Champel on 27 October 1553. See John Calvin article.
- 13 December 1545 — 4 December 1563Council of TrentThe Catholic magisterial response
Nineteen years, 25 sessions, under three popes (Paul III, Julius III, Pius IV). Dogmatically defines Catholic doctrines against Lutheran and Calvinist positions: Scripture-Tradition (Session IV, 1546), justification (Session VI, 1547), sacraments in general (Session VII), Eucharist (Sessions XIII and XXII), purgatory and indulgences (Session XXV). See Council of Trent article.
- 24 August 1572St. Bartholomew's Day MassacreFrench tragedy of the wars of religion
In Paris, in the night of 23 to 24 August 1572, ~3,000 Huguenots murdered under the reign of Charles IX; 3,000 to 5,000 more in the provinces in the following weeks[5]. Absolute tragedy of the French wars of religion. Edict of Nantes (1598) then its Revocation (1685) prolong the conflict.
- 1618-1648Thirty Years' War~8 million dead in central Europe
Main conflict between Catholic powers (Habsburg-Spain) and Protestant powers (princes of the Holy Empire, Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu's France on the Protestant side) for supremacy in central Europe. Nearly 8 million dead in the Holy Empire and its periphery[6]. Peace of Westphalia (1648) enshrining the principle cuius regio, eius religio.
- 13-29 November 1618 — 9 May 1619Synod of DordrechtBirth of TULIP Calvinism
The National Synod of the Reformed Churches of the Netherlands, broadened to foreign delegates, condemns the Arminian Remonstrants (who defended conditional predestination). Formulation of the "five points of Calvinism" known since the 20th century by the acronym TULIP. See Calvinist Predestination article.
- 24 May 1738Wesley's conversion / Birth of MethodismEnglish evangelical renewal
At Aldersgate Street, London, John Wesley (1703-1791) experiences a "conversion" while listening to Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. Birth of Methodism, a Pietist-Evangelical branch that would spread to America. More moderate than Calvin on predestination, Wesley remains closer to Catholicism than orthodox Calvinists.
- 9 April 1906Azusa Street Revival (Los Angeles)Birth of Pentecostalism
At the Azusa Street mission, under the direction of the African-American pastor William J. Seymour, begins the great Pentecostal revival. Gift of tongues, healings, prophecy. Three years later, the movement counts thousands of communities. Today, Pentecostalism and its charismatic derivatives gather some 644 million faithful worldwide (World Christian Database, 2020 estimate)[7].
- 21 November 1964Vatican II — Unitatis RedintegratioOfficial Catholic ecumenism
The Second Vatican Council promulgates the decree Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism. Solemn recognition of Protestants as "separated brethren" (and no longer "heretics"), of elements of sanctification present in the ecclesial communities born of the Reformation, and commitment of the Catholic Church to the quest for visible unity.
- 31 October 1999Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of JustificationAugsburg — differentiated consensus
On 31 October 1999 (anniversary of Luther's 95 Theses), at Augsburg, signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the Catholic Church (Cardinal Edward Cassidy) and the Lutheran World Federation (Bishop Christian Krause). The anathemas of the 16th century no longer strike the doctrine as presented in the JDDJ (JDDJ § 41) — without abrogation of the canons of Trent.
- 31 October 2016 / 5 July 2017Lund + WCRC ratificationContemporary ecumenism completed
31 October 2016, Lund (Sweden): Pope Francis and Lutheran bishop Munib Younan sign the joint declaration for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation — first official papal participation in a commemoration of the Reformation. 5 July 2017, Wittenberg: the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC, 80 million Calvinist-Presbyterian-Congregationalist) associates itself with the JDDJ.
- 2024World state of affairs~720M Protestants, Christianity split into tens of thousands of denominations
According to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Massachusetts): ~720 million Protestants worldwide (~33% of world Christianity, against ~50% for Catholicism and ~17% for Orthodoxy). The World Christian Encyclopedia (3rd ed., 2019) counts ~45,000 Christian denominations worldwide, enumerated country by country and overwhelmingly born of Protestantism and independent Christianity.
The five structural problems of Protestantism
Problem 1 — Chronic fragmentation
The proliferation of the ~45,000 Christian denominations counted worldwide by the World Christian Encyclopedia (3rd ed., 2019) — enumerated country by country and overwhelmingly Protestant or independent[8] — is the direct empirical consequence of the principle of sola scriptura deprived of any supra-local interpretative authority. From the Colloquy of Marburg (1529) — only twelve years after the 95 Theses — Luther and Zwingli broke over the Eucharist; fragmentation has continued without interruption ever since. The historian Brad S. Gregory, holder of the Dorothy G. Griffin Chair in European History at the University of Notre Dame and himself a convert from Evangelicalism to Catholicism, argues in The Unintended Reformation (Harvard University Press, 2012) that religious pluralism and modern secularisation are the unintended consequence of the Reformation rupture — the exact opposite of the goal pursued by the Reformers[9].
Problem 2 — The progressive erosion of common dogmas
A little-recalled fact: the first Reformers themselves held Marian and sacramental doctrines that contemporary Protestantism has very largely abandoned. Luther professed all his life the perpetual virginity of Mary:
"Christ, our Saviour, was the only son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no other children but him." — Martin Luther, sermon of 1532[10]
He still celebrates Marian devotion in his commentary on the Magnificat (1521)[11] and upholds an immaculate purification of Mary from the very first instant of her life — a formulation close to, without being reduced to, the future dogma of the Immaculate Conception[12]. For his part, John Calvin maintains the real presence of Christ in the Supper (in pneumatic mode) and does not contest the perpetual virginity of Mary, judging that Matthew 1:25 permits "no well-founded conclusion" as to what happened after the birth of Christ[13].
Five centuries later, none of these doctrines is universally held by contemporary Protestantism: Mariology has almost entirely disappeared from the Churches born of the Reformation. The mechanism of sola scriptura — each generation re-reading Scripture alone, without normative Tradition — produces a chronic doctrinal erosion that the founders had not anticipated.
Problem 3 — The rejection of sacramental mediation
Luther and Calvin retain two sacraments (baptism and Eucharist) out of the seven Catholic ones (the Council of Florence 1439 then Trent Session VII 1547 confirm the traditional teaching of the seven). Rejected: confirmation, sacramental penance, holy orders, sacramental marriage, anointing of the sick. Consequence: funerary ritualism without anointing of the dying, rejection of auricular confession (vs Mt 16:19; Jn 20:22-23; Jas 5:14-16), civil marriage without a specific sacrament, functional pastorate without ministerial priesthood.
Problem 4 — The loss of living Tradition
The central Catholic argument: apostolic Tradition (in the singular) precedes Scripture (the canonical Gospels were fixed in the 4th century — by magisterial decision of the councils of Hippo 393 and Carthage 397) and interprets it. Without this living Tradition, Scripture becomes a text closed upon itself which each interprets as he pleases — exactly what the Second Epistle of Peter already predicts:
"Our beloved brother Paul […] in all his letters where he speaks of these things; in them there are obscure points, which the ignorant and unstable distort — as they do the other Scriptures — to their own destruction." — 2 Peter 3:15-16
Problem 5 — The secularisation of the old hearts of the Reformation
Contemporary sociological surveys (Pew Research Center, Being Christian in Western Europe, 29 May 2018) show that dechristianisation has struck Western Europe deeply, and quite particularly several historic bastions of Protestantism. In the Netherlands, land of the Calvinist Reformation, nearly one inhabitant in two today declares himself without religious affiliation.
The table below gives the share of the "religiously unaffiliated" population according to Pew Research, by dominant confessional tradition:
| Country (dominant tradition) | "Unaffiliated" share (Pew 2018) |
|---|---|
| Netherlands (Reformed / Calvinist) | ~48% |
| Spain (Catholic) | ~30% |
| United Kingdom (Anglican) | ~23% |
| Switzerland (mixed Reformed / Catholic) | ~15% |
| Italy (Catholic) | ~15% |
The table invites nuance: secularisation spares no confession, and a Catholic country like Spain is today more dechristianised than a mixed country like Switzerland[14]. But Brad Gregory's thesis does not rest on a mere statistical ranking: it describes a long-term causal mechanism. By substituting individual interpretation of Scripture for common ecclesial authority, the Reformation is said to have triggered an unresolved doctrinal pluralism whose historical outcome was the privatisation then the erasure of religion. In fact, the most precociously and deeply secularised societies of Europe — the Netherlands, Lutheran Scandinavia, the Anglo-Saxon world — largely belong to the area of the Reformation. The Protestant rupture therefore did not produce the purer Christianity it hoped for[15].
The eleven great Protestant objections and their Catholic answers
For each of the great Protestant objections addressed to Catholicism, here is the short version of the Catholic answer. For the full development (patristic sources, original biblical quotations, detailed objection-by-objection answers), follow the "→ See the detailed article" link at the end of each section.
Objection 1 — "Sola Scriptura: Scripture Alone"
Protestant position: the Bible alone is the ultimate authority in matters of faith; apostolic Tradition, the Magisterium, the councils are authoritative only insofar as they agree with Scripture.
Catholic answer: the Bible itself nowhere teaches that it is the sole authority. On the contrary, St Paul explicitly orders Christians to "hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by our word or by our letter" (2 Th 2:15); 1 Tm 3:15 designates the Church — not Scripture alone — as "the pillar and bulwark of the truth". And the biblical canon itself (73 books) was fixed by magisterial decision of the councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) — it would not exist without living Tradition[16]. Empirical consequence: the tens of thousands of Christian denominations counted today largely stem from this principle of private interpretation.
→ See the detailed article: Sola Scriptura — Scripture Alone (6 numbered objections with 47 footnotes).
Objection 2 — "Sola Fide: Justification by Faith Alone"
Protestant position: man is justified by faith alone (Rm 3:28 — Luther adds the word "allein" in 1522), without any merit of works.
Catholic answer: (1) The word "alone" is absent from the Greek original; (2) St James 2:24 says literally the opposite: "A man is justified by works and not by faith alone" — this is the only occurrence of the pair "faith alone" in the whole Bible, and it is to deny it; (3) Christ explicitly grounds the Last Judgment on the works of charity (Mt 25:31-46); (4) Catholic doctrine holds together "faith working through charity" (Gal 5:6). The 1999 JDDJ established a contemporary differentiated consensus (ratified by the Methodists in 2006, the Reformed in 2017).
→ See the detailed article: Sola Fide — Justification by Faith Alone (6 numbered objections with 27 footnotes).
Objection 3 — "Sola Gratia: Grace Alone Saves"
Protestant position: salvation is by grace alone, without any human cooperation; free will is annihilated by original sin (Luther, De servo arbitrio, 1525); for Calvin, God predestines some to salvation and others to damnation from eternity (double predestination).
Catholic answer: the Catholic Church likewise confesses that it is "by grace alone" (sola gratia) that man is saved — JDDJ § 15 states this explicitly. But she distinguishes: (1) God offers to all the grace sufficient for salvation (1 Tm 2:4: "God wills all men to be saved") — against limited Calvinist predestination; (2) free will cooperates under the motion of grace, without being its source — this is the Augustinian doctrine "Cum coronat merita nostra, nihil aliud coronat quam munera sua" (Letter 194 to Sixtus, 5, 19 — 418)[17]. The Council of Trent, Session VI, canons 17-18, explicitly condemns limited predestination and the impossibility of keeping the commandments.
→ See the detailed article: Sola Gratia and Calvinist Predestination.
Objection 4 — "Solus Christus: Christ the Only Mediator (1 Tm 2:5)"
Protestant position: "There is one mediator between God and men: a man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tm 2:5) — hence all mediation by the saints, Mary, the ministerial priesthood is superfluous or even idolatrous.
Catholic answer: St Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae III, q. 26, a. 1) distinguishes two levels: (1) redemptive mediation — unique and exclusive to Christ; (2) participated mediation — exercised by all who cooperate in transmitting Christ's grace (priests in the sacraments, apostles in preaching, saints in their intercession). Christ himself delegates: he gives the keys to Peter (Mt 16:19), sends the Twelve with his authority (Mt 28:18-20), institutes the priestly power of forgiving sins (Jn 20:22-23). If asking a living friend to pray for oneself is legitimate (and all Protestants practise it), asking the saints glorified in Heaven is legitimate a fortiori.
→ See the detailed articles: Solus Christus and The Communion of Saints and Intercession (6 objections, 50+ footnotes).
Objection 5 — "Soli Deo Gloria: To God Alone the Glory"
Protestant position: all worship, veneration or honour must be addressed exclusively to God; Marian and hagiographic veneration is idolatrous.
Catholic answer: Catholic doctrine rigorously distinguishes (1) latria (adoration, latreia) reserved to God alone; (2) dulia (veneration, douleia) rendered to the saints by reason of the holiness they received from God; (3) hyperdulia rendered to the Virgin Mary by reason of her unique office. No adoration is rendered to Mary or the saints — only recognition of grace received. The Second Council of Nicaea (787) solemnly defined: "The honour rendered to the image passes to the prototype" (St Basil). Mary herself prophesies: "All generations will call me blessed" (Lk 1:48) — it is the Holy Spirit who inspires this Scripturally prescribed Marian veneration.
→ See the detailed articles: Soli Deo Gloria and The Communion of Saints (Objections 5 and 6 on Mary and relics).
Objection 6 — "The Eucharistic Real Presence Is Idolatrous"
Protestant position: "This is my body" (Mt 26:26) is metaphorical, like "I am the door" or "I am the vine" (Zwingli, 1525); or else Christ is "with" the bread without becoming it (Luther, consubstantiation); or by pneumatic presence (Calvin, Institutes IV, 17). The Protestants themselves never managed to agree among these three readings — it is precisely this disagreement that shattered the Colloquy of Marburg in 1529.
Catholic answer: (1) The Greek verb τρώγω (trōgō — "to chew, to crunch"), substituted for "to eat" in Jn 6:54-58, weighs strongly in favour of a carnal realism of Eucharistic eating — a serious exegetical clue, even if not decisive on its own[18]; (2) St Paul threatens those who profane the Eucharist with being "answerable for the body and blood of the Lord" (1 Cor 11:27) — no mere symbol could be profaned to that point; (3) patristic consensus from Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110, To the Smyrnaeans 7), Justin Martyr (c. 155), Irenaeus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine; (4) the term transubstantiation (Lateran IV, 1215) formalises a faith held from the origins; (5) contemporary Eucharistic miracles scientifically analysed (Lanciano, Buenos Aires, Sokółka, Tixtla, Legnica) — human heart tissue in agony, AB blood group converging with the Holy Shroud.
→ See the detailed article: The Eucharistic Real Presence (6 numbered objections with 40+ footnotes).
Objection 7 — "Papal Infallibility Is Anti-Scriptural and Late (Vatican I, 1870)"
Protestant position: no man is infallible (Rm 3:23); the dogma dates from Vatican I (1870), hence late and unbiblical; Honorius I was condemned for heresy by the Third Council of Constantinople (681).
Catholic answer: (1) The dogma defined by Pastor Aeternus (18 July 1870) is extremely restricted — four strict cumulative conditions are required (ex cathedra act, matter of faith or morals, universal obligation, supreme pastor); only two cases of application since 1870 (Immaculate Conception 1854, Assumption 1950); (2) the doctrine is attested well before 1870: St Clement of Rome (c. 95, while St John is still alive at Ephesus) intervenes in the conflict at Corinth; St Ignatius writes to the "Church which presides in charity" (c. 110); Leo the Great (c. 450); the Formula of Hormisdas (519) signed by 250 Eastern bishops; (3) the Honorius affair concerns private letters that were not ex cathedra and pastoral negligence — Leo II makes this precise in 682.
→ See the detailed article: Papal Infallibility (6 numbered objections).
Objection 8 — "The Communion of Saints and Intercession of the Dead Is Necromancy"
Protestant position: (1) Christ is the only mediator (1 Tm 2:5); (2) the Bible forbids consulting the dead (Dt 18:11); (3) the dead saints sleep and do not hear (Eccl 9:5-6).
Catholic answer: (1) See Objection 4 on participated mediation; (2) necromancy is the occult manipulation of the dead to extract information — the opposite of confident prayer addressed to the saints glorified in God; (3) the New Testament explicitly refutes the "soul sleep" thesis: Moses and Elijah, dead for centuries, appear at the Transfiguration (Lk 9:30-31), Abraham conscious after death in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:22-31), souls of the martyrs crying "under the altar" in Revelation 6:9-10, the "cloud of witnesses" surrounding us (Heb 12:1); (4) the Christian practice of the intercession of the saints is attested by the Roman catacombs from the 3rd century (Petite pro nobis), by the Fathers (Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, Cyril).
→ See the detailed article: The Communion of Saints and Intercession (6 numbered objections with 50+ footnotes).
Objection 9 — "Purgatory Is a Medieval Invention (Le Goff 1981)"
Protestant position: the word purgatorium appears only in the 12th century (Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, 1981); purgatory is tied to the Tetzel scandal (1517); Hebrews 9:27 teaches an immediate judgment (Heaven or Hell).
Catholic answer: (1) The word purgatorium dates from the 12th century, but the doctrine is present in Scripture (2 Mac 12:46; Mt 12:31-32 on forgiveness "in the age to come"; 1 Cor 3:15 on salvation "as through fire"; Lk 12:58-59; Rev 21:27 "nothing unclean shall enter"); (2) attested patristically from Tertullian (De corona militis 3, c. 211 — Eucharistic offerings for the departed), Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 350), Augustine praying for his mother Monica (Confessions IX, 11-13, c. 397); (3) Luther himself, in 1518-1519, still affirmed the existence of purgatory while denying it a clear scriptural foundation: "It is most certain to me that purgatory exists"[19]; (4) C. S. Lewis (Letters to Malcolm, 1964) and the Protestant philosopher of Methodist tradition Jerry L. Walls (Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation, Oxford University Press, 2012) contemporaneously rehabilitate the doctrine[20].
→ See the detailed article: Purgatory (6 numbered objections with 40+ footnotes).
Objection 10 — "Indulgences Are the Sale of Salvation (Tetzel 1517)"
Protestant position: Tetzel sold indulgences ("as soon as the coin clinks…"); Christ paid everything on the Cross (Heb 10:14); the treasury of the Church is a medieval fiction.
Catholic answer: (1) Tetzel's slogan was a pastoral distortion condemned by the Church herself as simony from Acts 8:18-24 onwards (canons of Chalcedon 451, Lateran II 1139, Lateran IV 1215); (2) Luther himself in his 95 Theses (October 1517) defended the "truth of the apostolic indulgences" (thesis 71) and criticised only the abuses; (3) the Council of Trent, Session XXV (1563) abolished all "pecuniary gain"; Paul VI reorganised the practice by Indulgentiarum doctrina (1 January 1967), removing the formulation in days and every mercantile aspect; (4) the distinction between temporal / eternal punishment is consistent with 2 Samuel 12:13-14 (David pardoned but consequences remaining).
→ See the detailed article: Indulgences (6 numbered objections with 30+ footnotes).
Objection 11 — "The Dogma of the Trinity Was Invented at Nicaea (325)" (anti-Trinitarian objection: Jehovah's Witnesses, some Oneness Pentecostals)
Anti-Trinitarian position: the Trinity is not in the Bible (the word does not appear there); it is a hidden polytheism (3 gods); the Council of Nicaea (325) imposed it by decree under political pressure from Constantine.
Catholic answer: (1) The word Trinitas dates from Tertullian (c. 213) but the doctrine is everywhere: baptismal formula (Mt 28:19), Trinitarian blessing (2 Cor 13:13), Johannine Prologue (Jn 1:1-18), theophany of Christ's Baptism (Mt 3:16-17 — the Father speaks, the Son is baptised, the Spirit descends as a dove); (2) the distinction between nature and person (one essence, three persons) is not a logical contradiction but a metaphysics of relation inherited from the Cappadocians and Augustine; (3) the doctrine is patristically attested before Nicaea 325: Didache (c. 90), Ignatius of Antioch (c. 110), Justin Martyr (c. 155), Irenaeus (c. 180), Tertullian (c. 200), Cyprian (c. 250); (4) Constantine invented nothing — he convened a council which ruled against the Arian innovation. See also The Divinity of Jesus article for the 32 cumulative arguments in favour of Christ's divinity.
→ See the detailed article: The Dogma of the Holy Trinity (6 numbered objections).
The contemporary Catholic ecumenical assessment
The contemporary Catholic attitude towards Protestantism has undergone a profound transformation since Vatican II (1962-1965).
Vatican II — Unitatis Redintegratio (21 November 1964)
The decree Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism solemnly recognises:
"All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church." — Unitatis Redintegratio § 3[21]
Protestants are no longer officially called "heretics" but "separated brethren". Unitatis Redintegratio also recognises the presence of "elements of sanctification" in the ecclesial communities born of the Reformation — without thereby recognising them as Churches in the full sense (cf. Dominus Iesus, 6 August 2000, § 17).
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) — the ecumenical cascade
On 31 October 1999 (482nd anniversary of the 95 Theses), the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ) was signed at Augsburg between the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (Cardinal Edward Cassidy) and the Lutheran World Federation (Bishop Christian Krause)[22].
The text establishes a differentiated consensus: the mutual anathemas of the 16th century no longer apply to the doctrine as presented in the JDDJ — without however removing the real remaining divergences (imputation vs infusion, simul iustus et peccator, merit and increase of grace, purgatory).
The JDDJ was then progressively ratified by:
- The World Methodist Council — 18 July 2006, Seoul (~80M Methodists)
- The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC, ~80M Calvinist-Presbyterian-Congregationalist) — 5 July 2017, St Mary's Church (Stadtkirche) of Wittenberg
- The worldwide Anglican Communion (~85M Anglicans) — "affirmation" in July 2017 at Augsburg
In total, some 300 million Protestant Christians (of the 720M worldwide) are today in explicit differentiated consensus with Rome on justification — the very doctrine that had triggered the rupture in 1517.
Lund 2016 — the joint commemoration
On 31 October 2016, in the Lutheran cathedral of Lund (Sweden), Pope Francis and Lutheran bishop Munib Younan, president of the Lutheran World Federation, signed a joint declaration for the 500th anniversary of the Reformation:
"We recognise with gratitude that the Reformation contributed to putting Holy Scripture and the grace of God more at the heart of the life of the Church. […] We ask forgiveness for the divisions caused by us Christians — Lutherans and Catholics — who did not heed the will of Christ who wanted all to be one (Jn 17:21)." — Joint Declaration of Lund, 31 October 2016[23]
First official papal participation in a commemoration of the Reformation in history.
To go further
Biographical articles
- Martin Luther (1483-1546) — biography + 6 historical objections (living late-medieval Catholicity, precedence of the 1466 Mentelin German Bible, Peasants' War of 1525, late antisemitism, Rhenish mystical roots, Smalcald Articles of 1537)
- John Calvin (1509-1564) — biography + 6 objections (theocracy, Servetus affair of 27 October 1553, double predestination, iconoclasm, fruits of the Spirit, Weber refuted)
- Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531)
Doctrinal articles / solae
- Sola Scriptura — Scripture Alone
- Sola Fide — Justification by Faith Alone
- Sola Gratia — Grace Alone
- Solus Christus — Christ the Only Mediator
- Soli Deo Gloria — To God Alone the Glory
- The Five Solas — synthesis
Specific doctrinal articles
- The Eucharistic Real Presence
- Papal Infallibility
- The Communion of Saints and Intercession
- Purgatory
- Indulgences
- The Dogma of the Holy Trinity
- Calvinist Predestination (TULIP)
Related articles
- The Council of Trent — the Catholic magisterial response
- Answers to Orthodox Objections — the ecumenical counterpart for Orthodoxy
Notes and References
Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton (Massachusetts) — 2024 data from the World Christian Database. URL: gordonconwell.edu/center-for-global-christianity. Protestantism is estimated there at about 720 million faithful, i.e. ~33% of world Christianity.
1Todd M. Johnson & Gina A. Zurlo (eds.), World Christian Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., Edinburgh University Press, 2019. The work counts about 45,000 Christian denominations worldwide, all currents combined and enumerated country by country (one and the same confessional network present in several countries is counted several times there); the immense majority belong to Protestantism and independent Christianity. The figure illustrates the fragmentation born of the private interpretation of Scripture, and should not be read as "45,000 irreducible worldwide Protestant confessions".
2 8Peter Blickle, Die Revolution von 1525 (English trans. The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants' War from a New Perspective, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1981). Historiography commonly retains a toll of about 100,000 dead, low estimates going down to around 70,000.
3Figures from the sifting of the Genevan registers of the period (Consistory and Council, 1542-1546): cf. Registres du Consistoire de Genève au temps de Calvin, ed. Robert M. Kingdon, Thomas A. Lambert and Isabella Watt, Droz, Geneva, 1996 ff. (vol. 1: 1542-1544); E. William Monter, Studies in Genevan Government (1536-1605), Droz, Geneva, 1964.
4Arlette Jouanna, La Saint-Barthélemy : les mystères d'un crime d'État, Gallimard, Paris, 2007; Denis Crouzet, La nuit de la Saint-Barthélemy : un rêve perdu de la Renaissance, Fayard, Paris, 1994; Jérémie Foa, Tous ceux qui tombent : visages du massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy, La Découverte, Paris, 2021. Low estimates of current historiography: ~2,000 in Paris and ~3,000 in the provinces; older tolls, going up to several tens of thousands in total, are no longer retained.
5Peter H. Wilson, Europe's Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War, Allen Lane, London, 2009: up to about 8 million dead (combat, famine and epidemics), i.e. nearly 20% of the population of the Holy Empire.
6Todd M. Johnson & Gina A. Zurlo (eds.), World Christian Database, Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2020 table (data consulted July 2019): 644,260,000 Pentecostals/Charismatics worldwide. Cf. Gina A. Zurlo, Global Christianity: A Guide to the World's Largest Religion, Zondervan, 2022. The figure is therefore a Johnson-Zurlo estimate, not a Pew Research Center survey.
7Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 2012, 592 pp., ISBN 978-0-674-04563-7. Gregory, Dorothy G. Griffin Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Notre Dame, former Evangelical converted to Catholicism. Central thesis: sola scriptura, by replacing ecclesial authority with individual interpretation, engendered religious pluralism then modern secularisation — the exact opposite of the Reformation goal.
9 15Martin Luther, sermon of 1532, D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (Weimarer Ausgabe, Weimar, 1883 ff.), WA 11, 319-320. Luther constantly professed the perpetual virginity of Mary (semper virgo, before, during and after the birth); cf. also WA 53, 640. This permanence of primitive Lutheran Mariology is widely documented by Reformation historiography.
10Martin Luther, Das Magnificat verdeutscht und ausgelegt (The Magnificat Translated and Commented), 1521, WA 7, 544-604. Spiritual commentary on Mary's canticle, dedicated to Duke John Frederick of Saxony, which develops a sustained praise of the Virgin while warning against a devotion he judges excessive.
11The often-cited reference (Festpostille 1527, WA 17/II, 287-289) is philologically disputed: the Marian passage there was added by the editor Stephan Roth and removed from editions starting in 1528. Luther holds an "immaculate purification" of Mary's soul "from the very first instant she began to live", a position close to but not identical with the dogma defined by Pius IX in 1854 (Ineffabilis Deus).
12John Calvin, Commentarius in harmoniam evangelicam (Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels), on Matthew 1:25: Calvin refuses to argue against perpetual virginity from this verse, judging that "no well-founded conclusion can be drawn from these words as to what happened after the birth of Christ". He does not dogmatise it, but neither does he deny it — against Helvidius.
13Pew Research Center, Being Christian in Western Europe, Washington, 29 May 2018. Share of the religiously unaffiliated population: Netherlands 48%, Spain 30%, United Kingdom 23%, Switzerland 15%, Italy 15%. The survey covers only Western Europe; Eastern Europe (including Poland) is the subject of a separate study, Eastern and Western Europeans Differ on Religious and Social Values, 29 October 2018.
14The list of the 73 books of the Catholic Bible (deuterocanonicals included) was settled at the Council of Rome under Pope Damasus (382), confirmed by the regional councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, taken up again in 419), then dogmatically defined against the Reformers at the Council of Trent, Session IV (8 April 1546). Cf. Denzinger-Hünermann, nos. 1502-1504.
16Saint Augustine, Epistula 194 ad Sixtum (letter to Sixtus, 418), 5, 19: "cum Deus coronat merita nostra, nihil aliud coronet quam munera sua?" — interrogative turn in the subjunctive in the letter, cited here in its received indicative form. Latin text: Patrologia Latina 33, 876. The formula does not appear in De gratia et libero arbitrio (426-427). CCC § 2006 cites this same passage (Ep. 194, 5, 19).
17The verb τρώγω (trōgō, "to chew, to crunch"), used in John 6:54-58 where Greek would expect φαγεῖν / ἐσθίω ("to eat"), is read by Catholic exegesis as reinforcing Eucharistic realism. Several exegetes nevertheless note that, in Johannine koine, τρώγω had largely lost its "animal" force (cf. Jn 13:18, with no Eucharistic context): the argument is serious but not decisive on its own, and must be joined to the patristic witness.
18Martin Luther, Resolutiones disputationum de indulgentiarum virtute (1518), explanation of the 15th thesis: "Mihi certissimum est purgatorium esse" ("It is most certain to me that purgatory exists"). At the Leipzig Disputation (July 1519), Luther still maintained the existence of purgatory while affirming that there is "no proof of it in any part of Holy Scripture"; he would slide towards denial from late 1519 onwards.
19Jerry L. Walls, Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation, Oxford University Press, 2012 (December 2011 printing), ISBN 978-0-19-973229-6 — Protestant philosopher of Wesleyan (Methodist) tradition defending the rational coherence of a post-mortem purification. Cf. also C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Geoffrey Bles, London, 1964.
20Second Vatican Council, decree Unitatis Redintegratio on ecumenism, 21 November 1964, § 3. Official French text on vatican.va. Promulgated by Paul VI during the 3rd session of Vatican II.
21Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church, Augsburg, 31 October 1999. Official French text on the Holy See website. Adherence of the World Methodist Council on 18 July 2006; association of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) at St Mary's Church (Stadtkirche) of Wittenberg on 5 July 2017; affirmation of the worldwide Anglican Communion at Augsburg in July 2017.
22Pope Francis and Munib Younan (president of the Lutheran World Federation), Joint Declaration of the Lutheran cathedral of Lund (Sweden), 31 October 2016. Official text on vatican.va. First official papal participation in a commemoration of the Protestant Reformation.
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