Luther Reforms the Roman Church

I'm sure this has already been done by someone by now, but I've been discussing the Refornation in my history class and of course the what-if that pops to my mind is "what if Martin Luthers reforms were more or less adopted by the Catholic Church?"
is there a TL on this already? If not, what r sine possible PoDs?
 

Valdemar II

Banned
I'm sure this has already been done by someone by now, but I've been discussing the Refornation in my history class and of course the what-if that pops to my mind is "what if Martin Luthers reforms were more or less adopted by the Catholic Church?"
is there a TL on this already? If not, what r sine possible PoDs?

The problem are that the Catholic won't see the need to adopt them in the start, and when they see that this are serious, they have already begun to call Luther a heretic and he has becomed increasing radical, so it's no longer possible to adopt his reforms without losing face and prestige. The only solution are if the Emperor begins to support some of Luthers ideas from the start, it would secure Luther somewhat and keep him from going radical, and likely put him in company with people whom could moderate him like Erasmus, whom Luther had respect for before he became increasingly radicalised. Maybe if we keep Philip alive we could see him seeing Luther ideas in a positive light. The problem are that the Emperor may ally with France against Luther and the Emperor and in that case we may see the whole of Germany break with Catholic Church, rather than any reforms.
 

Philip

Donor
Well said, V2.

There have been several timelines based on this, more or less, but I haven't seen one in a while.
 
In a sense Luther did prompt reform in the Church. It just took the Counter-Reformation which came along several years later.
 
In a sense Luther did prompt reform in the Church. It just took the Counter-Reformation which came along several years later.

True, but Council of Trent didn't adopt most of the Lutheran reforms. On issues the protestants had brought up a different opinion on, the Church mostly reaffirmed what was current practice. Trent's reforms delt with buying offices and holding multiple offices, etc..

What would be cool is to have some sort of Council held earlier, in tandem with more support for Luther's reforms from the HREmperor say in 1519, 1520, before things spin out of control and the split becomes permanent.
 
The problem are that the Catholic won't see the need to adopt them in the start, and when they see that this are serious, they have already begun to call Luther a heretic and he has becomed increasing radical, so it's no longer possible to adopt his reforms without losing face and prestige. The only solution are if the Emperor begins to support some of Luthers ideas from the start, it would secure Luther somewhat and keep him from going radical, and likely put him in company with people whom could moderate him like Erasmus, whom Luther had respect for before he became increasingly radicalised. Maybe if we keep Philip alive we could see him seeing Luther ideas in a positive light. The problem are that the [Pope] may ally with France against Luther and the Emperor and in that case we may see the whole of Germany break with Catholic Church, rather than any reforms.
Did someone just describe All Hail Germania?
 
True, but Council of Trent didn't adopt most of the Lutheran reforms. On issues the protestants had brought up a different opinion on, the Church mostly reaffirmed what was current practice. Trent's reforms delt with buying offices and holding multiple offices, etc..

What would be cool is to have some sort of Council held earlier, in tandem with more support for Luther's reforms from the HREmperor say in 1519, 1520, before things spin out of control and the split becomes permanent.

Ah, but Trent did address some of the discipline issues that bothered Luther. It reaffirmed the ban against selling sacraments. It addressed absentee bishops by requiring them to live in their dioceses. And it addressed uneducated priests by requiring seminaries. Of course, Luther went from being against such disciplinary matters to challenging doctrine so nothing could "save" him for Rome then.
 
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