Today in 1521, Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Leo X issues the papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem, which excommunicates Martin Luther from the Catholic Church.
Martin Luther, the catalyst for Protestantism, was a professor of biblical interpretation at the University of Wittenberg in Germany when he drew up his 95 Theses condemning the Catholic Church for its corrupt practice of selling indulgences
Three months later, Luther was called to defend his beliefs before Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms, where he was famously defiant. For his refusal to recant his writings, the emperor declared him an outlaw and a heretic.
Luther was protected by German princes with their own power.
Martin Luther died in 1546 with Pope Leo X’s excommunication still in effect, but the course of Western civilization significantly altered.
Excommunication, is considered the gravest penalty provided by the Roman Catholic Catechism, is always medicinal or oriented towards treatment. It is not intended to be “…at all vindictive”.
Its object and its effect are loss of Communion, i.e. of the spiritual benefits shared by all the members of Christian society; hence, it can affect only those who by baptism have been admitted to that society.
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